2023-

2023-05-21 a
THE STATE OF THE DISUNION I


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I counted 30 Patriot PAC-3 MSE launches here.

The FY2024 costs of these per missile is about $$5,275,000

That was $158,250,000 fired in about two minutes. And as we see, the battery or something else likely got blown up. So it failed in its mission. pic.twitter.com/9rwPnHkNGu

— Fennec_Radar (@RadarFennec) May 16, 2023

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Let’s break down in depth exactly what happened on the night of the Patriot attack and catch up on the known facts and speculations. Here’s what is known so far:

Russia was said to have conducted a layered, multi-vectored attack which came from various sides including north, east, and south, which included both Geran drones as screening cover, Kalibr missiles, Kh-101s, and finally the Kinzhals. The attack also likely included other cheaper types of drones as decoys to saturate the air defense, and in fact Kiev does attest to that, as in their official ‘shoot down’ graphic they include several drones they comically ID’d as Orlan ‘Supercum’ which was later changed to ‘Supercam’.

First, let’s break down how such an attack happens. Most logically, the cheaper decoy drones are sent in first to see if they can bait out any of the air defense into opening up on them. Kiev would try to use only its less important SHORAD (Short Range AD) systems against them, such as German Gepards and any Tunguskas/Shilkas and such that they might have.

Next would come the cruise missiles in order to bait out the true high value AD that may have held back with the first wave, and which Ukraine’s SHORAD systems may be useless against. Once the Patriot/SAMP-T/Iris-T/NASAMs/Crotale, etc., start opening up on the cruise missiles, Russia will be watching as closely as possible, with a variety of methods, in order to try to identify the air defense positions. I’ll get to those methods a little later.

It should be stated that there are certain positions Russia already knows are likely, and are prefigured into their search matrices. For instance, Mim-104 Patriot system is an extremely complex and large system, you can’t just set it up anywhere, like in the middle of an apartment building courtyard or something like that. These systems not only require a lot of room but also, since they are much less mobile than drivable units like Gepards and such, they are preferably situated somewhere that doesn’t have a lot of civilian ‘eyes’ in the area, so that no one films or rats them out, whether accidentally or not.

This leaves only a few real, solid choices where you can put such a system. And they are almost always put in airports, as an example. It comes as no surprise then that during the attacks on 5/16, word now has it that two of the Patriots were located at Zhuliany airport in Kiev and one at or near the Zoo, as per the following from Rybar:

About the destruction of the Patriot air defense system in Kyiv

Last night, the Russian Armed Forces destroyed at least one launcher of the Patriot anti-aircraft missile system in Kyiv. Rybar's team managed to establish the exact location of the anti-aircraft battery. In total, there were three launchers in the positional area at the Zhuliany airport, where the "Kinzal" hit.

Coordinates: 50.404161, 30.443186

Another place where the work of the Ukrainian air defense was noticed was the vicinity of the Kyiv zoo, where the fragments of the fired missiles fell. The complex itself worked in close proximity to the Kyiv Polytechnic University named after Sikorsky.

Coordinates: 50.452699, 30.459805

As for the airfield "Zhulyany", footage from the surveillance camera got into the Network. In the video, you can clearly see the launches of 32 missiles (a total of 16 for each launcher), as well as the work of barreled anti-aircraft artillery - apparently, the Patriots were covered by the Gepard.

After the ammunition load was used up, an explosion was heard: the Russian "Kinzal" managed to hit the positional area, despite "Patriots" and one "Gepard".

One was destroyed, the second was seriously damaged, but survived. The third launcher escaped damage.

Two installations stood side by side, and the third - behind the building. The Russian "Kinzal" flew between the installations, but closer to the first: there was a detonation of the fuel.

Pieces of the first installation and pieces of soil / asphalt riddled the second.

Why the third installation in Zhuliany was not involved and did not participate in repulsing the strike (or, at least, its launches were not caught on video) is a question to which we have no answer.

