U.S. removing Patriot missiles from Turkey

a reply to: spy66

Slightly over two years later, a Turkish military official said the Syrian scud was not intercepted because it fell in an area outside the radar range of Patriot batteries in Turkey.
"Patriots cannot provide a blanket protection to vast lands in their vicinity," the official said. "They can only protect areas in their immediate vicinity."
Sitki Egeli, a missile defense expert, agrees. He said the Patriots are not designed to protect large swathes of land; wherever they are deployed, they can only protect areas in their near vicinity. And, Egeli said, the X-band NATO radar in Kurecik (in eastern Turkey) is designed not to intercept a Syrian scud coming from 180 kilometers away but (probably) an Iranian ballistic missile with a range of 2,000 kilometers.

www.defensenews.com...

Seems pretty straightforward. They can only protect so much area and their radar can only see so far.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: spy66

Slightly over two years later, a Turkish military official said the Syrian scud was not intercepted because it fell in an area outside the radar range of Patriot batteries in Turkey.
"Patriots cannot provide a blanket protection to vast lands in their vicinity," the official said. "They can only protect areas in their immediate vicinity."
Sitki Egeli, a missile defense expert, agrees. He said the Patriots are not designed to protect large swathes of land; wherever they are deployed, they can only protect areas in their near vicinity. And, Egeli said, the X-band NATO radar in Kurecik (in eastern Turkey) is designed not to intercept a Syrian scud coming from 180 kilometers away but (probably) an Iranian ballistic missile with a range of 2,000 kilometers.

www.defensenews.com...

Seems pretty straightforward. They can only protect so much area and their radar can only see so far.

What are the odds of this being true in this case and not just politics ?

To me it only seams like a political statment to argue the reason the scud was not intercepted. It is a logical political statment, so it is very easy to be accepted by the Public reader.

a reply to: spy66

A single Patriot missile has a range of roughly 45 miles. There are five batteries in Turkey near the Syrian border. That means a roughly 215 mile area that can be covered by the batteries. The Syrian-Turkey border is 545 miles long. That's less than half the border protected. A Scud fired from the right area won't even be seen by the Patriot battery and if it was they couldn't reach it to shoot it down.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: spy66

A single Patriot missile has a range of roughly 45 miles. There are five batteries in Turkey near the Syrian border. That means a roughly 215 mile area that can be covered by the batteries. The Syrian-Turkey border is 545 miles long. That's less than half the border protected. A Scud fired from the right area won't even be seen by the Patriot battery and if it was they couldn't reach it to shoot it down.

It probably has nothing to do With that. The NATO X-ban radar is not designed to pick up at scud being fired from a 180 km away. They didnt even see it comming probably according to Sitki Egeli who is comenting on this issue.

a reply to: spy66

Each Patriot battery has its own radar, backed up by the X-band radar based in Turkey, but even if they saw it, if it was outside that 200 mile area they couldn't have done anything.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: spy66

A single Patriot missile has a range of roughly 45 miles. There are five batteries in Turkey near the Syrian border. That means a roughly 215 mile area that can be covered by the batteries. The Syrian-Turkey border is 545 miles long. That's less than half the border protected. A Scud fired from the right area won't even be seen by the Patriot battery and if it was they couldn't reach it to shoot it down.

I dont know how much confidence i put in Sitki Egeli. Not after Reading about who he is and what he's job is. He is well capable to give a political statment on this issue. It is probably his jobs in this case.

In air it is about 260 km from Gaziantep to Reyhanli where one of the systems are: 200 miles converte into km = 321,87 km.
The Patriot is within range to give it a try. But if the system was actually hacked it probably wouldnt give it a try.

I dont know.... i just wanted to bring up the other issue that is on the table when it comes to why they might be pulling the Patriot system out.

