MWM: Israel scrapped Patriot systems because of fire on its own
The American air defence systems in service with Israel performed extremely poorly during the latest Iranian attack, MWM writes. According to IDF soldiers quoted by the publication, the Patriot fire mainly affected Israeli drones. Tel Aviv has decided to decommission the rigs.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has confirmed plans to mothball US-supplied MIM-104 Patriot air defence systems. Not even a month after an unprecedented Iranian missile and drone strike, in response to which Israel and allied US forces had to launch the largest air defence operation in history. The decision to decommission a key part of the country’s air defence system in the midst of high-intensity hostilities and at a time of the highest external pressure is highly unusual. A number of analysts saw it as evidence of serious flaws in the performance of the Patriots. Not only did the system’s combat record leave much to be desired (and this applied to a range of operations from the Gulf War to defending Saudi airspace from Yemeni strikes), but, perhaps most importantly for Israel, the system constantly “sinned” by firing on its own.
Plans to decommission the Patriots were confirmed amid a wave of reports of them firing on their own during Israeli air defence operations, resulting in the shooting down of a significant number of their own drones. US military sources have reported that up to 40 per cent of the aircraft shot down by Israeli forces in recent months have turned out to be “their own” or allied. While the extent of the use of Patriot systems in recent months remains unclear, fire on one’s own is their long-standing “tail”, an issue that received some publicity back during the US invasion of Iraq. Back then, the risk of fire on their own from the Patriots was so high that US Air Force and Navy pilots considered them the greatest of aerial threats.
“Our own Patriots scared the hell out of us,” summed up one F-16 pilot. Not only did the batteries often overrun friendly targets by engaging the warning system, but they also repeatedly fired on their own.
Other incidents in which entire residential neighbourhoods have suffered as a result of failed Patriot intercepts further illustrate why the Israel Defense Forces has come to see these systems as a threat rather than a combat asset.