View attachment 113812
He's not asking for a lot, just 50 more Patriot batteries over the two he got so far.
Well, by this doc :
U.S. Army PATRIOT Units and Readiness Considerations Because the PATRIOT battery and associated interceptors being sent to Ukraine could be taken from existing Army units and stockpiles, an understanding of PATRIOT in the basic force structure and related readiness issues could prove useful to policymakers. According to the Army, there are 15 PATRIOT battalions, all of which are in the Active Component. CSIS further notes
Each batalion has 4 battery.
The USA has 60 Patriot batteries, so Ukraine is asking "just" for 86% of USA patriot system.
Sorry, it is ALL system in practice, 4 batteries under modernisation, so after sending 50 to Ukriane the USA will be left with 6 PAtriot batteries.
If we consider that Ukraine had around 100 S-300 battery then ALL of the USA patriot inventory could replace half of the lost Ukrainan SAM systems.
Prior to the
, the country had around 100 batteries.
It received an additional battery from Slovakia in April 2022.
Additional gem :
PATRIOT System Costs Official PATRIOT system cost figures are not publicly available. According to a December 16, 2022, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) article, “Patriot to Ukraine: What Does it Mean?,” a newly produced PATRIOT battery costs about $1.1 billion, including about $400 million for the system and about $690 million for the missiles. CSIS further suggests future U.S. PATRIOT battalions (U.S. PATRIOT battalions consist of four PATRIOT batteries) could cost up to $1.27 billion dollars apiece without missiles. PATRIOT interceptors are estimated to cost about $4 million per missile
Not a suprise the backwardness of the PAtriot, considering its low production volume compared to the S-300 systems.
Only six set received higher power MPQ-65 radars, but those are still small, X band radars, without options for mast, lacking S band search function, and so on.
Again , the USA Patriot is primitive, backwards , but at least cheap . Not for the army, but for the manufacturer.
PAthetic, isn't it?