If you, your loved ones and relatives have information about the affected objects, enemy movements or any other sensitive information that can help our troops, feel free to write to our bot @rybar_feedback_bot.

We guarantee confidentiality.

I left in their request at the end, for anyone with information on the Patriot’s destruction to ‘come forward’ confidentially, as that will play a role in later information that is being received.

The above appears to confirm a large Patriot setup in the airport added between May 2nd and May 16th.

A quick primer on the system: the basic unit of a Patriot system is a ‘battery’ which is said to consist of up to 8 launchers. These launchers can have 4 missiles each, although there are newer ones with 8 and 16 missiles like that pictured below. Ukraine was said to have received 2 batteries of Patriots total, one from Germany and another from the U.S., but it is uncertain if they’re both deployed in Kiev or even both deployed at all.

It’s almost universally recognized now that the Patriot system fired 32 missiles in the videos seen on May 16. This corresponds to either a full battery of 8 launchers firing all 4 of their missiles (8 x 4 = 32), however there’s now evidence that they in fact had two of the 16-count launchers, and fired off both of them, which I describe a little further below.

Next: how do we know for certain they were Patriots that fired that 32 missile salvo? Firstly, we know it’s all one missile type as the salvo came from the same place on video, which appeared to be at least 2-3 separate launchers positioned relatively close to each other.

Secondly, the Patriot famously fires its missiles at an inclined angle as can be seen below:

The launches of the missiles are carried out on an inclined trajectory, which is due to the technical characteristics of the launcher. The launch angle of the rockets is fixed – 38° from the horizon line

Thirdly, launchers, as a rule, are placed compactly at the starting positions (in a row, square, semicircle, circle). This placement is again due to the TTX of the AN/MPQ-65 multifunctional radar, in which the tracking sector in the missile guidance mode is from +55 to -45 degrees in azimuth.

At the end of the video, after starting all the batteries, you can observe two consecutive explosions in the battery location area. Apparently, the defeat of the radar and KP, which are always placed together with the launcher, was carried out.

Therefore, the scenario of a night attack on Kiev looked like this: two waves of UAVs and "Calibers" caused a strike from the SAM battery, which, thus, discovered its location, where the "Kinzhal" arrived"

In the May 16 attack videos, you can see the missiles firing at exactly this roughly 45 degree angle:

Many other missile systems like Ukraine’s Iris-T and S-300s for instance, fire straight up, and would be easily identifiable on video:

The other smoking gun of course is that now several apparently failed Patriot missiles have been recovered from the ground and have been identified as the variant which is fired from 16-count launchers:

And also about "Patriot". On the use of the latest American anti-aircraft missiles by the Ukrainian
Armed Forces, footage with fragments of ammunition made it possible to accurately determine the type of missiles that the Ukrainian formations used that night: they turned out to be the American PAC-3 Cost Reduction Initiative (CRI), as indicated by the characteristic design elements.
These high-speed interceptors were first tested in 2011 and are used from 16-charge M902 launchers of the American MIM-104 Patriot complex. The remains of these items found on the streets of Kiev objectively confirm the transfer of the latest missile defense systems to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
The delivery of these missiles, along with the transfer of other Western-made air defense systems, indicates the serious intentions of NATO countries to "close the sky" over the Ukrainian capital.

This brings up the next issue: a lot of the Patriot missiles appeared to fail. These fallen pieces are not ‘discarded rocket stages’ or anything like that, but the actual missile heads themselves. In fact, we have photo proof that several of them “failed” mid-flight and did the famous ‘Patriot maneuver’ caught long ago in Saudi Arabia:

[...]

