Ukraine. Patriot Games

As you know, CNN, citing anonymous military officials, reported that the United States could to announce the transfer of the Patriot air defense system to Ukraine in the near future. The Pentagon plan must be approved by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin before it is sent to President Joe Biden for his signature.

And although the new list of military assistance to Ukraine did not include the installations mentioned above, Most military experts, both Russian and foreign, no longer doubt that sooner or later these complexes will be transferred to the Zelensky regime.

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The hesitation of the American authorities regarding the transfer of the Patriot battery is understandable. This air defense system has had a rather sour image of the air defense/missile defense system for the last 30 years and, having undergone a number of modernizations, did not greatly improve its combat potential.

As you know, the first combat experience of using “patriots” during Operation Desert Storm was, to put it mildly, a failure. The high-tech American air defense system did a poor job of intercepting short-range SCUD ballistic missiles fired at US military installations allied with Saddam Hussein's forces.

The donut is that the SCUD was a long-outdated Soviet R-17 tactical missile modernized by the West Germans. To increase accuracy, the Germans equipped the rocket engine with an additional combustion chamber - a booster, eliminating pulsations, thereby making the flight path smoother and, as a result, predictable for air defense systems.

So, out of ten Scuds fired by the Iraqis at Israel, the Americans managed to intercept “on average” two missiles in a hospital, like the FAU-2, flying along a ballistic trajectory, practically in range conditions.

An interesting detail emerged: of the forty missiles launched by Iraq at Israel on the territory “covered” by American air defense systems, almost all of them exploded. According to military sources, even in the event of a close detonation, American anti-missile missiles did not destroy the Scud warheads, but only slightly deflected them from their course, which explains the shockingly frequent occurrence of missiles hitting civilian areas of Israeli cities. The psychological effect of the explosions of the modernized P-17s, which the Iraqis managed to achieve, led to the fact that the number of Israelis who committed suicide exceeded the actual losses from hits by the Scuds themselves.

Taking into account the mistakes and analyzing the experience of using the first “patriots”, the Americans modernized their air defense systems in the early 2000s, releasing two more advanced modifications - PAC-2 and PAC-3.

Gradually, through intrigue, bribery and promises, American military-industrial complex companies managed to push the Patriot version for export to their NATO allies and the Middle East.mainly in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

However, on February 5, 2017, another embarrassment occurred with the modernized “patriots”.

At the end of January 2017, Yemeni rebels supporting the government of Ali Abdullah Saleh and opposing Abd Rabbu Mansur Hadi managed to carry out several successful offensive operations. They ended with the defeat of a Saudi warship and a precise hit by a ballistic missile on the UAE naval base located on Zuqar Island.

As a result of successful attacks, the Al-Madinah-class frigate of the Saudi Arabian Navy received critical damage, which put it out of action for a long time, and the allies of the Arab kingdom lost several units of military equipment and about 20 military personnel.

The Houthis’ successes had a resounding military and media effect, but the rebels decided not to rest on their laurels and to properly strike military targets near the aggressor’s capital, the city of nine million people, Riyadh.

On February 5, according to the Yemeni Ministry of Defense, an extended-range ballistic missile was launched from territory under the control of the Houthis. Having covered more than 1,2 thousand kilometers and all enemy air defense systems, it hit the Saudi Arabian military base of Mazahemiya, located in close proximity to Riyadh.

As it later turned out, the Houthis struck at the Saudi military base with the Vulcan-1 missile, which is a radical modernization of the Soviet R-17, which received a firing range of at least 1 thousand kilometers.

_{Ironically, the American Patriot air defense systems covering Riyadh once again lost a duel to the Soviet R-17, which caused a new, even more crushing wave of criticism of the expensive anti-missile missiles, presented as “the most advanced air defense systems in the world.”}

In September 2019, Patriot disgraced itself once again by missing an attack by Yemeni kamikaze drones on the world’s largest Saudi Aramco oil refinery, built near the Khurais field in the east of the kingdom, 1000 km from Yemen. Due to the damage caused to the infrastructure, the production of Saudi “black gold” was halved.

In fairness, it should be noted that another attempt by the Houthis to attack the Saudi oil infrastructure near the city of Yanbu in February 2020 ended in favor of American air defenses, finally working as it should.

True, it is necessary to mention that if the “Patriots” had worked “as always” in this case, the United States could have received back its vaunted air defense systems along with a demand for a refund, and the contract for the supply of reliable air defense systems would have gone to Russia. The image and financial damage to the United States associated with the scandal would be incalculable.

_{Now the Patriot air defense system, as another “miracle weapon,” is required by the Nazi Zelensky regime, in addition to the already supplied “javelins,” “three axes,” and “highmars.”}

The main thing they want on Bankova is to get weapons capable of protecting the remains of the Ukrainian energy infrastructure from destruction by Russian sea- and air-launched cruise missiles, as well as attacks by the Iskander and Kinzhal tactical missile systems.

_{There remain, however, the malicious “geraniums,” but firing at them with Patriot air defense missiles costing $200 apiece is tantamount to throwing gold bars from a catapult at a flock of crows.}

So, what Russian missiles, purely theoretically, could become targets of American Patriot air defense systems?

