Why missile defense systems purchased from the US did not save Saudi oil facilities from attack

Saudi Arabia could not reflect blow to oil facilities, despite the presence in the country of modern American missile defense systems.

Фото: Depositphotos

US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, visiting Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, told reporters that "anti-aircraft systems around the world do not always operate successfully."

“Even the best in the world don’t always intercept [missiles],” he answered a journalist’s question about how modern radars could miss cruise missiles.

“This was a blow on a scale we have never seen before,” Pompeo added.

The Secretary of State did not say the concrete name of the system that could not cope with the interception, but the world press took it as an admission that we are talking about American Patriot systems that are armed with Saudi air defense.

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How is the air defense system in Saudi Arabia

The Saudi Arabian air defense system includes American long-range and medium-range radars, as well as Patriot medium-range radar systems and strategic long-range THAAD, which are also equipped with radars.

Фото: Depositphotos

In addition, the arsenal has an outdated short-range Oerlikon GDF artillery anti-aircraft gun.

It is not known for certain which of these systems covered the complexes on which the air strike was inflicted.

Why didn't Patriot work?

In service with Saudi Arabia is the MIM-104 Patriot of the latest modification of the PAC 3.

This system is a modern air defense system, which is designed to cover objects (but not areas), intercepting ballistic missiles, aircraft and cruise missiles, and the latter, in this case, are not its main “specialty”.

This complex is more suitable specifically for destroying ballistic missiles - and has already proven this by shooting down several dozen Iraqi Scuds back in 1991.

The Saudi military claims that in recent years they have successfully intercepted several ballistic missiles and at least one drone.

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Ballistic missiles that fly along a relatively predictable trajectory are a much lighter target than a cruise missile or a drone - they, firstly, maneuver, and secondly, move at a relatively low altitude, and it is difficult to spot them with a radar.

The fact is that due to the curvature of the Earth’s surface, a low-flying target to the ground-based radar can be seen at a distance of only a few tens of kilometers. Patriot radar is designed to track and track high-flying targets.

The situation can be corrected only with the help of a radar aircraft, but for constant monitoring it must always be kept in the air.

Building the missile defense, the Saudis were preparing precisely for attacks with ballistic missiles or individual drones, which they were more or less easy to intercept.

But something else happened.

Mixed kick

In January 2018, Thomas Caraco, director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies Center’s Anti-Ballistic Missile Project, told the Breakingdefense in an interview that the US missile defense concept was completely unsuitable against modern threats.

“The problem is a mixture of threats or a complex integrated strike - not just ballistic or cruise missiles or drones, but all together. At the same time, cruise missiles will penetrate the defenses against ballistic ones, and vice versa,” said Karako, who co-authored a large report on this issue, “Distributed Defense.”

The report talked a lot about US threats from China, Russia, the DPRK, which are actively developing new weapons systems.

An attack on two fields of the state-owned company Saudi Aramco was carried out by 25 drones and cruise missiles, said Turki al-Malki, spokesman for the Saudi Ministry of Defense, the day before.

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Obviously, the mixing of different types of percussion instruments was the key to the success of the attack.

According to the BBC senior researcher at the HSE Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies, Vasily Kashin, the reason that the Saudis did not have systems that could deal with low-flying goals was the strategy of the US Department of Defense, which made a bid to fight in the 1990 with high-altitude goals, ceasing to actively develop tactical missile or artillery systems.

In the arsenal of Saudi anti-aircraft gunners there is such a complex - small-caliber anti-aircraft artillery systems of German production Oerlikon GDF.

But such systems, as Kashin explains, must be in constant combat readiness.

“If you are preparing to counter a surprise attack by cruise missiles, you must assume that only a matter of minutes can pass from the moment the target appears until the opening of fire. Because you won't see that target until minutes before it attacks you. Accordingly, while awaiting this attack, you must keep the Oerlikon batteries in constant combat readiness,” the expert said.

In any case, one of Pompeo's jobs in the Middle East is to investigate the strike and try to figure out what needs to be done to prevent it from happening again. “We want to make sure that the infrastructure and resources are in place so that similar strikes are less successful than the one that occurred,” the Secretary of State said.

On the unexpected side

Another reason why the raid on oil facilities was a success was because the missile defense systems were not ready for an attack from a certain side of the world.

Saudi air defenses were directed south, expecting a strike from the side of Yemen, but in reality drones and missiles flew from the south of Iran - closer to the northern coast of the Persian Gulf. This was stated by the official representative of the Ministry of Defense of Saudi Arabia, Turki al-Malki, promising over time to provide all the necessary evidence.

The Patriot system is designed in such a way that it is important on which side the goal is approaching, said BBC expert Alexander Yermakov, Russian Council on Foreign Affairs.

“The Patriot system uses an inclined launcher, not a vertical one, like, say, Russian anti-aircraft missile systems. This, on the one hand, makes it somewhat easier to hit targets in that direction, but on the other hand, it is desirable that the target be in that direction, because it [the interceptor missile] turns quite slowly,” Ermakov said.

At the same time, calculating the areas that are covered by missile defense systems, according to him, is relatively not difficult - it was enough to just visually study the surroundings of the oil plant well. “Either the Houthis or Iran could have planned the attack well, because they probably have agents in those places,” the expert believes.

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