Is the Patriot Missile Worthless?

Now I know nobody reads the descriptions, except you... but I wanted to apologize for the delay in new videos. Very hectic last few weeks.

I started a merch store. Get cool products & help support the channel!

If you'd like to help support me continue to create videos, you can do so here...

----------------------------------
Credits:

Footage:
Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation

The NATO Channel

KCTV

KCNA

Department of Defense (US)
"The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement."

Music:

[hirumaryuei]

I realize this is an old video, but I was stationed in a base camp with a Patriot battery during OIF and I was one of the netadmins that administered their computers. I'm not sure how many missiles that were shot down were ballistic but that battery fired a lot of times (like dozens of times). Their SOP seemed to be to fire four Patriot missiles per hostile missile, and only two missile attacks got past the battery -- the battery did not fire on either of the two missiles at all (it didn't detect them or the crew didn't notice in time) and both hit pretty close to some critical shit. The other times (many, many times) you could hear the launch, then followed by a pop off in the distance, then three more when the missiles that did not intercept self-destructed.


One of the two missiles that weren't intercepted hit my camp (not anything important, but close to) so I have a lot of respect for all the missiles I could hear getting stopped by that battery before they hit us.

[JonatasAdoM]

4:28 Loved how the blast also took half the city

[JonatasAdoM]

"We didn't hit them, but they didn't bit us either. So.... success?"

[davidhouseman]

I didn't think Patriot as even supposed to be an anti ballistic missile system, I thought THAAD was for that. I'm impressed your PAC 3 is somewhat effective.

[moienahmadi]

"Is the Patriot Missile Worthless?
" Yes (RIP Saudi Aramco)

[LRRPFco]

We (2nd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division) were in Kuwait at Kuwaiti International Airport in early 2003, when Saddam fired multiple SCUDs at us. 3 of them that were fired at us and all of them were intercepted by Patriot batteries. There was a Silkworm copy fired at Kuwaiti City that skimmed the sea, and impacted the piers in the harbor, blowing out some windows at a shopping mall. I don't think it was even detected, as we just heard the impact without any air raid sirens. With the SCUDs, we got air raid sirens, rushed into shelters, then heard the Patriots intercept the SCUDs with air detonations. There was also one British Tornado that was mistakenly shot down by a Patriot battery on their return from a bombing sortie in Iraq.

[JCO]

Saudi oil field/refinery attack. Yes, it's worthless.

[aniemaniem]

I guess after September 14, 2019 nobody can deny now that Patriot is useless. The problem of Patriot has been long known to Israel army as during the 1991-war in Iraq the Minister of Defense of Israel met George Bush (US President that time) and reported about the failure of Patriot. Patriot antimissile system was supposed to protect the sky over Israel from Iraq, but the percentage of intercepted Iraqi missiles by Patriot was close to zero. Inspite of that the very next day after meeting with the Israeli Minister of Defense George Bush publicly stated to the US citizens and soldiers that 41 out of 42 Iraqi missiles were intercepted. As a result, Israel started to develop their own antimissle system.

[farshads]

huh!
Supposing it's true that none of the BMs were shot down, they must be really imprecise as there has been almost no casualty although around 10 of 'em has been fired.
Great and high level job!

[Rando]

I was in Riyadh the time of the incident I felt the whole house, which is located in the middle of Riyadh, shaking multiple times I am pretty sure that if the missiles did hit the grounds there would have been more than the one casuality that died because of the clashed debris

[ebdhudnav]

Starting to think we are selling downgraded systems to other countries.

[NationalSniper]

The PAC2 is designed for use against aircraft with a secondary role as anti-missile, a role for which it was never designed. It has this capability so it can do it when nothing else is available..
The PAC3 however is designed to shoot down missiles and as such is much more capable in this role. The PAC2 should be rated in its effectiveness against aircraft.

As a SAM I prefer the SM series as it appears more capable. Would it be possible to make a semi-mobile land system out of is similar to the Patriot system?

[Burton]

if they didnt take the missiles down...well where did they hit the ground? i bet they hitted otherwise you would heard about the impacts

[Jeffrey]

The Scuds that Hussein fired at Israel were very flimsy in their design. It is possible that during flight the slightest amount of damage could cause them to break up in midair

[mohaamd_]

I'm quite confused, your story is missing something.
On Mar 26th, the Houthi rebels announced that they've successfully launched 7 IRBM-ballistic missiles on various parts of KSA, five missiles on the Capital Riyadh.
At midnight, the Saudi Royal Air Defense reported that all ballistic missiles have been intercepted successfully.
If their stories aren't true, then where did these missiles hit?
There are no reports what so ever about Houthi missiles actually hitting their targets and exploding.

I'm confused, could you clarify please?

[billyost]

The issue during the Gulf war was a digital timing issue. Caused by leaving the system on over a short period of time, just a few days. The longer the system was on and in standby the time error became more inaccurate. This problem was eventually fixed and the Patriot does do what it was meant to do.

[ignaciohavok]

Please do a video on the recent coalition strike in Syria and clarify if the Syrian government where able to shoot down any tomahawk

[paez]

if the Houthi fire several missiles and all Pattiots failed, why did only one make its target?

[kitsychan]

you don't cover the "out of sync timer" issue. the pac 1 and 2's suffered from an operational over time degradation. What this means is, the "timers" between the radar and missiles would slowly drift out of sync the longer the system was active. Israel found out about this and came up with the protocal of resetting the system every 6 hours, though some patches and upgrades have fixed the problem in some systems. The timing error meant intercept points in space, would be calculated with incorrect timings. The actual point vs the calculated point would slowly drift apart, and after a system was active for days, the drift could be as much as 10 miles. This accounted for a HUGE number of misses as neither the US nor Saudies shut off their systems during the war. When this issue was fixed the US follows israel in shutting down every 6 hours and rebooting.

[Peizxcv]

The version sold to Saudi Arabia is the "export safe" version. Essentially only effective against anything below F-16