Patriot launcher in progress

[MontyVCB 0]

hasn't the patriot had a upgrade recently that makes far more effective than it was in 1991? just wondering

Jag baby loving your work

[Guest RKSL-Rock]

hasn't the patriot had a upgrade recently that makes far more effective than it was in 1991? just wondering  

Jag baby loving your work  

Yeah it has the PAC-3...but its still not really been seriously tried in combat since '91.

Jag have you asked the Combat team about converting their HEMMTs to the tractor unit? It would save you a lot of time and speed up release.

[DKM Jaguar 0]

Already have BAS's, it's not really far enough to take pictures of yet.

[tug2000 0]

Looking very nice Jag.

Quick question, was it not a patriot which shot down one of our (British) Tornados 2 years ago?

[Guest RKSL-Rock]

Looking very nice Jag.

Quick question, was it not a patriot which shot down one of our (British) Tornados 2 years ago?

Yes it was.  While it was on approach to an airfield at about 250kts and 4000ft according to the official report.

BBC News Link

[FerretFangs 0]

The Tornado had a malfuctioning, or nonfuctioning IFF transponder. The Patriot system engages targets directed by artificial intelligence. It's programmed to engage unidentifed contacts, no matter whose side they are on.

[mr reality 0]

The Tornado had a malfuctioning, or nonfuctioning IFF transponder. The Patriot system engages targets directed by artificial intelligence. It's programmed to engage unidentifed contacts, no matter whose side they are on.

That tells me the system is flawed. It seems it's no better at judging a target than an ironage catapult

[Ex-RoNiN 0]

The Tornado had a malfuctioning, or nonfuctioning IFF transponder. The Patriot system engages targets directed by artificial intelligence. It's programmed to engage unidentifed contacts, no matter whose side they are on.

Whoever wrote the software deserves a bullet in his head. That's not artificial intelligence, that's a single line:

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">

If (IFF.code != 1) { fire;}

[Guest RKSL-Rock]

The Tornado had a malfuctioning, or nonfuctioning IFF transponder. The Patriot system engages targets directed by artificial intelligence. It's programmed to engage unidentifed contacts, no matter whose side they are on.

Whoever wrote the software deserves a bullet in his head. That's not artificial intelligence, that's a single line:

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">

If (IFF.code != 1) { fire;}

The report conclude that while the Tornado's IFF may have not been functioning the Patriots software protocols were not tight enough to prevent Friendly targets from being wrongly classifed as enemy missiles.

THe majority of the aircrew in the RAF were very unhappy with the fence sitting on the report.  Internal RAF enquires have yet to explain how the IFF could have failed.  No one has yet been able to make the same model fail in the same way before or since. It was seen by some as a politicla result so as not to disturb the straining UK/US relations already resulting from the rising number of "Blue on Blue" incidents.

Official RAF/MoD Report into the incident.

Read it and draw your own conclusions.

[FerretFangs 0]

All electronics fail from time to time. Wrong place, wrong time, and the wrong people died. The system did as it was programmed, and designed to do.

All PAC3 missiles launched destroyed their targets, including the blue on blue incidents. It's sad, but that's 100% performance. Which is better than what anyone could have hoped for, following Desert Storm.

And once again, lessons were learned. I'm sure PAC4 will be even better.

[Guest RKSL-Rock]

All electronics fail from time to time. Wrong place, wrong time, and the wrong people died. The system did as it was programmed, and designed to do.

All PAC3 missiles launched destroyed their targets, including the blue on blue incidents. It's sad, but that's 100% performance. Which is better than what anyone could have hoped for, following Desert Storm.

And once again, lessons were learned. I'm sure PAC4 will be even better.

It wasnt really the electronics...in reality the system did not function as it was designed to. This wasnt due to a hardware fault it was down to poor logistics and control. The system wasnt tied into the comms network as it should be. "This contributed to the incident". The units control and communcation system was still in the states. It was operating in self defence mode, it then went on to incorrectly identify a target killing a friendly crew.

Thats not a failure, thats a criminal mistake. According to the US/Allied guidelines at the time the setup (ie no comms link) was not recommended although not against the rules. It is now.

The software was so lax that it couldnt tell the difference between a 22m aircraft and a 3.5m missile is ridiculously incompetent.

The fact that the missile hit the target doesn make a good system. The fact that it cant tell friend from foe makes it a pretty bad piece of kit in my book, and interestingly enough in the RAF's.

Since that report was issued a directive was issed about fly zones around patriot missile systems. Entry and exit points from combat zones for UK aircraft no longer fly along routes 'protected' by patriots.

The possible exception is at Dharan when the book says you light everything up and hang out the laundry just to make sure you dont get hit. Its also noteworthy that the US DoD made the statement that Patriot's would no longer be operated in automous firing modes.

That really doesnt sound like a reliable weapons system.

[FerretFangs 0]

I felt better being under it's umbrella during the last war, and that was PAC2. Tis better to have a SAM that shoots down everything, than one that shoots down nothing.

[Guest RKSL-Rock]

I felt better being under it's umbrella during the last war, and that was PAC2. Tis better to have a SAM that shoots down everything, than one that shoots down nothing.

Could you be any more insensitive?

You are basically saying "yeah i dont care if it kills innocents, as long as it dosen't kill me".

You have absolutely no idea do you.

[DKM Jaguar 0]

The 100% kill record being quoted is highly dubious.

Almost all of the interception attempts in 2003 were done using the "ripple fire" attack where numbers of missiles are fired against a single inbound threat in the hope that one will hit, if the others don't. Kills were not one-on-one, so when putting a single launcher against a single missile it would be more of an indication of the accuracy.

Also, the 2003 interceptions were against a slow-moving type of missile with limited 100mile range, thought to be "Ababils", and not scuds, so as a side note their effectiveness against scuds is still unknown even in the modern systems.

Talking of the Patriot upsetting the friendlies, I heard an F-16 was forced to fire on the radar system for a Patriot battery a few days after the Tornado incident after it began tracking and "locked" onto the fighter, to avoid being shot at itself.

[ralphwiggum 6]

Ralph if this cannot be a debate about the techincal aspects of the Patriot (which directly effect the ingame version) then what's the point of this thread?  

unfortunately this kind of "discussion" turns in to flamefest of politics/national ego.

as i expected some people went on to discuss the friendly fire incident and is on verge of throwing knuckles at each other.

to stop this potential flamewar, i'm going to lock this thread until their are any significant development, such as a mod team actually getting something done conclusively.