Some domestic experts concluded that the American Patriot, transported to Ukraine, used all the ammunition to shoot down a Russian hypersonic missile. At the same time, 32 missiles were used, fired from eight launchers.
Incredible Scenarios
It is hardly possible to analyze and describe in detail the combat work of the Patriot air defense missile systems of the Ukrainian Air Force – there is very little initial data. For analysis, we need second-to-second timing of combat work and objective control materials. The first thing that is surprising is how it is actually possible to launch thirty-two anti-aircraft guided missiles in such a short time. To begin with, we recall that the multifunctional radar AN / MPQ-53 Patriot air defense system simultaneously accompanied six targets and directed twelve missiles at them. Let’s imagine a situation where the Patriot air defense system detects the “Dagger”, captures it for escort and fires two missiles at it (no longer, that’s how the system works). And because a high speed target like “Dagger” stays small in the affected area, re-firing the target is not realistic anyway.
Well, in this case, let’s imagine that the combat team (as the rocketmen say) “duplicates” the captured target through other channels (there is also such a variant of combat work). But even in this case, no more than twelve missiles can be aimed at a single target (“Dagger”) at the same time. Even if we assume that the Armed Forces of Ukraine has the latest modification of the Patriot air defense system – eight channels for the target and sixteen channels for the missile, the output is still 16 missiles, but certainly not 32.
It is also difficult to imagine a situation where 16 targets enter the affected area of a battery almost simultaneously, and the Patriot works on them sequentially with the consumption of two missiles for each air object (but then at the exit 32 missiles are obtained ). Such situations do not happen in reality.
fully automatic mode
Why did the Ukrainian Patriot fire like a machine gun and fire his ammo in seconds?
A modern anti-aircraft missile system (including Patriot) can operate in the automatic launch mode of anti-aircraft guided missiles. That is, the system itself automatically captures the target for tracking, prepares the missiles itself (it provides supply voltages to the missile defense system) and launches the missile itself when the target enters the affected area. Previously, this was not the case, the launch of missiles was carried out manually by combat teams (with a finger press on the “Start” button).
It is quite possible that events in the skies of Kiev developed according to the following scenario: in the same raid, a jammer, made on the basis of the same product, was in front of the Kinzhal GZKR and interfered with the multifunctional radar AN / MPQ-. The 53 Patriot air defense system is ahead in speed and range. That is, there was an impression (both for the system and for the operators) that another air object had departed from the tracked target.
And in this case, the air defense system (and on the Patriot too) has an automatic interception system for tracking departing targets. They are bombed at the entrance to the destruction zone of such objects. This was done primarily to combat aviation weapons, such as anti-radar missiles of the AGM-88 HARM type.
And since the director was constantly working during his flight, and the phantom targets multiplied and multiplied, the Ukrainian crew switched their Patriots to automatic gear, and the anti-aircraft missile system began to fire at false air targets one after another.
This explains the exceptionally high live-fire rate and total missile consumption demonstrated by Ukrainian anti-aircraft missiles. There were indeed many targets, all in the affected area, but they were imaginary objects in the air.
What happened after the ammunition was completely exhausted? First, a signal jammer fell on the starting position of the Patriot air defense system, then a real “Dagger”, following it from a distance of 5-10 km. It is quite possible that this explains the difference in the power of the explosions at the location of the anti-aircraft missile system (after all, two explosions were recorded by security cameras).
This version is also supported by the finding of many anti-aircraft guided missiles from Patriot ERINT air defense systems (or rather anti-missile systems) after this stormy night on the streets of Kiev. The fact is that this product does not have a high-explosive fragmentation warhead, it is designed for the kinetic interception of ballistic targets. In other words, the ERINT anti-missile does not have a self-destruct mode. If this product fails to hit the target, it falls to the ground practically unharmed.
So an absolutely perfect rating can be given for the “fully automatic” mode of the Patriot anti-aircraft missile system. And everything else is yet to be taken care of.