From: bwallet%apssgi@relay.nswc.navy.mil (Brad Wallet)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Anti-Patriot media is at it again
Date: 1 Oct 92 12:19:27 GMT
Organization: Naval Surface Warfare Center


From bwallet%apssgi@relay.nswc.navy.mil (Brad Wallet)

In article <BvCC2D.3tw@lawday.DaytonOH.NCR.COM>, Dan C Duval <thedemon@world.std.com> writes:
|> Raytheon's position was that the Patriot is an unqualified success. The
|> anti-Patriot expert (whose name I cannot remember) felt that the system
|> was at best 40% successful. The Army reps said that they were too busy
|> fighting the war to count hits and misses and that, regardless of the score,
|> Patriot was better than having nothing.

As a technical person, I must say that I believe a 40% success rate at
hitting a ballistic missile is an excellent achievement for a first 
generation system.  How fast does a Scud come in?  Mach 5 or 6 or so?
Not an easy target.  ABM systems will get better.  40% is good enough
to prove the concept works.

|> My conclusion after watching the program: any system that lets a functional
|> warhead through even after three "hits" (according to Raytheon) is at best
|> a qualified success. On top of this, it doesn't matter to me if I'm hit by
|> an active warhead or or by 1000 lbs of debris traveling just under the
|> speed of sound. If the warhead contains (contained) chemical or biological
|> agents, I'm probably still screwed when the debris arrives. The only time
|> it appears that the debris is a better choice is when the missile was
|> carrying a nuclear weapon, when I might be willing to give a Patriot its
|> 40%+ shot rather than do nothing at all.

But, the debris will land in a different place than were it would have
otherwise.  This fact is lost because the Scud was so inaccurate.  Against
a real missile, this would be very important.

Besides, there really isn't anything that can be done about the debris.
Short of teleporting or vaporising the missile, what goes up must come
down.

|> In terms of efficiency, exchanging three Patriots for one Scud is a losing
|> proposition, when each Patriot lauching costs more than the launching of a
|> Scud (I do hope you are including the radars, launchers, crews. etc when
|> computing the cost of a launch.) This exchange rate might be fine for a war
|> of attrition with a third-rate power, but loses when your enemy has equal or
|> greater resources in the theater of operations or can force the Patriots to
|> be scattered out over a large area of protection.

Victory in a war is not decided by who spent the least.  Sure, we like to 
design systems to cost much, much less than the object being destroyed.
It is good business sense.  But, sometimes, it is absolutely critical to
take something out.  When a war is being fought, how much a piece of 
equipment cost begins to lose meaning.  Somethings are so critical that
you need a silver bullet.  When a ballistic missile is flying towards a
barracks of men, generals should not being doing cost analysis calculations.
Who one a war is not decided by accountants.

But, if you are doing cost analysis, you have to compare the overall effort.
Patriots only got the few that managed to get launched.  You have to include
the cost of the ones that were destroyed on the ground or forced into hiding.
But, then, you have to include our A-10's that hunted them.  Then, what
about the runways?  CAP's?  Intelligence?  And, for the Iraqis, you have
bunker costs, kickbacks to get the heavy equipment to build bunkers, dummy
launchers set up to fool A-10's, and the cost of the equipment needed to 
watch CNN to monitor the success of the Scud's.  Want to try and do all this.

-------------------------------------------------
Brad Wallet                 Mathematician
bwallet@see.nswc.navy.mil   Naval Surface Warfare Center
(703)663-4950               (AVN)249-4950
DSMAC - "Tomahawk's Eyes"
"I can neither confirm nor deny that these opinions
are entirely my own and may or may not reflect those
of the US Navy." 
Newsgroups: sci.military