The Ukrainian claim is in that engagement they downed 6 Kinzhals, 9 Kalibrs and 3 Iskanders.
We don’t need to take the Ukrainian claims as totally accurate, but it’s worth at least including that the battery of patriots were fired at more than just the 2-6 Kinzhal missiles that you tallied (at least when we want to look at annual production rates).
The Russian’s haven’t been able to sustain a launch rate of once a month with smaller attacks. This attack was an unusually high density. Expending three weeks production capacity to fend off an attack that can be launched at most every 2-3 months seems… manageable.
In terms of this conflict, also worth considering that Patriot isn’t the only system in Ukraine, so if production of Patriot missiles becomes a constraint, they can shift more AD burden to IRIS-T and other European systems.
When considering the broader implications to the US, I think it’s not exactly right to describe Patriot as our “existing missile defense”. We have a number of other missile defense systems such as NASAMs and THAAD that occupy complimentary roles to the Patriot systems. If anything based on the performance of Patriot in Ukraine I have more confidence than I previously did in our missile defense systems. Performance in real world conditions has seemed pretty good to me.
We don’t need to take the Ukrainian claims as totally accurate, but it’s worth at least including that the battery of patriots were fired at more than just the 2-6 Kinzhal missiles that you tallied (at least when we want to look at annual production rates).
The Russian’s haven’t been able to sustain a launch rate of once a month with smaller attacks. This attack was an unusually high density. Expending three weeks production capacity to fend off an attack that can be launched at most every 2-3 months seems… manageable.
In terms of this conflict, also worth considering that Patriot isn’t the only system in Ukraine, so if production of Patriot missiles becomes a constraint, they can shift more AD burden to IRIS-T and other European systems.
When considering the broader implications to the US, I think it’s not exactly right to describe Patriot as our “existing missile defense”. We have a number of other missile defense systems such as NASAMs and THAAD that occupy complimentary roles to the Patriot systems. If anything based on the performance of Patriot in Ukraine I have more confidence than I previously did in our missile defense systems. Performance in real world conditions has seemed pretty good to me.