While this is scary as fuck, the solution isn’t necessarily just more patriot missile defense, the solution is to punch them back in the face hard enough that they have bigger problems.
You can’t stop ballistic missile attacks past a certain point, the best defense Ukraine has is exactly what it is doing, broadly striking war infrastructure deep in Russia.
That being said as a USian I am disgusted Israel got such a massive amount of patriot systems and yet my government has slow walked providing the same systems to Ukraine.
I’d like a better breakdown on numbers to know if the Patriot’s inception missiles themselves are missing when they are fired, or if the problem is more on Russia firing many more missiles.
Other articles only address the total interception stats dropping rather than stats of the Patriot batteries themselves. I know the total interception rate has gone from mid 30% numbers to around 6%.
I think looking at a breakdown is an important nuance because it shows if the Patriot systems themselves need to be upgraded, or if there just need to be more of the existing systems deployed. I know the spokesperson said the modified Russian missiles are more difficult to intercept, but what does “more difficult” translate to in the percent of fired interception missiles that successfully connect? Is that a 5% drop or a 35% drop for the interception missiles actually fired?
Given that Ukraine is looking to the US for more Patriots, I suspect the systems themselves are acceptable but there just aren’t enough deployed to provide enough coverage.
This is all curiosity from a public sideline, as I’m sure that privately the ordnance experts have these numbers and details on interceptions to do better breakdowns.
I forget my source (perhaps a recent Perun yt video), but the interception rate change is due to changes in Russian missile trajectory in the terminal phase.
Previously, Russian missiles followed an arc trajectory to hit their target and were comparatively easy to intercept because it’s path until reaching it’s target was predictable (an arc).
Now, Russian missiles follow an arc toward target A and then when they are over target B (real target) they enter a steep dive to hit target B.
Hopefully that was understandable and helpful.
Edit: changed potential source as a new Perun video came out today, and it’s not my source.
That’s more or less partially repeating the article on why missiles are more difficult to intercept, but it isn’t providing the actual numbers to examine. Given that Russia has modified missiles and is firing larger barrages to overwhelm defense systems, the nuance with numbers is important.
If 10 interceptor missiles are fired with an expected hit rate of 9/10, how much do the modified Russian missiles affect that? Does it drop to say, 8/10 or 3/10. The actual numbers are very important to figure out what to prioritize in defense between upgrading systems or deploying more of existing systems.
Previously Ukraine was intercepting 30%ish of missiles with Patriots which historically have a 90%+ interception rate. I don’t think the drop in interception can be entirely laid on modification to Russian missiles but also to the increase in firing and use of barrages. The interaction between all the variables is important.
I see what your saying better now and agree interaction of variables is important.
I believe there is a graph that has number of drones and missiles fired by Russia and the Ukrainian interception rate of those missiles. My recollection is that the number of missiles fired varies quite a bit month to month, but that inception rate took a nose dive recently.
I don’t think Russian missile barrages are the cause of the interceptor hit rate change, but do not have any source to back that up.
In my view, that would either be due to the missile trajectory upgrade or if Ukraine ran out of interceptor missiles. I do not know if they are out of interceptor missiles or have changed their firing rate.
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One factor in Ukraine’s favor is that I assume that Russia is going to have a hard time doing dispersed production of ballistic missiles.
kagis
It sounds like Iskanders are assembled at a factory in Votkinsk, for example.
If they can manage to hit that with some kind of heavy munition, I assume that it’ll disrupt production.
Patriots — well, MIM-104s — are manufactured in Andover, Massachusetts, in the US. Russia cannot attack production facilities there without engaging in direct conflict with the US.
That’s a discussion far beyond the scope of “Is the Patriot in its existing configuration working as needed?”
Yes, but it speaks to the “if the problem is more on Russia firing many more missiles” bit that you raised. I suspect that it’s probably more-practical to dramatically reduce Russia’s access to a continued supply of ballistic missiles than to dramatically reduce Ukraine’s access to a continued supply of ballistic missile interceptors.