And here are photos from the night of May 16th when at least 2 separate Patriot missiles looped their trajectory back down towards the ground:

The Patriot appears to have some kind of critical problem with a very high failure rate. It’s no surprise that the following findings were delivered to the U.S. Congress after the Gulf War:

One author:

To me it appears that: 32 Patriot missiles were fired by the patriot battery, of these 2 were catastrophic misfires that fell down almost immediately after launch, probably landing inside Kyiv, several others appears to be guidance failures that went off in random directions, and 1 failed to fire at all. It appears like the full load of 2 launch units with PAC-3 missiles…

Point defense, is the mode in which an anti air system defends it’s own location, it is the optimal mode of engagement for an anti aircraft missile. If 32 attempts in the optimal mode for an anti aircraft missile fails, it should tell you that in area defense mode (defending targets in an area away from the launcher against targets not coming at the launcher) the system will perform far worse. 

Recall how in a recent article I highlighted the infamous event of 1991 when the Patriot failed to intercept an Iraqi Scud which hit an American base, killing 28 troops. They blamed that incident on a ‘software failure’ where the Patriot’s radar failed to properly track the missile due to a bug. The fact is, when you add them all up, the Patriot has an absolutely catastrophic track record, arguably worse than the F-35 as far more lives count on the Patriot succeeding than any single F-35 craft.

In the Abqaiq–Khurais attack in Saudi Arabia the Patriot failed to stop any missiles, and again, excuses were manufactured:

The Houthis even managed to destroy an entire Patriot system:

One of the chief issues is the Patriot radar has huge blind spots as it’s not a 360 radar, and can only function well amid a highly layered AD network, combined with other medium range and SHORAD options:

From PlutoniumGeneral:

MPQ 53/65 series radars has serious blind spot issues

Abaqiq attack scenario by Iran ,completely caught it off guard

You need 2 radars to cover 240 degree field of view and engage - Qatar setup with the newer 65 .

So far evidence of one system = 1 radar was Kiev (120 degree frontal cone view) now u you can see what problem it leads to when under attack from multiple direction

2 Kinzhall running from near opposite directions can pincer it = 100 % certain , no if

(dropped at about the same from air carriers )

https://missiledefenseadvocacy.org/defense-systems/anmpq-5365-radar/#:~:text=%5Biii%5D%20The%20radar%20can%20detect,range%20of%20over%20100%20km.

US and Kiev regimes made a serious gamble to put this system (designed to fail in limited numbers against peer foe) into "very hot waters"

There is a new LTAMDS radar with 360 degree view but its side radar elements are much weaker performance compare to the main dish , and only entered service in 2022 . Even that wouldn't helped much against pincer HGV attack

https://www.militaryaerospace.com/sensors/article/14284931/radar-hypersonic-upgrades

Now that we’ve covered the rudiments of the Patriot, let’s return to the attack. Apart from the Pentagon confirming at least a partial hit, and Russian MOD confirming full destruction, how do we know the Patriot was hit? This is only for those who haven’t followed the events at all, but the following video shows the arrivals: Video Link.

This is a truncated version of a longer video which shows many Patriot missiles firing from that location. But at the 0:30 second mark you can see two massive hits land exactly where the missiles were firing from. After the first hit, you can even see what appears to be two random missiles shoot out, likely ammo cooking off and shooting away violently in the fashion we’ve seen many times before when Russian strikes have hit Ukrainian MLRS units, etc.

Some have even attempted to geolocate the camera location:

Not long after the strikes, at around the 1:30 mark you can see thick dark smoke rising in two separate spots exactly over where the launchers had been firing from, indicating the likely destruction of both launchers and/or radar systems.

A separate video was published from a different location where a shocked male voice is heard stating on camera that the explosions happened right where the AD was firing from, confirming that there appeared to be a direct hit.

