Anatomy of MIM-104 Patriot Destruction + Primer on Kinzhal Hypersonic Missile

[Deplorable Yankee]

Let’s break down in depth exactly what happened on the night of the Patriot attack and catch up on the known facts and speculations. Here’s what is known so far:

Russia was said to have conducted a layered, multi-vectored attack which came from various sides including north, east, and south, which included both Geran drones as screening cover, Kalibr missiles, Kh-101s, and finally the Kinzhals. The attack also likely included other cheaper types of drones as decoys to saturate the air defense, and in fact Kiev does attest to that, as in their official ‘shoot down’ graphic they include several drones they comically ID’d as Orlan ‘Supercum’ which was later changed to ‘Supercam’.

First, let’s break down how such an attack happens. Most logically, the cheaper decoy drones are sent in first to see if they can bait out any of the air defense into opening up on them. Kiev would try to use only its less important SHORAD (Short Range AD) systems against them, such as German Gepards and any Tunguskas/Shilkas and such that they might have.


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Anatomy of MIM-104 Patriot Destruction + Primer on Kh-47M2 Kinzhal Hypersonic Missile

Let’s break down in depth exactly what happened on the night of the Patriot attack and catch up on the known facts and speculations. Here’s what is known so far: Russia was said to have conducted a layered, multi-vectored attack which came from various sides including north, east, and south...

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Don't worry about the carriers though
They'll just swerve outta the way or deploy their impenetrable rainbow shields of demockwacy

 

[Mushroom]

First, let’s break down how such an attack happens. Most logically, the cheaper decoy drones are sent in first to see if they can bait out any of the air defense into opening up on them. Kiev would try to use only its less important SHORAD (Short Range AD) systems against them, such as German Gepards and any Tunguskas/Shilkas and such that they might have.

This is where the training and experience of the crews starts to come into play.

At the unit level and larger, that starts with defining the actual operating area and defended assets. And just like in medicine, one needs to sometimes just do nothing when missiles are seen because they are targeting something that is not a significant asset to be protected. Yes, it sucks when one sees a missile targeting a civilian housing area and you know you can shoot it down. But if the mission is protecting an air base or command post, one simply has to let it go so they can save their missiles for actually protecting the vital asset.

Inexperienced crews are not really able to identify specific threats for what they often are. And this makes them much more likely to simply fire at anything they see as a threat. However, more skilled and experienced operators are able to use their training and experience to essentially do "triage" and only fire at the targets that are the most serious threat. And also volley their launchers, and if an attack is underway be able to quickly reload one as another takes over.

And for the launcher crews, training in reload. Reloads can be rather quick, in combat conditions and with an experienced crew. Or it can resemble a three ring circus if they are not well trained.

Now if I have to guess, that means the composition of the Battery mirrors that of a German Battery. And that would be a single PAC-3 launchers, and five PAC-2 launchers for a total of 36 missiles.

The article is actually very misleading, as it has a lot of information that is like 4 decades out of date. Yes, the original concept was for up to 8 launchers in a Battery, but nobody has done it that way since the early tests at the start of the 1980s. And the most detailed information I could uncover is that at this time they only have hands on of a single battery from Germany, of 1 PAC-3 launcher and 5 PAC-2 launchers.

So in essence, you had a green crew fire off all of their missiles quickly so both launchers had nothing left to fire. That was incredibly stupid and never should have happened. And the video clearly shows that, as they are firing off all of their missiles very quickly.



A skilled operator can actually tell a lot from simply the RADAR return of the targets. The size of the return, the speed of the target, the altitude and other flight characteristics can actually tell an operator what the target is, so they can decide if it is even worth shooting a missile at.

Now the failure of some I actually would expect, as those would be the oldest missiles that Germany had in inventory. Probably GEM- or first generation PAC-3 missiles from the late 1990s and early 2000s. Missiles do have a shelf life, like any other equipment. And the older they are the more likely they will malfunction.

But a big problem in that article is that they are trying to use this example as being typical of the system performance. Like discussing the failures of 1991 when the system literally had a Alpha software package and only missiles designed for aircraft. They for some reason however fail to mention that of the 9 missiles engaged in 2003 by the system, all 9 were successfully shot down.

As I have stated before, Ukraine would be getting older equipment and missiles, and this actually seems to be exactly the case. Combine that with green crews and their firing out almost all of their missiles that quickly and it was to be expected.

But the later parts which try to claim NATO is now vulnerable is rather false. For one, there are a hell of a lot more missiles in a US or other NATO deployment than a single battery of 6 (the smallest units would be battalions of 24 launchers). And they would have significantly newer missiles, as even in the US they only use GEM- and old school PAC-3 only for training. In real life deployments they use missiles much newer than that like the GEM-T and GEM-C.

 

[Deplorable Yankee]

Don't think the Chinese ARE NOT paying attention.

A carriers air defensive ring is much more capable than a patriot battery sitting at an airport ...but the chinks are becoming experts in large numbers of drones, coordinated and operating at once ...

A swarm of drones and missiles ...
Force diversity is gonna get a bloddy nose n then some