Forbes columnist Paul Iddon called the Patriot anti-aircraft missile systems the main vulnerability of the Russian Aerospace Forces’ air strike vehicles. In his opinion, the weak point of the American anti-aircraft missile system is its low mobility, which the Russian army can take advantage of.
Paul Iddon explained that it takes just three people to “maintain” a single battery, and up to 90 people to “move and install all the components.”
However, the deployment/deployment time (25 minutes) of the material part of the Patriot anti-aircraft missile system is not a particularly critical indicator for the combat use of medium/long range air defense systems. All Patriot equipment (multifunctional radar, combat control center, launchers, power supply and communication equipment) is mounted on the car chassis and trailers, and the transition from combat to marching position (and vice versa) takes a fairly short time.
For example, in the recent incident related to the downing of the S-300PT anti-aircraft guided missile in Poland, units of the 540th anti-aircraft missile regiment of the Ukrainian Air Force stationed in Lviv were involved. The 540th air defense regiment received equipment back in the Soviet era, and the S-300PT anti-aircraft missile system equipped with this unit is the first, dormant container version of the S-300.
As before Wrote According to “socialbites.ca”, some containers (especially the command point of the F9 system) have a weight of 16 tons, and not every truck crane can lift them for later loading on a trailer. In other words, the time for folding and placing the material part of the S-300PT of the 540th srp is several hours.
Despite the low mobility of the system, this regiment has not suffered significant losses since the beginning of the special military operation, due to the constant change of starting positions. What can we say about the Patriot anti-aircraft missile system with the time to fold / distribute the material portion of 25 minutes.
Among other things, a Forbes correspondent noted that the Ukrainian Armed Forces is unlikely to use Patriot air defense systems to counter unmanned aerial vehicles, because a large number of UAVs can “overtake air defense systems.”
The fact is that the Armed Forces of Ukraine will most likely receive a battery of Patriot anti-aircraft missiles. most likely battery will be distributed To protect Kiev (in the first place the government quarter) from attacks of various types of cruise missile-based (sea and air) and tactical (operational-tactical) ballistic missiles.
In other words, the Patriot has a non-strategic missile defense capability, as the military has stated, and this attribute will especially help the Ukrainian Armed Forces. It is not recommended to shoot live from Patriot air defense systems in small and cheap unmanned aerial vehicles. First of all this is a way to combat manned aircraft, SLCMs and ALCMs, TBR and OTBR.
Now as for Paul Iddon’s words that it only takes three people to “maintain” a battery, and up to 90 people “to move and adjust all the components.”
To begin with, we note that the personnel of any anti-aircraft missile unit (battery or division) is compiled on the basis of ensuring the work of two full combat crews. And this is confidential information. All thoughts on the “three experts” and “90 people” can be attributed entirely to the assumptions of the journalist and his personal views on this matter.
But in the case of the Patriot anti-aircraft missile battery (as well as any other anti-aircraft missile unit of any armed forces) there are no extra people, designed only to “move and adjust all the components.” In military language, “movement” is the transfer of material from combat to marching position and march, and “installation of all components” is called routine maintenance and maintenance of a certain frequency.
As for the “maintenance” of a Patriot battery by three specialists (according to Paul Iddon), for combat work (to ensure the launch of anti-aircraft guided missiles), at least a reduced combat crew is required, which is still significantly more. “three experts”.
Politico publication reports that the Pentagon is considering the possibility of retraining the combat crews of the anti-aircraft missile forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces on the Patriot air defense system at a military base in the United States. US Department of Defense sources say that anti-aircraft missile weapons of the Ukrainian Armed Forces will not be transferred until the end of the retraining period.
And finally, what weaknesses does the Patriot air defense system actually have? More precisely, I should say features, not weaknesses. The fact is that the Patriot AN / MPQ-53 multifunctional air defense radar has relatively low search capabilities. And this feature is peculiar not only to the Patriot air defense system, but also to the Russian RPN (illumination and guidance radars) and MRLS (multifunctional radars) of the S-300/400 air defense system.
In Russian systems, this disadvantage is compensated by providing the S-300 and S-400 anti-aircraft missile divisions with low-altitude detectors of the 5N66M type or all-altitude detectors of the 96L6E type. In addition, anti-aircraft missile divisions receive search-free target designation from the command posts of systems (CPS) equipped with a detection radar (RLO 64N6, S-300) or a radar complex (RLK 91N6E, S-400).
That is, some additional means of reconnaissance and target designation should be given to the battery of the Patriot air defense system in case of its deployment near Kyiv. The option to receive data from the Boeing E-3 Sentry, called by some experts, is not very suitable in this case, because to solve this problem, a certain number of E-3 aircraft will have to be transported to Ukrainian airports. It is unlikely that the United States and its allies will take such a step. But the Ukrainian crew will have to solve the problem of target designation for Patriot air defense systems in one way or another. And that’s really a problem.