I had mentioned that Russian MOD would have opened up the defenses with a sophisticated attack layered with decoys. They would have then monitored Kiev from a variety of observational platforms. This includes possibly drones, as Kiev AD would be very busy with the missile barrage, there could be drones with electronic suites (like Orlan-30s or Orions) somewhere north of Kiev, close enough to observe signal readings, IR signatures, etc. Recall, that just a week or two ago, Kiev shot down their own Bayraktar TB2 drone, which appeared to not even be identified or engaged until it was well over the central districts of the capital. There is good chance Russia could sneak in a drone to within 50km or less of Kiev from the north and allow observation. Particularly, this could be done with the new Orion drones as they have good thermal cameras and very high altitude that, with clear conditions, could allow them to observe from a very distant range of at least 50-100km. And there have been recent videos released showing that the Russian MOD has in fact been using these Orions in precisely this role. You can see in this recent video how MOD is using them precisely to watch cities from afar, with its superior IR optics.

Secondly, the monitoring can be done with satellites. Geostationary satellites which work on signals can possibly pick out radar signal locations, whereas low earth orbit (LEO) optical satellites can try to take images, including SARs radar readings of likely positions. This is trickier because these satellites take upwards of an hour or more to circle the globe though several of them can be chained together, depending on how many you have, to circle at brief intermittent periods. Russia has at least 4-5 electro-optical spy sats and other signals/SARs ones as well.

The final and most useful method is AWACs. A Russian A-50U can fly comfortably deep in Russia’s border north of Kiev and still get a powerful reading from its rotodome radar. AWACs can have 400-600km+ range, though that’s for higher flying objects. The Russian border is only 80km north of Kiev. A basic calculation for radar horizon from this site gives us the following figure:

The A-50U’s service ceiling is 39,000ft. At this altitude, the AWACs radar can see or detect objects which are 1ft from the ground at a distance of up to 570km. Now, if this was a small plane, drone, etc., even though radar horizon allows it, the detection would likely not be possible, or at least difficult, due to the object’s small size. However, since the Patriot’s AN/MPQ-53/65 radar is a massively powerful emitter, it would glow like a nuclear explosion for the A-50U even at that distance. Like I said, the AWACs can fly just over the Russian border at 100-150km, and this would only be a fraction of its potential range. So in short, seeing powerful radar emissions from Kiev would not be a problem at all.

As can be seen by the rough chart above, the A-50U can detect something like an F-16 at 98 nautical miles or 180km. But this is a small RCS target it’s detecting with its own radar waves. The Patriot battery would be giving off massive radar signals probably equivalent to several gigantic RCS bomber planes, if not more. This would give it the equivalent detection range of the absolute end of the spectrum.

Most likely, Russia utilizes all three of the previously stated methods to monitor Kiev during the attack. There are likely even other more obscure methods we don’t know about, such as HUMINT on the ground assets, even hacking into Kiev street cameras or watching open source ones. There’s truth to this as it was announced soon after the May 16th strikes that Kiev was ordering the closure of most of its street cameras. It is very likely that Russia also has some moles on the ground in standby mode, reporting locations of AD missile launches, not to mention communications interceptions (rather than radar wave/signal interceptions) from other airborne and satellite assets which could clue them in to the sites.

These methods all work in unison in identifying the location of the missile batteries. What comes next is the following:

Firstly, there could be Russian Sukhois armed with Kh-31P anti-radiation missiles which do have a range of 110km, and even 160km+ for the latest PK variant. They could safely fire these missiles from over the Russian border onto the most powerful radiating source which would be the Patriot’s AN/MPQ-53/65 radars.

And then of course is the Kinzhal. If we take its alleged Mach 10 value, a Mig-31K / Tu-22M3, flying approximately 100-150km north of Kiev over the Russian border, could fire the Kinzhal and it would take a mere 90 seconds or so to arrive in Kiev.

This means that, using the above methods of monitoring, tracking, and observation, once the Russian MOD homes in on a Patriot battery / radar location, it can transfer the coordinates to the Mig-31Ks already in the air, and the Patriot operators would have only 90 seconds, which is nowhere near enough time for them to move or do anything to really save themselves. (read much more)

See also:

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