[Goose]

My view of the 1000 Patriot missile production article is a little more upbeat.

Knowing more are to be made available (& esp. when the timeline is known) might loosen up hand-me-downs to Ukraine.

To some degree this is true (IMO). However, the way this works is the military has a "minimum realistic inventory" below which they will scream. The assurance that dipping below the minimum levels is OK because replacements are on the way is unacceptable to the military, because they have to always be ready to "fight tonight". They are sometimes overruled in this, but IMO doing so is very risky. It sends the message to the military that their concerns about readiness are not taken seriously. This has been done in the EU so often it is beyond a joke, and as a result e.g. "the Bundeswehr stands before you naked".  I think in the current climate the European public will revolt if it is "leaked" that the military is against sending more missiles below the number they consider prudent.

Knowing more are to be made available may ease concerns by the countries at most risk of further land&people grabs by Russia.  That, in turn, may make other diplomatic bartering within NATO easier.

Not sure that it will (or should) ease concerns. If Russia decides to continue such aggression, these countries will need everything they can lay their hands on and more.

It is interesting that this announcement came so quickly on the heels of Patriot successes.  I'd suspect it was in the works for some time, but got fast-tracked.

Raytheon and MBDA have been working on this type of effort for a while.
https://www.rtx.com/news/news-center/202...t-missiles
So you are correct. This has been in the works for years. MBDA does the maintenance for European Patriots.

My concern is the use of Patriots against drones.  That's the wrong weapon.

Totally true. Also not the right weapon for slow and/or small cruise missiles. Patriots are expensive.

One thing that would GREATLY benefit Ukraine would be some kind of "AWACS". The slower cruise missiles are "easy meat" for many simple air defense systems IF they can be detected early enough. An airborne platform can "see" much further than ground based radars can. It can allow systems like NASAMS to fire at targets that they actually never detect. The AMRAAM gets sent to the right place and acquires in autonomous mode.  It also can allow moving things like Gepards/truck mounted AAA short distances to hit slow-moving Iranian drones/cruise missiles. It would be a "force multiplier". Saab makes such a system, GlobalEye. Perhaps Ukraine could "buy" one? Saab can use the business and these are in production. Sweden also has some older S100D systems that they may be willing to give them away. Not sure what shape they are actually in.

[Goose]

My view of the 1000 Patriot missile production article is a little more upbeat.

Knowing more are to be made available (& esp. when the timeline is known) might loosen up hand-me-downs to Ukraine.

To some degree this is true (IMO). However, the way this works is the military has a "minimum realistic inventory" below which they will scream. The assurance that dipping below the minimum levels is OK because replacements are on the way is unacceptable to the military, because they have to always be ready to "fight tonight". They are sometimes overruled in this, but IMO doing so is very risky. It sends the message to the military that their concerns about readiness are not taken seriously. This has been done in the EU so often it is beyond a joke, and as a result e.g. "the Bundeswehr stands before you naked".  I think in the current climate the European public will revolt if it is "leaked" that the military is against sending more missiles below the number they consider prudent.

Knowing more are to be made available may ease concerns by the countries at most risk of further land&people grabs by Russia.  That, in turn, may make other diplomatic bartering within NATO easier.

Not sure that it will (or should) ease concerns. If Russia decides to continue such aggression, these countries will need everything they can lay their hands on and more.

It is interesting that this announcement came so quickly on the heels of Patriot successes.  I'd suspect it was in the works for some time, but got fast-tracked.

Raytheon and MBDA have been working on this type of effort for a while.
https://www.rtx.com/news/news-center/202...t-missiles
So you are correct. This has been in the works for years. MBDA does the maintenance for European Patriots.

My concern is the use of Patriots against drones.  That's the wrong weapon.

Totally true. Also not the right weapon for slow and/or small cruise missiles. Patriots are expensive.

One thing that would GREATLY benefit Ukraine would be some kind of "AWACS". The slower cruise missiles are "easy meat" for many simple air defense systems IF they can be detected early enough. An airborne platform can "see" much further than ground based radars can. It can allow systems like NASAMS to fire at targets that they actually never detect. The AMRAAM gets sent to the right place and acquires in autonomous mode.  It also can allow moving things like Gepards/truck mounted AAA short distances to hit slow-moving Iranian drones/cruise missiles. It would be a "force multiplier". Saab makes such a system, GlobalEye. Perhaps Ukraine could "buy" one? Saab can use the business and these are in production. Sweden also has some older S100D systems that they may be willing to give them away. Not sure what shape they are actually in.