"Despite billions spent on missile shields, US..." Topic

… troops were defenseless when Iran attacked

"In the early morning darkness of Jan. 8, several thousand U.S. troops huddled in Saddam Hussein-era bunkers in western Iraq as 11 ballistic missiles rained destruction on parts of the sprawling al Asad air base — Iran's promised "harsh revenge" for the killing of its top general, Qassem Soleimani, in a U.S. drone strike five days earlier.

The night sky lit up, and the bunkers shook as two waves of missiles struck over an hour and a half, sending a shockwave through the air and rattling some American troops who were above ground standing watch…"
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Amicalement
Armand

"Most of the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on missile defense over the past 40 years have been squandered on unworkable plans to intercept long-range missiles. We still do not have effective defenses against short- and medium-range missiles that represent the greatest threat to our troops," says Joseph Cirincione, the head of Ploughshares Fund, an arms control advocacy group.

Meh. Not only is Ploughshares a remnant of the Soviet funded "Freeze" movement from the Cold War, more recently they worked with Ben Rhoades in the Obama Admin to propagandize for the Iran nuclear deal. So Cirincione's seeming call for better local missile defenses is just a clever way to backhand missile defense spending general since they have always been a vocal opponent of such systems. Heck a few years back they were all in favor of Obama's actions to cancel plans for missile defenses in Europe.

Might have been a different result if Patriot missile batteries had been deployed at those bases. Just sayin'…

The US does not want a war with Iran. Our forces stationed in Iraq are there to train the Iraqi army in their fight against ISIS, which had taken over large swathes of their country until the current administration actually did something about it and took the handcuffs off our military. Deploying Patriot batteries would add a bigger footprint at a time when our goal should be to have a smaller footprint in Iraq. A Patriot battery is much more than just the missiles; it's all the support personnel and equipment. And more personnel means more security, more lodging, more cooks, more of everything else in a time when the goal should be fewer and eventually zero military presence in Iraq.

I was wondering the same especially since they were "ballistic" missiles. Don't we have laser platforms set up just for these things?

My thought as to why we didn't shoot Patriots as they re-entered was because there were probably so many coalition planes and drones in the air at the time.

A fellow I know very well was in charge of a Patriot battery in Iraq when Sadam was throwing Skuds. His battery saw action in one particular Skud attack. Of the 4 Skuds they shot at, their record was 3-1-1….. 3 hits 1 miss and 1 hit. That last hit was a coalition plane. British. Pilot was OK.

So… the US bases and military positions have not anti-missiles?… how that happened?

Amicalement
Armand

You mean "Iraqi" bases? The US has no bases in Iraq, just US troops at Iraqi bases. :-)

I don't know Tango. I assumed that those locations did not have Patriots, maybe for the reasons I stated above.

Thanks!.

Amicalement
Armand

From what I've read it is seriously questionable whether US anti-missile systems could stop a mass swarm of missiles.

Patriot systems haven't been able to intercept all Houthi ballistic missiles launched from Yemen even though these have not been launched in massed volleys. In a number of instances, Houthis have hit Saudi cities and have also effectively used ballistic missiles in a tactical role to wipe out large concentrations of enemy troops (as recently as this weekend!).

The same actually applies to Israel's Iron Dome system. For example Israel claims an 86% kill rate in May 2019. That only applies to 240 missiles out of 690 launched. So Iron Dome hit 240 missiles and destroyed 205 of them. 90 apparently never reached Israel. So what happened to the other 360 rockets launched!?! Most likely they hit unpopulated areas due to shonky guidance, but it is not known if IDF tried to shoot them down or not.

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In the end the old maxim applies that the best defence is offence (ie destroying the missile launch systems).

Thanks also!.

Amicalement
Armand