- The Patriot is a missile air protection system that may attain aerial targets as much as 66,000 ft.
- It’s a extremely sought-after protection system that prices $1.1 billion every.
- The US has lately doubled the variety of Patriot batteries within the Middle East, WSJ reported.
The US has despatched extra of its beneficial surface-to-air missile protection methods, often called the Patriot battery, to the Middle East following assaults on American troops in Iraq and Syria in latest weeks, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Dozens of US troops in Iraq and Syria have been injured prior to now month as a consequence of assaults that the Pentagon has attributed to Iran-backed militia teams.
Pentagon officers mentioned that militant teams have carried out almost 50 assaults since October 17 on bases housing US personnel, The Associated Press reported. These assaults have been carried out with rockets and drones, officers say.
In response to the “recent escalations by Iran and its proxy forces across the Middle East Region,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin introduced on October 21 a number of steps to extend “force posture,” together with the deployment of extra Patriot battalions all through the area.
The Department of Defense didn’t disclose the variety of Patriot batteries it was sending. Still, folks acquainted with the matter instructed the Journal that the US had despatched six, doubling the variety of protection methods that have been already deployed.
It’s not identified exactly the place these methods might be deployed.
According to the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, a nonprofit that promotes ballistic missile protection improvement, Israel at the moment operates three Patriot batteries. These methods have been vital to the nation’s air protection in the course of the 2014 Gaza War, taking down armed unmanned aerial automobiles and different plane.
A DOD spokesperson declined to offer additional remark.
The missile protection methods are produced by Raytheon, a contractee of the US authorities, and price about $1.1 billion every.
Some of the numerous parts of the system embody a launching system for the missiles, a radar that detects targets, a management station, and a generator, in response to a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report.
Though official ranges are unknown, the CRS report said that the “flight ceiling” for one of many interceptors is about 20 km or about 66,000 ft.
Eighteen nations at the moment function Patriot, in response to the Center for Strategic & International Studies, together with Ukraine, which obtained the primary one from the US in April.
US officers have mentioned that the protection system has been used to shoot down a Russian hypersonic missile and to defend itself from assaults.
