History Learner
Well-known member
Iraqi militias utilizing ballistic missiles have successfully overwhelmed U.S. manned air defenses in recent base attacks, even defeating the Patriot system via swarm tactics. Can't claim 2019 was a fluke because of Saudi crews anymore:
Yes we can, yes we will, your opinion, as always, is of not zero, but negative value on account of its combination of hilarious ignorance combined with anti-western axe grinding.
If you knew absolute basics about the things you make a mistake of commenting on, you would know that a Patriot battery (singular, as implied by the article) consists of non-infinite number of ready launchers, usually "5 to 8" launchers of 4 in case of PAC-3, and 4 of them in case of PAC-2, like suggested here, so obviously, as any system, it can be overwhelmed with the sheer number of targets, which "at least 15 launches" would strongly suggest, so if it was a singular PAC-2 battery like this source suggests, can be certainly done by using more than 16 missiles, and that whoever commands this theater should have allocated more missile defenses than that.
So eat your nothingburger and don't annoy people with it through quoting over year old posts to make a maliciously worthless comment.
They didn't overwhelm it.
They just only defended what they wanted to and let others go by.
It's called prioritization.
This is very well known in the force protection sphere due to the nature of the job.
You don't try and block everything if the missiles will do minimum to no damage and saves you interceptors.
C2 nodes, barracks, anything considered of value is defended.
But funny thing is.
US Army doctrine is out there for all yall to read.
Why don't yall go read it...
You would learn a thing or two about how we do things
They just only defended what they wanted to and let others go by.
It's called prioritization.
This is very well known in the force protection sphere due to the nature of the job.
You don't try and block everything if the missiles will do minimum to no damage and saves you interceptors.
C2 nodes, barracks, anything considered of value is defended.
But funny thing is.
US Army doctrine is out there for all yall to read.
Why don't yall go read it...
You would learn a thing or two about how we do things
History Learner
Well-known member
In other words, all you have to do to defeat a Patriot system is launch roughly 21-37 missiles. Thats the essence of Iranian doctrine with swarm tactics and their missiles; this is what I was talking about in our original conversation so I’m glad you now concede on me being right about that.
Given Iran has thousands of ballistic missiles pointed at U.S. bases in a region, a barely ~50% interception rate with existing U.S. ABM systems portends very bad news for the United States in the event of a war with Iran.
Well, that's fine until someone decides to deploy more than one Patriot battery in the same place, or supplement it with other systems.
I know, that would be a genius tactic, the US military will never think of it, unless they read it here.
Spamming shitty ballistic missiles in great quantities is not some cool new tactic if you call it a swarm, it's just a cool new buzzword for old Soviet, Chinese and North Korean doctrine with these missiles and changes absolutely nothing.
No it doesn't portend very bad news at all, as many of those launchers and ballistic missiles will undergo rapid unscheduled disassembly before getting launched in such a war.
The aspect that if they launched every single missile, the interceptors would be working over time in conjunction with ither ways to take them out, even using C-RAM, and other branches AD units in the process.
It would also be the single dumbest thing Iran could do to kill a few hundred to a thousand soldiers of not just the US.
Basically asking to be sent to the stone age
It would also be the single dumbest thing Iran could do to kill a few hundred to a thousand soldiers of not just the US.
Basically asking to be sent to the stone age
History Learner
Well-known member
And then, equally, you fire more missiles relative to the amount of Patriots you're facing. Iranian ballistic missiles are much cheaper than Patriot systems, after all.
Except for the fact you can destroy American logistics, Air bases and other fixed targets, thus denying the U.S. of much of its combat power.
Is that why the Houthis are still able to launch missiles despite repeated U.S. air strikes?
History Learner
Well-known member
Yeah, sure, they will pull those missiles straight out of the Supreme Leader's ass itself.
Oh please, enlighten us with your knowledge of how much supposedly those ballistic missiles cost, combined with your idea about the difference of US and Iranian defense economic capabilities.
They can try. Nope, they probably can't.
They aren't launching as many as those in Iraq (Iranain militias there have a direct leaky land border, Houthis need more complex smuggling ops), and the amount of airstrikes was barely even symbolic if you compare them to past air campaigns against Iraq for example.
Funny how you link to a tweet that says it was damaged, and suddenly your commentary turns it into "severely damaged". I hereby officially grant you a Baghdad Bob award for being an exemplar in crude propaganda. Unless you copied that claim straight from Iranian propaganda where it comes from. Hope you sod off from the western world you despise so much to the referred city, for good.
