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From: PAPAI@kcgl1.eng.ohio-state.edu (Jonathan Papai)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Patriot
Message-ID: <1991Apr18.032836.22513@amd.com>
Date: 17 Apr 91 17:58:58 GMT
References: <1991Apr12.055424.14676@amd.com> <1991Apr11.033353.4075@amd.com> <1991Apr17.055525.13701@amd.com>
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From: PAPAI@kcgl1.eng.ohio-state.edu (Jonathan Papai)


More Patriot stuff, with references:

>From the "Wall Street Journal", 15 APR 19, page A16

BEGIN QUOTE
Scud Score Card
Scud missiles fired by Iraq that reached populated areas
within Israel during the Gulf War:

Date   Number of SCUDS    Target    Dead  Wounded    Apartments Damaged

Jan 18		6	Tel Aviv      0     68          1009
Jan 18		2        Haifa        0      0           100
Jan 19		5       Tel Aviv      0     47          1589

Jan 20     Patroits Deployed

Jan 22          1        Ramat Gan    3     96          1726
Jan 23          1       Haifa         0      0           900
Jan 25          6   Metro Tel Aviv    1     44          4156
Jan 25          1       Haifa         0      0           700
Feb 9           1   Metro Tel Aviv    0     27          1111
Feb 12          1   Metro Tel Aviv    0      7           436

Sources:  Ma'ariv; Avner Cohen, MIT

"  Squables between Israeli and American Patriot operators were part of
the reason for the damage, say officials involved.  In one instance,
the order to fire wasn't given until it was too late to hit the SCUD.
In at least one other instance, the operators fired the Patriots
at such a low altitude that they followed a Scud part to the ground,
where they all exploded.  The Patriot wasn't designed to protect cities
in Israel, says an Army spokesman, because it 'couldn't keep
debris from landing.' "
END OF QUOTE

The article goes on to discuss the political reasons behind the
pro-Patriot assessment of the Army and the anti-Patriot assessment of
the Israelies, including the Israeli Arrow project.

The scuds apparently all broke up on re-entry to the atmosphere
because they were not designed for as large a range as they were fired.
This made a more difficult job of target acquisition for the Patriots.
Due to this breaking up into several pieces, MIT engineering professor
Joseph Shea, formerly of Raytheon, says "The Scud turned out to be
a sophisticated target, almost by accident".

Many more anecdotal stories about the Patriots and Scuds in the article.
How about the idea of a missile that releases several decoys
to distract anti-missile defence on purpose?

-- 
Jon Papai
Papai@kcgl.eng.ohio-state.edu