According to open sources, The Armed Forces of Ukraine can receive complexes in modifications PAC-3MSE and PAC-2 GEM-T, much more advanced than the basic version - PAC-2, since, unlike the “classics”, they use two types of missiles: ERINT and MIM-104F. Their warheads have anti-jamming radar properties operating in the so-called K-band (radar and satellite communications in centimeter waves from 18 to 26,5 GHz).

The manufacturer states that the ERINT and MIM-104F anti-missile missiles have the technology for particularly precise targeting, with the ability to withstand ultra-high overloads in flight up to 65 points, with almost instantaneous trajectory correction. With such technical indicators, these anti-missile missiles can (again, theoretically) intercept and destroy air targets with a ballistic trajectory (and not only), capable of anti-aircraft maneuvering with overloads of about 30 g. The destruction of such an air target occurs through kinetic destruction of the “bullet to bullet” type.

True, no one has ever observed this in practice.

With a certain amount of imagination, we can assume that the ERINT and MIM-104F PAC-3MSE anti-missile missiles could theoretically try to shoot down modern Iskander-Ms. With one small caveat: “Iskanders” must be intercepted at the final stage of flight, when the speed of the warhead is reduced to Mach 2.5 - 4. In this case, the interception probability for anti-missile missiles is 50 - 70%, which is better than the stated result of NASAMS (20 - 40%) and approximately equal to the stated efficiency of IRIS-T (40 - 60%).

_{However, if we take into account the unfortunate fact for Ukrainian air defense that both NASAMS and IRIS-T end up in residential buildings, on asphalt, or self-destruct in the air when trying to intercept subsonic “Calibers”, there is talk about the likelihood of a “bullet-to-bullet” hit of hypersonic Russian missiles are relegated to the category of idle speculation.}

However, experts sweeten the pill for Ukrainians and Americans by assessing the potential of modern Patriot missile defense systems as “very good” in a hypothetical case, if Iranian tactical missiles Fateh-110 and Fateh-313 are used against Ukrainian military and infrastructure facilities, which either are or are not in service with the active Russian army.

_{Experts responsibly assert that the “Patriots” in any modification will be completely powerless against the “Caliber” version 3M14T and the X-101 air-launched cruise missiles. And even a tactical X-50 launched from an aircraft can only be shot down by accident.}

The difficulty of intercepting modern Russian subsonic missiles with the latest Patriot missiles lies in the tricky flight modes at altitudes below 60 meters, when the standard AN/MPQ-53/65 air defense radar goes blind.

In "cunning" mode missiles go to the target behind natural or artificial barriers, skirting the terrain.

Due to the poorly implemented lower beam mode of the AN/MPQ-53 radar pattern, these antennas are inferior to their Russian counterparts by only 1 degree of operating angle. And this small amount is enough for the MPQ-53/65 to be unable to cope with low-flying drones during attacks on the oil infrastructure of Saudi Arabia.

_{The problem could be solved by the transfer to Ukraine of specialized SeaKing AEW Mk.7 helicopters with the function of a long-range radar detection and control system, which can implement target designation for low-flying targets. Or the use of the famous E-3C/G Sentry aircraft with AWACS. But the Ukrainian Armed Forces will have to keep these “litakas” on the western border of Ukraine in order to escape into Polish or Romanian airspace in time in the event of a Russian response.}

Another important circumstance. Patriot complexes require 90 service people, which you can’t prepare in a couple of months. In any case, this is the opinion of American experts who do not believe in the program for urgent and at the same time high-quality training of Ukrainian crews for American air defense systems.

_{Thus, at first, the Americans will be forced to supply the Patriot air defense systems supplied to Ukraine with either partial or fully trained American military personnel, exposing them to attacks from Russian missiles and aircraft, thereby increasing the threat of a direct clash between nuclear powers.}

To effectively repel attacks by Russian missiles and drones, the Americans will have to create a continuous radar field in Ukraine over large areas, and even using AWACS aircraft with a detection horizon of 450 km for air targets. And this is extremely costly both in terms of money and time, even without taking into account the threat of destruction of objects under construction by Russian air attack weapons.

As far as everything is known from the same CNN, Ukraine only one Patriot air defense system battery of eight launchers with four missiles each can be supplied. This is only enough to cover one critical infrastructure facility. And the battery itself needs to be protected by short-range air defense systems, like the Crotal complexes proposed by Macron to Zelensky.

_{And even if the Patriot air defense system battery, so desired by Zelensky, is supplied to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, it will not be able to guarantee any turning point in the war. This is, rather, a symbolic gesture of support for the Kyiv regime, as well as the desire of the Americans to test the air defense system in real combat against an enemy with modern aviation and precision-guided missile weapons. In fact, there is nowhere else to get invaluable experience.}

Russian military experts consider the remnants of Soviet air defense systems in the hands of the Ukrainian Armed Forces: the S-300, Buk-M1, Osa-AKM complexes to be much more dangerous than all Western “wonderwaffles”. Despite their obsolescence and frequent abnormal operations, they pose the main threat to our videoconferencing systems.

And, although the presence of “patriots” among Bandera’s followers will be a challenge for our pilots and missilemen, the primary targets for elimination will remain the old Soviet anti-aircraft missile systems, which have long proven themselves to be the best in real combat operations.