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History Learner
Well-known member
Or, they could just use the 3,000 they already have:
Iran's missile arsenal is the largest and most diverse in the Middle East. In 2022, U.S. Central Command's General Kenneth McKenzie stated that Iran possesses "over 3,000" ballistic missiles. This does not include the country's burgeoning land-attack cruise missile force.[1]
According to a December 16, 2022, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) article, "Patriot to Ukraine: What Does it Mean?," a newly produced PATRIOT battery costs about $1.1 billion, including about $400 million for the system and about $690 million for the missiles.
A Kheibar Shekan MRBMs cost $300,000 a piece, meaning that for the cost of one Patriot battery missile set, you could have....2,300 MRBMs.
Given we've already established a Patriot can only defeat 21-37 missiles, what happens when the Iranians start shooting a 100 missiles per target?
So how did 17 missiles just hit a U.S. base defended by a Patriot battery?
Which is the point; shipping tonnage through the Red Sea has halved since the Houthis started their campaign. They did this with far less missiles than that available to Iran.
And they are going to launch them in a coordinated manner out of what exactly? Your seditious hopes and dreams?
If only Iran had an economy as big as US one, then that would be a huge problem...
How many of them need to be actually shot down considering their quality, as no one needs to care about those that have failed targeting?
So, by your own figure of Iranian missile stockpile, they have enough missiles to attack 30 targets and inflict some limited damage on them, and they will be out then? That's not looking good for the rest of the war this will start that they will have to wage without any more ballistic missiles .
Guess US forces will have to place Patriot batteries in groups of 2-3 then. Womp womp.
U.S base...
>A Patriot battery
>Not "Patriot batteries"
Can you finally drop this idiotic "Patriot sucks because it doesn't have infinite interceptors" clown routine? No one is laughing, just rolling their eyes at you.
So? Insurance providers are paid to be risk averse, and ships will go around Africa rather than pay exorbitant insurance rates.
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History Learner
Well-known member
No, I'd imagine they would launch them out of their prepared silos. The U.S. has no missile systems or Air Bases in range, by the way.
Or, we could do proper math on this:
Each Patriot battery consists of a truck-mounted launching system with eight launchers that can hold up to four missile interceptors each, a ground radar, a control station and a generator. The Army said it currently has 16 Patriot battalions. A 2018 International Institute for Strategic Studies report found those battalions operate 50 batteries, which have more than 1,200 missile interceptors.
So, based off this engagement, 40 missiles were fired with 17 successful hits and 15 interceptions. That means eight missiles were duds/missed, so we can assume a 20% failure rate. With 3,000 missiles that suggests 2,400 effective ballistic missiles. With 15 successful interceptions out of 32 missiles, that's an interception rate of 46%, but let's cut the U.S. some slack and assume 50% interception rate.
I don't know how many Patriot Battalions are in CENTCOM right now, but let's hypothetically assume all 16 with their 1,200 interceptors are in the region. With a 50% interception rate they're only getting 600 missiles and that leaves a grand total of 1,800 Iranian ballistic missiles to strike whatever targets they want, while the U.S. is completely out of Patriots globally.
How many U.S. Naval and Air Bases are in the region? By my count, Iran could use ~100 missiles on each.
Whether the Patriot sucks or not, which is not what I said anywhere, is irrelevant to the fact it can be overwhelmed. Iran has the capacity to do that, which was always my stated point. As I said before, if a Patriot battery can shoot down 20-36 missiles at a time, what happens when Iran fires 50? 100? Mass works.
WTF do you think the base being attacked was?
A press center?
No, it's a fucking airbase. It is in range.
How many of those silos do they have?
And since when Iran is out of Tomahawk and carrier aviation range out of Indian ocean?
You are going with a wild assumption that none of the missiles will be destroyed before launch, and Iran will have perfect knowledge of how much defense each US base has to efficiently allocate missiles, and that Patriot is the only way US forces can take those down.
You also didn't account for likely double shooting at missiles heading for important locations in the base, which would result in "failed" interceptions, showing yet again how little you know of things you insist on spouting nonsense about.
So, going by your obsessive napkin math where "several" were injured by 40 missiles spent, by that logic they are going to injure few hundreds of US soldiers, going by the success rate they had right now. Oh no, i guess US military will be crippled by such massive losses and the other hundreds of thousands of soldiers will just have to admit their defeat.
30 times. For one lone battery. Those are rookie numbers.
Now, how many cruise missiles does US military have, and how many can Iran intercept?
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History Learner
Well-known member
No, it is not in range nor are any USAF strike assets based there.
Thousands. As for your next question, you can park an aircraft carrier on the beach of the Iranian coast and still not reach Tehran with an F-18 or Tomahawk missile. I don't think you realize how massive Iran is in land size.
