[Goose]

A scarier situation is how many Patriot Missiles we have, versus how many we need and how many more we probably need.  This article is a bit sobering:
https://www.businessinsider.com/producti...igh-2025-8

It might make you feel a bit better to know this quote from the article is somewhat false

Air defenders tend to need to fire two or three interceptors to reliably take out one incoming threat,

That hasn't been true for many years. When the Patriot ABM capability was first introduced, the kill probability of a single missile was estimated to be 85%. That wasn't considered high enough, so "policy" was fire two missiles at each ballistic missile target. This increased the kill probability to 98%. Today the missiles are better, the radar is better, and most importantly the software is better. The software "knows" when it is "necessary" to fire two missiles. Often it is not. In some cases the software can delay launching a second missile until it determines the first one will probably miss.
 
The article points out the vastly increased demand for Patriot interceptor missiles. The article does not attempt to answer the question "for what purpose?". I now have to bring out my broken record :-). The Patriot is a point defense system. It was originally designed to defend critical military formations (like division headquarters) from air attack, mostly "leakers" that the USAF somehow let through. The Russian preoccupation with their FROG program led to the addition of a rudimentary anti-ballistic missile capability. The SCUD missiles used by Iraq were direct descendants of the original Russian FROG efforts. The Patriot did OK (but not perfectly, Dhahran Saudi Arabia) in protecting US formations from SCUDS. It could not protect Israel from SCUDS. Patriot is a point defense system. This situation led to two things. First, great improvement of the Patrioit ABM capability. Second, the creation of a "new" Army ABM program, at the time called the "Theater High Altitude Air Defense" (THAAD).
 
As one can tell from the "Theater" in the name, the THAAD was intended to defend not just a point but rather an entire theater of war. The limitations of Patriot were obvious and caused embarrassment to the Army. Patriot is a "tier 1" missile defense system oriented toward tactical (relatively short range) ballistic missiles. Tier 1 systems shoot down incoming missiles in the final engagement phase. These targets must be attacking the Tier 1 system or close to it. Subject to velocity limitations tier 1 systems (like Patriot) can of course engage incoming missiles that are longer range, not just "short" range. However, the engagement window is necessarily very limited. The target will be going downhill very fast. THAAD has the capability to engage longer range ballistic missiles when they are near their maximum altitude. This necessitates an interceptor with much greater range capability. It is a Tier 2 (middle tier) system. The THAAD also has "shoot, look, shoot" capability (if the geometry is permissive) that allows re-engaging a target that was not killed with the first shot. As a FYI, the SM-3 and SM-6 with the SPY-1 or SPY-6 is a Tier 3 system.
 
Intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) must of necessity follow a higher ballistic trajectory in order to achieve greater range. If these missiles can be intercepted throughout their entire descent The theory was that the THAAD could intercept these missiles quite far from the launch point of the interceptor missile, and thereby be more of an area defense weapon (as opposed to a point defense weapon). In the end, geometry triumphed and it wasn't possible to build a truly theater-wide system. If the THAAD was in the exact center of the theater it would almost work. The problem is that in e.g. Israel or Guam the threat is primarily from one quadrant. The rest of the "coverage" is not useful. That fact was belatedly realized and the name changed to Terminal High Altitude Air Defense (preserving the acronym). Obviously the THAAD is a significant improvement over the point defense system offered by the Patriot in situations where IRBMs will be used, as by Iran against Israel. Ukraine isn't in that category however, as Russia can do all the damage they want by simply using Iskander-M SRBM. Is the THAAD (https://www.globalsecurity.org/space/systems/thaad.htm) a "failure"? We don't yet know, but 150 of them were supposedly launched defending Israel.
 
Returning to the question of how many Patriot missiles the US (or any other country) "needs", it is difficult to actually explain the situation. The number and character of SRBMs has not greatly changed in the past 5 years. What has changed is the probability of their use. In the past the idea that Russia would be firing literally hundreds of SRBMs against a "European" state such as Ukraine was unthinkable on many levels. Ukraine has been continually requesting more Patriot batteries and especially more patriot missiles. Other nations, seeing what is happening in Ukraine, want to have access to "enough" Patriot missiles to "defend" their population centers and economy from a similar missile attack.
 
The reality is that no nation has ever been "defeated" by SRBMs. Ukraine has suffered greatly from SRBM strikes. Ukraine has suffered even more from air-breathing drone strikes. This air-breathing cruise missile/drone strikes are more of a problem because they outnumber SRBM strikes by at least 10 to 1. Exact figures are hard to come by. Ukraine has improvised defenses against these lower-tier threats. Russia has improved the ability of their SRBMs to evade Patriot missiles. The "result" has been a multi-year interval where Ukraine has endured ongoing SRBM strikes by Russia. Russia has not and will not defeat Ukraine militarily with SRBM strikes. Ukraine may however be politically unable to endure what appears to be an endless rain of SRBMs with no effective defense.
 
