3 ms·

It probably would have failed. The Gulf War Patriot was designed to shoot down Mach 2 jets, not Mach 5 Scuds. Detonating slightly late against an aircraft is

It probably would have failed. The Gulf War Patriot was designed to shoot down Mach 2 jets, not Mach 5 Scuds. Detonating slightly late against an aircraft is actually a good thing, since it makes the Patriot explode near the aircraft's middle instead of its nose. A Scud is a short range ballistic missile. Once it's burnt out its fuel, it just carries on under the influence of gravity. From that point on, the only important part is the warhead in the very tip of the nose. Detonating by the mid section of a Scud means you're just shredding empty fuel tanks. And the huge speeds involved might actually make Gulf War Patriot missiles detonate against the rear of the Scud and just shred the non-functioning engine, or even detonate behind the Scud entirely.

umeshunni 12y ago
"...the delay in distributing the software from the United States to all Patriot locations was due to the time it took to arrange for air and ground transportation in a wartime environment." Fascinating to think that just 23 years ago, the only way to transmit the updated software was by physically transporting it from one location to another.
- pjc50 12y ago
  I suspect you still can't do OTA updates of this kind of mission-critical system. If you can, I'd be very concerned about security.
  - YokoZar 12y ago
    I don't see any reason the software update process needs to be more secure than the firing process, and presumably these batteries can be fired remotely.
  - umeshunni 12y ago
    You don't need OTA updates per se - they could transfer it using sftp etc to the local base.
- thaumaturgy 12y ago
  Just for fun: this predates ssh. Everyone was still using telnet to log in to remote boxes. 23 years ago, Slashdot didn't exist. 23 years ago, Linux had just gotten started. For all practical purposes, it wouldn't exist for another month yet. 23 years ago, Mosaic (the first "modern" web browser) didn't yet exist. That was OK, because CERN was the only website; the www didn't exist yet either.

umeshunni 12y ago

"...the delay in distributing the software from the United States to all Patriot locations was due to the time it took to arrange for air and ground transportation in a wartime environment." Fascinating to think that just 23 years ago, the only way to transmit the updated software was by physically transporting it from one location to another.

pjc50 12y ago
I suspect you still can't do OTA updates of this kind of mission-critical system. If you can, I'd be very concerned about security.
- YokoZar 12y ago
  I don't see any reason the software update process needs to be more secure than the firing process, and presumably these batteries can be fired remotely.
- umeshunni 12y ago
  You don't need OTA updates per se - they could transfer it using sftp etc to the local base.
thaumaturgy 12y ago
Just for fun: this predates ssh. Everyone was still using telnet to log in to remote boxes. 23 years ago, Slashdot didn't exist. 23 years ago, Linux had just gotten started. For all practical purposes, it wouldn't exist for another month yet. 23 years ago, Mosaic (the first "modern" web browser) didn't yet exist. That was OK, because CERN was the only website; the www didn't exist yet either.