Because the U.S. does not have the capacity to destroy all the silos even if it was willing to launch a pre-emptive strike on Iran, and I'm actually assuming the Iranians are just launching, say, 50 missiles per target with no efficient allocation. I'm literally assuming they're doing Spray and Pray.
As for other ways to take down missiles, please name them. Keep in mind I'm assuming every single Patriot battalion is in CENTCOM, meaning they've stripped all of them from their existing commitments globally, which is unlikely to happen and even this isn't enough to contain Iran.
Because a failed intercept is still a failed intercept, enabling Iranian missiles to get through.
More relevant is the fact the base was trashed by the strike:
U.S. Central Command has now Confirmed that Al-Asad Air Base in Western Iraq was Targeted earlier today by Iranian-Backed Forces utilizing several Theatre Ballistic Missiles and Rockets, with a Majority of them being Intercepted by the MIM-104 "Patriot" Surface-to-Air Missile Battery at the Base; however, the Munitions which did Impact the Base caused Damage and Injuries concurrent with a Traumatic Brain Injuries to several U.S. Seevicemembers and Serious Injuries to 1 Member of the Iraqi Security Forces.
If all of the U.S. bases in the region are destroyed, the U.S. ability to project power in the Middle East would be crippled and surviving assets could be targeted by the intact Iranian cruise missile force. It doesn't matter how badass an F-22 is if its runway is destroyed and it has no fuel or munitions to use, for example.
Whether rookie or not, it shows swarm tactics can get through. The U.S. pool of cruise missiles is limited and very few of them have the relevant range to hit anything important in Iran.
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My guess would be "mobile launchers" - that can be "everywhere and nowhere".
People, some old common sense here: Anyone who's old enough to have played Missile Command or other such videogames back in the 1980's knows that an ABM system can be overwhelmed if the enemy sends more missiles than you have interceptors for, or sends them faster than you can target them.
(And in Missile Command, the interceptor ABMM's the player uses themselves have small nuclear warheads, so you can take out a bunch of incoming with one shot if they are close enough together at the time your one arrives there.)
On the other hand, as Zach pointed out, one can ignore incoming missiles that one can see aren't going to hit anything that matters. And Team Snackbar's cheap mass-produced rockets have poor accuracy. If they are using them to try to interdict shipping, that's likely a lot of harmless splashes.
But the threat would still be enough to make civilian ships not want to go there.
Do they need to be based there before such a war?
Answer: No, it would be idiotic to base them there. Airbases under such risk of attack are just a glorified refuel point to "cheat" around range limitations.
Source: Your ass.
Even Russia and USA don't have "thousands" of missile silos, merely approaching a single thousand, while using them for far more valuable nuclear ICBMs.
And i've just realized you're too retarded to use google maps and substitute Iranian propaganda releases for it.
Tomahawk (missile) - Wikipedia
| Operational range | Block II TLAM-N – 1,350 nmi (1,550 mi; 2,500 km) Block III TLAM-C, Block IV TLAM-E – 900 nmi (1,000 mi; 1,700 km) Block III TLAM-D – 700 nmi (810 mi; 1,300 km)[7] Block IV - 864nmi, 1000+ miles, 1600+ km Block Vb - 900+nmi, 1035+ miles, 1666+ km (exact range is classified)[8] RGM/UGM-109B TASM - 250 miles, 460 km[9] |
|---|
Funny enough, F-35 on an interdiction mission can reach roughly similarly to older Tomahawks without using drop tanks or tankers, and that's without even adding long range missiles.
Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II - Wikipedia
It doesn't need to destroy all. It just needs to destroy or damage enough to make effective attacks
As you saw, with close to 50 missiles... they did minimal damage to a base. Surely that will stop US war effort if repeated few times. Who knows, if they try few dozen times, maybe they will even kill a US soldier or few.
C-RAM, THAAD, any destroyer or cruiser.
To get through towards non-sensitive targets that is.
Yes, "caused damage". Which can mean anything.
Oh no, they blew up some latrines on the edge of the base and knocked down a meeting tent, and few people were within hundreds of meters of that so they had to be put on medical observation, what will we do, the base is ruined!
Do you have any idea what it takes to destroy an airbase for good?
Do you have any idea how long it takes to fix a runway to wartime standards?
No, harassing it with TBMs won't do it.
T-4 Airbase / Tiyas
And what good did this "getting through" do? How many planes, defenses and munitions did it destroy? Who cares if a missile is allowed to get through because it's heading for empty space between runways and besides an eyesore crater will do no real damage? War is fought on effect, not soundbite technicalities.
Nope. I'll post here too. Nope, Iran did not penetrate areas under the protection of Patriot.
Because concussive blasts hurt and what is severely? You are the only one saying that.
Basically if it is of importance it gets protected, if it isn't important it gets less to none.
Welcome to force protection