Desert Storm Patriot/Scud Missile Intercepts

During the Gulf War, the Patriot was assigned to shoot down incoming Iraqi Scud or Al-Hussein Missiles launched at Israel and Saudi Arabia. The U.S. Army which was in charge of the Patriots claimed an initial success rate of 80% in Saudi Arabia and 50% in Israel. Those claims were scaled back to 70 and 40 percent.

Part of the reason the success rate was 30% higher in Saudi Arabia than is Israel is that in Saudi Arabia the Patriots merely had to push the incoming Scud missiles away from military targets in the desert or disable the Scud's warhead in order to avoid casualties, while in Israel the Scuds were aimed directly at cities and civilian populations.The Saudi Government also censored any reporting of Scud damage by the Saudi press. The Israeli Government did not institute the same type of censorship. Furthermore, the Patriot's success rate in Israel was examined by the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) who did not have a political reason to play up the Patriots success rate and even had reasons to downplay the Patriot's success rate. The IDF counted any Scud that exploded on the ground (regardless of whether or not it was diverted) as a failure for the Patriot. Meanwhile the U.S. Army who had many reasons to support a high success rate for the Patriots, examined the performance of the Patriots in Saudi Arabia.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• MIM-104
• Patriot
• battery
• SS-1
• Scud
• Missile
• Saudi
• Arabia
• Israel
• Operation
• Desert
• Storm
• Gulf
• War

[tejanochris]

To all you Patriot Missile Technicians. You guys saved my butt when the war was coming to an end. We got hit by two scuds one afternoon. They were so close that we could see the writing on the rockets as they were coming down. Both got hit by Patriots. I owe you guys a beer. Make that a round.

[dartboard36]

Well. I was there. I was assigned to a Patriot Missile Battalion. We did our best.

[boogy1985]

Iran and Syria have more missiles, this summer is going to be hot!

[dartboard36]

It's interesting you mention the Ratheon Techs tweaking the code ... I can remember them being there and it's true. They tweaked stuff like crazy. 42 ways to kill a tank ... still only 1 way to kill a TBM. 21 years later Patriot is still going strong. Patriot is still the only defense system to engage a TBM in combat.

[TuRkmEnOkaN]

tooOOO FUCKING bad that that was a conventional warhead instead of a nuclear 1.

[JesusDiedforMe01]

@TrassseB At least the scuds got killed. If the scuds had hit they would have done more damage. In reality, pick your poison. 30 to 40% is better than nothing.

[dartboard36]

@mewntx On the east coast Bahrain, Dharan, Kobar, the ports and airfields.

[dartboard36]

@mewntx I was with 2- 7th Air Defense Artillery, 11th Air Defense Brigade. 

[mewntx]

@dartboard36

What Battalion were you with and where were you over there?

[mewntx]

@labratbunny

That is so not true, please read my post above. I'm very proud of the men and woman who worked day and night to ready themselves. I saw it myself! They made history by not just going into Israel but for how fast they went in! Do you have any idea of the long hours and training that goes into preparing for that? Those people did that daily! That was their job! They lived and breathed it daily! I'm not embarrassed I'm proud of each and every one of them.

[mewntx]

This was "live" war. This was the first time this system had been in this scenario. Ratheon Techs were writing data changes pretty much minute by minute to change the system to do something it was not designed to do. So before you criticize something, have your facts straight. This was a dangerous time and a dangerous situation. Could you have done any better?

[mewntx]

The Patriot was NOT designed to be an anti missile, missile. It was designed to take down aircraft. Blame the "powers that be" for sending it to do what it was NOT designed to do. It did what it was designed to do.You probably don't know is, Israel had 2 systems, still crated and unused before our Batteries went in. That was the reason why they sent the Batteries out of Germany. Most firing of the missiles was done by the IDF. They pretty much took over the Launchers upon arrival.