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To: Richnorth who wrote (94427)	4/7/2003 5:39:06 AM
From: E. Charters	Respond to of 116767

They had changed the hit rate of Patriot missiles after the Gulf war from 98% to 10%. Israel at the time had no effective missile that could hit the Scud. They tested some prototypes and they had some problems with guidance systems. It tended to turn around and come back at its source! The about face after all the initial claims reminds me of the Bomarc missile in the 60's. They had dozens of unsuccesful tests and finally without any surety of operational success, they deployed them in Canada. The problems were obvious concerning the illegal Russian Galosh system, the Anti-anti-ICBM treaties and the fact that the Bomarc could just have easily been an anti-missile system as an anti bomber system. If that were true, it would have had to be concealed. It had far too much fuel and range to be just a short range theatre defense or point defense weapon against bombers. Few AA missiles can fly 400 miles "down wind" as the Bomarc could. The claims and retractions and subsequent upgrades have me wondering how much can be believed. The capabilities of the weapon may be downgraded in order that potential enemies are not sure whether to upgrade their offense. This is is the primary game. If they are sure they can build a continental defense shield that has high effectiveness for some reason, then the capabilities of the Patriot may be better than we have been told. One thing is for sure, the IFF systems the US and British employ apparently conflict for some reason in busy theatres. The launch computers of the Patriot system are capable of being confused. Two shootdowns of coalition hardware are from friendly fire by patriot batteries. EC<:-}