Not Ready for the Big Leagues
Patriot Missile Launcher
By William Schryver | imetatronink | January 20, 2024
According to the best information I can gather on short notice, I have been able to ascertain that current US production of the PAC-3 missiles typically used in the Patriot air defense systems is about ~500 per annum, at a cost of 4 – 6 million dollars each.
There are aspirations of increasing that rate to 650 per annum within the next year.
As for current US stocks of PAC-3 missiles, for the sake of argument, let’s allow for the possibility there are 5000 units (there aren’t near that many).
The consensus seems to be that the US can currently field ~500 operational launchers.
A single Patriot battalion typically consists of 6 batteries with 6 launchers each. Each of the 36 launchers can hold up to 16 PAC-3 missiles. So up to 576 PAC-3 missiles in a single-load of a Patriot battalion.
To prosecute war against Russia, China, or Iran, protection of the major forward bases of the United States Air Force would be the prerequisite upon which success would be predicated.
To adequately cover even one of these large airbases against missile strikes of just 100-200 units of high-performance drones, cruise-missiles, ballistic missiles, and hypersonic missiles — plus numerous decoys — would easily require an entire Patriot battalion.
Even with a 100% interception rate, a pair of 100-missile strike packages over the course of a day would still compel a PAC-3 burn rate of at least 300 missiles, given that, as a general rule, two PAC-3 missiles are launched at every incoming target.
But of course, the interception rate would be considerably lower than 100%. And given that the Patriot command, radar, and launcher units — along with missile storage sites — would be primary targets, there would be a substantial attrition rate of the highly immobile Patriot systems themselves. (The Russians have already clearly demonstrated the vulnerability of the Patriot systems to counter-battery missile strikes. At least three Patriot batteries have been destroyed in Ukraine.)
In an attempt to cover just three large airbases against a series of salvos of 100+ missiles of various types, the entire US stockpile of PAC-3 interceptors could very conceivably be exhausted in little more than a week or two.
Current annual production could easily be consumed in little more than a day or two.
This is the reality of 21st century high-intensity conflict against an adversary with the capability to shoot back — a kind of war for which the United States military is woefully ill-prepared, both materially and doctrinally.
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