Recently Israel and the US attempted to defend Israeli airspace against a more powerful SRBM/IRBM/drone attack by Iran. The Israeli/US collation has the ability to neutralize air-breathing drone/missile attacks and did so. Ukraine has no such capability. Despite that, the Iranian SRBM/IRBM attack was able to inflict damage on Israel that, while militarily nugatory, was politically unacceptable enough to cause Israel to accept a cease-fire. At the time of the cease-fire, Iran was estimated to have 1,500 or fewer missiles in inventory that could reach Israel. Iran was capable of producing only a small number of missiles going forward. These 1,500 missiles were scattered all over Iran and were of unknown provenance. Israel had also destroyed many of the TELs used to launch these missiles. It is improbable that Iran could ever get even half of them into the air. Yet it appears that Iran was able to continue launching offensive missiles long enough that Israel lost confidence in their ability to destroy all the launchers/missiles rapidly enough to prevent unacceptable damage to Israel.
 
Unlike the Ukrainian situation, Israel had a defensive plan to counter incoming SRBM/IRBM missile attacks. That plan was to use defensive missiles (David's Sling, Arrow, US THAAD missiles, a few US Patriots) to minimize damage while the IAF destroyed Iran's ability to launch the offensive missiles. It appears Israel was unable to accomplish that mission as quickly as desired. The inevitable defensive failures were starting to add up. However, the damage done to Israel was "trivial". Yet Israel abandoned their golden opportunity to render Iran defenseless (no more missiles to shoot) without even a whimper. Ukraine has no parallel ability to exhaust Russian IRBM stocks.
 
The simple fact is that a point defense system like Patriot will always "leak", and it will leak more the longer a missile based war continues. It also cannot defend a country because (and for many other reasons) it can always be overwhelmed by numbers, even if one has all the Patriot missiles one could want. Defense will never be any more than a mitigating weapon that can protect critical military infrastructure. It cannot defend a nation. In the end, you have to kill the archer, or drive him far enough from your borders that his SRBMs will not reach your population centers. THAT is what the EU and other countries should be ensuring they can accomplish. If they can accomplish that, no nation (Russia included) will start a war of attrition using SRBMs because they will inevitably lose. If the aggressor believes it can become a war of attrition, it might make sense to try. Any other plan is folly. No number of Patriot missiles, however large, can defend against an continuous, interminable missile barrage. Israel had the right idea. They unfortunately underestimated their opponent/over estimated their own offensive capability/lacked the political will.

[Goose]

A scarier situation is how many Patriot Missiles we have, versus how many we need and how many more we probably need.  This article is a bit sobering:
https://www.businessinsider.com/producti...igh-2025-8

It might make you feel a bit better to know this quote from the article is somewhat false

Air defenders tend to need to fire two or three interceptors to reliably take out one incoming threat,

That hasn't been true for many years. When the Patriot ABM capability was first introduced, the kill probability of a single missile was estimated to be 85%. That wasn't considered high enough, so "policy" was fire two missiles at each ballistic missile target. This increased the kill probability to 98%. Today the missiles are better, the radar is better, and most importantly the software is better. The software "knows" when it is "necessary" to fire two missiles. Often it is not. In some cases the software can delay launching a second missile until it determines the first one will probably miss.
 
The article points out the vastly increased demand for Patriot interceptor missiles. The article does not attempt to answer the question "for what purpose?". I now have to bring out my broken record :-). The Patriot is a point defense system. It was originally designed to defend critical military formations (like division headquarters) from air attack, mostly "leakers" that the USAF somehow let through. The Russian preoccupation with their FROG program led to the addition of a rudimentary anti-ballistic missile capability. The SCUD missiles used by Iraq were direct descendants of the original Russian FROG efforts. The Patriot did OK (but not perfectly, Dhahran Saudi Arabia) in protecting US formations from SCUDS. It could not protect Israel from SCUDS. Patriot is a point defense system. This situation led to two things. First, great improvement of the Patrioit ABM capability. Second, the creation of a "new" Army ABM program, at the time called the "Theater High Altitude Air Defense" (THAAD).
 
As one can tell from the "Theater" in the name, the THAAD was intended to defend not just a point but rather an entire theater of war. The limitations of Patriot were obvious and caused embarrassment to the Army. Patriot is a "tier 1" missile defense system oriented toward tactical (relatively short range) ballistic missiles. Tier 1 systems shoot down incoming missiles in the final engagement phase. These targets must be attacking the Tier 1 system or close to it. Subject to velocity limitations tier 1 systems (like Patriot) can of course engage incoming missiles that are longer range, not just "short" range. However, the engagement window is necessarily very limited. The target will be going downhill very fast. THAAD has the capability to engage longer range ballistic missiles when they are near their maximum altitude. This necessitates an interceptor with much greater range capability. It is a Tier 2 (middle tier) system. The THAAD also has "shoot, look, shoot" capability (if the geometry is permissive) that allows re-engaging a target that was not killed with the first shot. As a FYI, the SM-3 and SM-6 with the SPY-1 or SPY-6 is a Tier 3 system.
 
Intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) must of necessity follow a higher ballistic trajectory in order to achieve greater range. If these missiles can be intercepted throughout their entire descent The theory was that the THAAD could intercept these missiles quite far from the launch point of the interceptor missile, and thereby be more of an area defense weapon (as opposed to a point defense weapon). In the end, geometry triumphed and it wasn't possible to build a truly theater-wide system. If the THAAD was in the exact center of the theater it would almost work. The problem is that in e.g. Israel or Guam the threat is primarily from one quadrant. The rest of the "coverage" is not useful. That fact was belatedly realized and the name changed to Terminal High Altitude Air Defense (preserving the acronym). Obviously the THAAD is a significant improvement over the point defense system offered by the Patriot in situations where IRBMs will be used, as by Iran against Israel. Ukraine isn't in that category however, as Russia can do all the damage they want by simply using Iskander-M SRBM. Is the THAAD (https://www.globalsecurity.org/space/systems/thaad.htm) a "failure"? We don't yet know, but 150 of them were supposedly launched defending Israel.
 
Returning to the question of how many Patriot missiles the US (or any other country) "needs", it is difficult to actually explain the situation. The number and character of SRBMs has not greatly changed in the past 5 years. What has changed is the probability of their use. In the past the idea that Russia would be firing literally hundreds of SRBMs against a "European" state such as Ukraine was unthinkable on many levels. Ukraine has been continually requesting more Patriot batteries and especially more patriot missiles. Other nations, seeing what is happening in Ukraine, want to have access to "enough" Patriot missiles to "defend" their population centers and economy from a similar missile attack.
 
The reality is that no nation has ever been "defeated" by SRBMs. Ukraine has suffered greatly from SRBM strikes. Ukraine has suffered even more from air-breathing drone strikes. This air-breathing cruise missile/drone strikes are more of a problem because they outnumber SRBM strikes by at least 10 to 1. Exact figures are hard to come by. Ukraine has improvised defenses against these lower-tier threats. Russia has improved the ability of their SRBMs to evade Patriot missiles. The "result" has been a multi-year interval where Ukraine has endured ongoing SRBM strikes by Russia. Russia has not and will not defeat Ukraine militarily with SRBM strikes. Ukraine may however be politically unable to endure what appears to be an endless rain of SRBMs with no effective defense.
 
Recently Israel and the US attempted to defend Israeli airspace against a more powerful SRBM/IRBM/drone attack by Iran. The Israeli/US collation has the ability to neutralize air-breathing drone/missile attacks and did so. Ukraine has no such capability. Despite that, the Iranian SRBM/IRBM attack was able to inflict damage on Israel that, while militarily nugatory, was politically unacceptable enough to cause Israel to accept a cease-fire. At the time of the cease-fire, Iran was estimated to have 1,500 or fewer missiles in inventory that could reach Israel. Iran was capable of producing only a small number of missiles going forward. These 1,500 missiles were scattered all over Iran and were of unknown provenance. Israel had also destroyed many of the TELs used to launch these missiles. It is improbable that Iran could ever get even half of them into the air. Yet it appears that Iran was able to continue launching offensive missiles long enough that Israel lost confidence in their ability to destroy all the launchers/missiles rapidly enough to prevent unacceptable damage to Israel.
 
Unlike the Ukrainian situation, Israel had a defensive plan to counter incoming SRBM/IRBM missile attacks. That plan was to use defensive missiles (David's Sling, Arrow, US THAAD missiles, a few US Patriots) to minimize damage while the IAF destroyed Iran's ability to launch the offensive missiles. It appears Israel was unable to accomplish that mission as quickly as desired. The inevitable defensive failures were starting to add up. However, the damage done to Israel was "trivial". Yet Israel abandoned their golden opportunity to render Iran defenseless (no more missiles to shoot) without even a whimper. Ukraine has no parallel ability to exhaust Russian IRBM stocks.
 
The simple fact is that a point defense system like Patriot will always "leak", and it will leak more the longer a missile based war continues. It also cannot defend a country because (and for many other reasons) it can always be overwhelmed by numbers, even if one has all the Patriot missiles one could want. Defense will never be any more than a mitigating weapon that can protect critical military infrastructure. It cannot defend a nation. In the end, you have to kill the archer, or drive him far enough from your borders that his SRBMs will not reach your population centers. THAT is what the EU and other countries should be ensuring they can accomplish. If they can accomplish that, no nation (Russia included) will start a war of attrition using SRBMs because they will inevitably lose. If the aggressor believes it can become a war of attrition, it might make sense to try. Any other plan is folly. No number of Patriot missiles, however large, can defend against an continuous, interminable missile barrage. Israel had the right idea. They unfortunately underestimated their opponent/over estimated their own offensive capability/lacked the political will.