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Fourteen Iraqi missiles have been launched at U.S. forces in Kuwait since hostilities
began Thursday. Of those, nine have reportedly been intercepted by
U.S. Patriot missiles, four were allowed to fall unharmed, and one landed in
Kuwait City's harbor. Is this track record validation for missile defense systems
in general and boosters of the Patriot program in particular? Right now, it
is too early to tell: only analysis months, if not years, after hostilities
are over will provide an accurate assessment of the Patriot's performance. In
the meantime, it is important to objectively note what has been reported of
the missile defense program thus far.
There are four different kinds of missiles involved in the Patriot program.
There is the old Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC)-2, the missile with a
blast-fragmentation warhead that was used to almost no avail during the 1991
Gulf War. There is the PAC-2 Guided Enhanced Munition (GEM), a refurbished
version of the PAC-2 whose new low noise seeker and modernized, faster fuze
allow for an increased engagement area. There is the GEM+, where a GEM missile
system has an enhanced acquisition and tracking system that attempts to monitor
low radar cross-section targets in a cluttered environment. Finally, there is
the PAC-3, which uses a hit-to-kill warhead to directly intercept short-range
ballistic missiles. Apparently all four missiles have been used in Operation
Iraqi Freedom, but the latest and most advanced version of the Patriot, the
PAC-3, has only been involved in a few of the intercept attempts.
The Patriots are being launched against what seem to be Ababil-100s, a
solid-fuel ballistic missile that is thought to have a range of around 100
miles. These missiles provide an entirely different tracking and intercepting
challenge. Ababils, having shorter ranges, have a quicker booster burnout period
and move at slower speeds than do Scuds. The Scuds used by Iraq during the first
Gulf War had ranges of about 400 miles. Also, because they had been so shoddily
maintained, they wobbled and fell apart mid-flight, making tracking them
extremely difficult. The couple of dozen or so Scuds Iraq may still have in its
arsenal - if, indeed, it even has any left - have been hidden in what must have
been less-than-optimal chambers for well over a decade and no doubt would fly
even more erratically than they did in 1991. The reports of the Patriot's
performance against Ababils, while encouraging, do not necessarily indicate how
reliable the missile defense system would be against Scuds.
Accounts from the field indicate that the Patriots are being used in a manner
known as the ripple-fire, where multiple Patriots are launched against a single
threat in the hopes that their lethality will be increased simply by sheer dint
of numbers. The ripple-fire method is more or less how the Patriot was designed
to be operated, so it is not unusual that it is being applied in Iraq. But it is
important to note this doctrine, because otherwise the impression might be
gained that the missiles were destroying their targets on a one-to-one basis.
Also, some of the Iraqi missiles are simply being let to fly unmolested if U.S.
forces deem that they will land in unpopulated areas. This would imply that
Patriot missile battery commanders are reserving their limited number of
missiles for the most pressing threats.
Finally, the accidental downing of a British Tornado fighter by a Patriot missile on Sunday is a terrible reminder of the system’s limitations. Even if the operators do everything they are supposed to
do, technical problems can and do crop up. Expectations of the Patriot's
effectiveness must be reined in so that such tragedies can be side-stepped in
the future.
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