This issue is just as much political as it is a fact, so we will never know.

a reply to: spy66

You don't "give it a try" when it comes to missile defense. You're either within range or you're not. If there wasn't a battery within 45 miles of where the Scud crossed the border they wouldn't fire because they couldn't hit it.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: spy66

You don't "give it a try" when it comes to missile defense. You're either within range or you're not. If there wasn't a battery within 45 miles of where the Scud crossed the border they wouldn't fire because they couldn't hit it.

Yes. Thank you, Zaph, you saved me the trouble of explaining. But you are correct. You don't just "give it a try" when each missile is over 1 million a pop. Especially when the SCUD is going to land out in the middle of nowhere. Like you said, Patriot missiles are very localized defensive systems for localized combat defense. Not guarding countries from full scale warfare. Other systems exist for that.

While the radar and the missiles have limited ranges (those were classified when I was in, so I never asked), Patriot batters are not completely blind or unaware of anything outside their range. They are in constant communications with the Air Force, and have access to real time data from a variety of Air Force intel, including spy plane, satellite, and radar data. They can be made fully aware of an incoming missile from the minute it has been launched, even if hundreds of miles outside their actual range. When a SCUD or other missile gets launched, it is first detected by the Air Force, who tracks it. Once they determine where it is headed, they will then decide whether or not it is intercept worthy, and who is going to intercept it. If it needs to be intercepted and is heading into an area where a missile can get it, it will track it and relay the info to the intercepting unit until it gets within range, after which the Patriot missile battery will take over and destroy. If it is determined the thing is going to land somewhere desolate and underpopulated, they will let it go and just send a recovery team out to retrieve whatever is left.

This actually happened a few times during the first gulf war and after. Several SCUDS ended up hitting nothing but empty desert, even though their launch and trajectories were known. They just weren't worth intercepting.

a reply to: Skadi_the_Evil_Elf

The Scud that landed in Turkey on the 25 of march this year didnt land in the Remote desert sand. It hit a millitary compound.

WHen i said try. I meant that the Patriot was within range to take out the scud, because it was.

From the article Zaph. used it is very Clear that Dr. Sitki Egeli is arguing the politics and not the facts.

a reply to: spy66

How do you know it was within range? Do you know exactly where each is deployed and the exact missile track of the Scud?

a reply to: spy66

Oh, sorry. When I had read the original story, it sounded like the SCUD had hit somewhere remote.

So I looked up for an original article on the incident, and found one. And from the sounds of it, it seems more like the SCUD hit because it wasn't in the range or capability of the Patriots. This article goes on to state that it's more a matter of the units being assigned to defend specific targets, and this SCUD thus was not in their range.

www.hurriyetdailynews.com...

originally posted by: Skadi_the_Evil_Elf

originally posted by: soulpowertothendegree
a reply to: Zaphod58

Don't really care what the hell you call them and yeah I know what the point is they are disgusting mass weapons of destruction and humans will destroy this planet with them, whatever they are called.

Do you even know what Patriot missiles are? Or even what a WMD is?

Patriot missiles are anti-air craft/anti-missile weapons. Air defense. They shoot out planes and missiles. It's a pretty #ty delivery system for any type of WMD. WMDs are things like nukes, bio and chem bombs. Big difference.

Anyway, it's been planned for a while. I was in a Patriot unit in Germany in the mid 90's, and when I had first arrived, there were two other battalions besides mine, but three years later, by the time I was leaving, there were two, and one was already in the pipes for deactivation. The idea was to consolidate all Air Defense units back at Ft. Bliss. I'm surprised we even have my old unit left in Germany. Wonder how long that will last.

Well he sure left the conversation fast lol. Don't worry about him, he is too busy fighting the injustice of "chemtrails" to learn basic facts.

a reply to: Danke

Oh, right. Forgot. Chemtrails. Let me guess....those cloudy smoky rocket trails are really not rocket fuel combustion, but chemicals to poison us. If so, once again, the Illuminati or whoever picked a pretty #ty delivery system for chemicals.