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Patriot-Missile-System

The MM-104 Patriot missile has been a disquisitional component in the Us' arsenal for decades. Information technology was prominently deployed during the Gulf War and has been in use ever since, with a current estimated retirement date of 2040. But contempo video from Saudi Arabia shows the Patriot missile system misfiring at a high charge per unit.

While initial reports claimed that the Patriot missiles all struck their intended targets (seven Burkan two-H SRBM missiles fired past Houthi rebels), later news showed that some of the Patriots appear to have veered off course or exploded prematurely. One man died after being struck by metal debris (either from a Patriot or one of the Burkan ii-H SRBM's) and one missile is said to have struck a residential neighborhood in Riyadh. It'south non clear how many intercepts are being claimed; online reports range from 3 successful intercepts to 7. The videos beneath capture two dissimilar missile failures, with one clearly impacting the city it was intended to protect.

This missile has been identified equally existence fired from a Saudi launcher (this is a Patriot, non a Burkan-2H). The second video shows a missile exploding immediately after launch.

During the Gulf War, when the Patriot was tasked with intercepting Iraq's modified Scud missiles, US practise was to burn down four Patriot missiles for every Scud to ameliorate the odds of a successful intercept. The MM-104 has been upgraded several times since and so — the Saudis are using the Avant-garde Capability-2 variant of the missile, co-ordinate to Motherboard, which means they've got the same platform we used during the opening days of the Iraq War dorsum in 2003. The Burkan-2H missile is a new design thought to be based on the Iranian Qiam ane/Scud-C, Iranian Shahab-2/Scud-C, or Scud-D. No affair which way yous slice information technology, the Burkan-2H is thought to be a descendant of Soviet missile applied science, but with modifications that make it harder to intercept.

All Missile Defense Systems Are Not Created Equal

One of the real problems of talking most missile defense force systems is the way the various types of missile defense systems are oft muddled together. Intercepting a Palestinian Qassam rocket (as Israel's Iron Dome system is designed to exercise) with a range of 5-16km is different from intercepting a Burkan-2H, with a range of 530 miles and a "baby-bottle" warhead pattern intended to increase the warhead'southward last velocity. And intercepting a Burkan-2H with a Patriot missile is a vastly dissimilar problem than the question of whether we tin intercept an ICBM fired past a hostile nation-state and carrying a nuclear warhead. (Our ability to intercept and destroy a nuclear-tipped ICBM is very much in doubt).

Each of these cases presents a different set of problems, ranging from the combined speeds of the missiles to the shape of the warheads, fourth dimension to intercept, the potential presence of countermeasures built into the missile itself, and the ramifications of failing to hit the target. These differences are why it's possible to build an intercept system that hits slower targets with relatively pocket-sized payloads, while our ability to cease ICBMs with a missile defense system remains in dubiety. These videos are besides a reminder that even our ability to intercept smaller missiles isn't equally reliable equally we might wish information technology was.