How Did The Patriots Do Last Night?

That would be the Kiev Patriots we’re referring to. They had a busy night in Kiev last night, appearing to have fired off 30 of the top US air defense missiles—the Patriot. Each Patriot missile goes for something like $5.25 million apiece, for a total—in less than two minutes—of around $160 million up in smoke, so to speak. But here’s the thing about the Patriot system—nobody really knows how effective they are, or even IF they can be considered effective (a bit like, we still don’t really know what happened to those four Russian aircraft last week). I found an article that explains the uncertainties, but one thing to keep in mind—Patriots, like all anti-missile surface to air missile (SAM) systems, are not 100% effective (probably not close to that) and so volleys of SAMs are launched against each incoming missile. It’s NOT a one on one thing, and especially so because the Russians make extensive use of decoys to protect the actual strike missiles. So, you can count on it that when 30 Patriots are fired off they are responding to only a few, at most, incoming missiles and must make it through a screen of accompanying decoys.

First, the analysis of the Patriot’s effectiveness—or ineffectiveness, as the case may be. This article was written on May 3, 2023, so it’s something like the most recent reporting available:

In Ukraine, A New Chance to Judge the Patriot Missile

The much-lauded air-defense system has a decidedly mixed record. The Pentagon should watch its performance carefully.

What follows is from just the first half of the article:

Ukraine is taking delivery of its first Patriot air-defense batteries, the weapon so highly and baselessly lauded during the 1991 Gulf War. Now, as upgraded Patriots take the battlefield once again, U.S. officials must judge how they fare—accurately, this time.

…

The weapon has a checkered past. In 1991, U.S. officials and media excitedly reported a 100-percent success rate for the system, with claims that Patriots had intercepted Scud missiles launched from Iraq at Israel and Saudi Arabia. But the following year, Congressional hearings found that these claims were misleading and highly inaccurate. I was the lead staffer for the House Government Operations Committee investigation.

Rather than destroying 41 of 42 Scuds engaged, as President George H.W. Bush claimed at the end of the war, investigators from the Congressional Research Service and the General Accounting Office determined that Patriots only hit between zero and four of 44 Scuds engaged.

The incorrect claims of Patriot PAC-2’s success stem from misunderstanding of the way the interceptor works, how the system gauges its success, and its users’ failure to conduct ground damage assessments to determine whether the target was actually hit.

The PAC-2 variant sprays fragments, like a shotgun blast, as it nears a target. Explosions seen in the sky in the 1991 war were not signs of a Patriot hitting an incoming Scud, but of proximity fuzes detonating as the Patriot neared a Scud or a Scud fragment, or by the missile automatically self-destructing after missing a Scud, or by Patriots flying after false targets.

Nor can the system determine if a Patriot missile actually hits its intended target. It can only determine that it detonated near a point in space where it calculated the target should be, sending back a “probable kill” indicator.

These indicators are inaccurate. In the Gulf War, many of the targets turned out to be debris from the poorly designed Scuds as they broke up in flight. At least 45 percent of the 158 Patriots launched in the war were launched against debris or false targets, the Army reported.

…

As a result of the congressional investigation, the Army revised its claims, saying it only had high confidence that the Patriot hit 25 percent of the Scuds, or 11 missiles. That claim is still higher than independent assessments.

Nonetheless, the myth of the Patriot’s success endures in both official and media sources. For example, the missile-defense lobby still claims the Jan. 18 phantom Scud “was brought down by two Patriot missiles” and “was the first anti-missile missile fired during combat operations.” Exaggerated claims of success against short-range missiles were used then and now to boost proposed budgets and estimates of effectiveness for anti-missile systems against long-range missiles.

With that in mind, let’s turn to events from last night over Kiev—and possibly on the ground, as well. Mikael Valtersson has an account and analysis. He also quotes Rybar and links to a brief account that contains a two minute video. Since I can’t embed tweets any longer, you’ll need to follow the link for the video. Valtersson is a former Swedish air defense officer, so his views carry some weight. I’ve cleaned up some of the English for mistakes or awkwardness:

Mikael Valtersson

@MikaelValterss1

NEWS UPDATE AIRWAR KIEV PATRIOT SAM MAY 16

Tonight there was a massive battle between missiles over Kiev. According to pro-Ukrainian sources, as usual, all Russian missiles was shot down, by the newly delivered Patriot SAMs and they celebrate the Patriot game changer. On the pro-Russian side the mood is as jubilant, as they claim that Russian missiles destroyed a Patriot launcher, or even better, a Patriot battery, even though the battery fired over 30 Patriot missiles against the incoming missiles. On the video @RadarFennec share[s], you can see the 30 Patriots being fired, and at the end a large explosion at the [location] of one of the launch sites.

What is true? The Ukrainians clearly exaggerated, but many missiles could have been shot down.

But this is unlikely—the 30 Patriots were likely launched against one to a relative handful of incoming missiles. Or, even more likely, at just one or two actual missiles that were preceded by multiple decoys.

And the video evidence seems to confirm Russian claims of at least one Patriot launcher being hit.

If that is the case, then the Russian strike was a major succes—one out of at most just a few actual missiles made it through the Patriot defense and took out some portion of the battery.

Another question is, how many Patriot missiles [has] Ukraine received? In the video we see 30 Patriots being fired in less than 2 minutes, at a cost of nearly 160M$. In the recent strike that destroyed a large ammunition depot west of Khmelnitsky, a large amount of Patriots allegedly were destroyed. With this rate of consumption of missiles, Ukraine might soon run out of long range SAMs soon again.

The pro-Russian Rybar had a good and cautious text on Telegram. Actually the best text I've seen on the subject from either side, so I include it, …

By Rybar

"Massive strike of the Russian Armed Forces on the objects of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Kyiv on the night of May 15-16, 2023

[Last] night, Russian troops carried out massive strikes against Ukrainian army targets in Kiev, using drones and various types of missiles. The American Patriot air defense systems worked closely on the missiles - in the videos presented alone, the batteries fired about 30 missiles in a short period of time.

Judging by one of the videos, Russian troops [may have] hit the launcher - in one of the places of operation of the air defense system—immediately after the release of the entire ammunition load, a powerful explosion occurs.

The Ukrainian side, as before, claims that it shot down all the missiles, including the Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, but this is not confirmed by the footage from the scene - several powerful explosions occurred in the Solomensky district.

In addition, at least two American anti-missiles from Patriot went off course and fell somewhere in urban areas."

Notably, in Fennec_Radar’s tweet, below, he specifies that the Ukrainians have been using the latest Patriot upgrade—PAC-3 MSE—not Gulf War vintage systems.

Quote Tweet

Fennec_Radar

@RadarFennec

I counted 30 Patriot PAC-3 MSE launches here.

The FY2024 costs of these per missile is about $$5,275,000

That was $158,250,000 fired in about two minutes. And as we see, the battery or something else likely got blown up. So it failed in its mission.

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5:38 AM · May 16, 2023