A mix of recent interceptors and launchers is ready to offer the Patriot surface-to-air missile system an “over-the-shoulder” engagement functionality, the U.S. Military has disclosed. What this implies is that future Patriot methods can have crucial further flexibility to have interaction threats, even ones which will have already handed overhead. That is one thing the system can not presently do with out bodily reorienting its launchers, creating challenges in numerous intercept eventualities.
Military officers mentioned present and future deliberate capabilities for Patriot with Secretary Pete Hegseth throughout a current tour of Redstone Arsenal in Alabama, at which members of the media had been additionally current. Hegseth had traveled to Redstone final week primarily for a ceremony marking the designation of the ability as the brand new headquarters for U.S. House Command (SPACECOM).
For some quick context, a present Military Patriot battery usually consists of eight M903 launchers, in addition to an AN/MPQ-65 multifunction phased array radar and different fireplace management, communications, and help gear. Every trailer-based M903 will be loaded with a mixture of PAC-2 and PAC-3 collection interceptors, the precise capabilities of which you’ll learn extra about right here. The launchers have a level of capacity to traverse left and proper, and fireplace interceptors at an upward angle in whichever route they’re pointed. General, the methods are deployed in static positions aimed in a largely mounted route.
Lockheed Martin A graphic displaying numerous Patriot launcher sorts and doable load configurations. Lockheed Martin” loading=”lazy” width=”960″ peak=”354″ decoding=”async” data-nimg=”1″ class=”rounded-lg” model=”colour:clear” src=”https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/JVWo6hafLuoJRtjFgc7xtg–/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTM1NDtjZj13ZWJw/https://media.zenfs.com/en/the_warzone_735/23e0ff2d47218f4a6fc3e687fef44e38″/>
A graphic displaying numerous Patriot launcher sorts (together with the M903) and doable load configurations. Lockheed Martin A graphic displaying numerous Patriot launcher sorts and doable load configurations. Lockheed Martin
“So, the present [M903] launcher will slew,” Military Lt. Col. Steven Moebes, presently Product Supervisor for Decrease Tier Interceptors, advised Hegseth on the current Redstone show-and-tell. “I’ll put in a plug that this yr we’re beginning a brand new interceptor program that may have longer vary [and] larger altitudes.”
Moebes didn’t identify the brand new interceptor program. Nevertheless, the Military had indicated earlier within the yr that it was trying to reboot the Decrease-Tier Future Interceptor (LTFI) effort for Patriot, which we are going to come again to afterward. “Decrease-tier” on this context refers back to the decrease finish of the ballistic missile protection spectrum. Patriot is in any other case within the upper-end of the Military’s present slate of air and missile protection capabilities.
The Decrease Tier Interceptors Program Supervisor was additionally responding to a direct query from Hegseth, which is essentially inaudible within the out there video from the occasion that a number of retailers captured. The Secretary will be heard saying that the main target of his query is one thing of non-public curiosity to President Donald Trump.
“All of our digital simulations are displaying that with that new interceptor, we can have the flexibility for what we name [an] over-the-shoulder shot,” Moebes continued. “So, it is going to have the kinematic energy to have the ability to launch and really interact behind us.”
“It’s a software program downside. On this method proper now, the software program doesn’t permit us to fireside behind,” Military Brig. Gen. Patrick Costello, head of the Fires Heart of Excellence at Fort Sill, who was additionally current throughout Hegseth’s tour of Redstone, added. “The Widespread Autonomous Multi-Area Launcher [CAML] that we’re growing … goes to be extra vertical [in terms of launch profile], too.”
“Even when we’re doing over-the-shoulder launches, we lose some chance [of kill], we lose some lethality … [when the] missile’s losing vitality going ahead and turning round,” Costello continued.
CAML is a deliberate household of various autonomous launcher autos, which the Military desires to make use of to fireside a wide range of offensive and defensive munitions, as you’ll be able to study extra about right here. The Military has stated beforehand that it envisions the heaviest tier of CAML, or CAML-H, having the ability to launch Patriot surface-to-air missile interceptors, in addition to Tomahawk cruise missiles.
As an apart, Lockheed Martin has already demonstrated the flexibility to fireside the newest Missile Phase Enhancement (MSE) variant of the PAC-3 interceptor vertically from a containerized launcher derived from the Mk 41 Vertical Launch System (VLS) used on numerous U.S. Navy and international warships. That testing is an element of a bigger push primarily geared toward selling PAC-3 MSE for naval functions, although it may very well be related to the Military’s future plans, as nicely.
It’s also attention-grabbing to notice right here that many surface-to-air missile methods in service globally, together with ones which can be loosely similar to Patriot, akin to Russia’s S-400 and China’s HQ-9, already function launchers that fireplace their interceptors vertically.
Particulars concerning the Military’s new Patriot interceptor program in any other case stay restricted. As talked about, the service has been speaking about restarting the LTFI effort for some months now. Final yr, the service had introduced plans to cancel that program, ostensibly over excessive projected prices. Whereas the estimated unit price for LTFI is unknown, every PAC-3 MSE interceptor presently has a price ticket within the $4.6 million vary, in keeping with Military funds paperwork.
“There are some points of the LTFI program which can be nonetheless considerably pre-decisional, however I imagine that we are going to get help for this system, and I could also be ready this time subsequent yr to start program-of-record execution,” Military Maj. Gen. Frank Lozano, then Program Govt Officer for Missiles and House, had stated in October throughout a panel dialogue on the Affiliation of the U.S. Military’s (AUSA) important annual convention. “I believe proper now the glass might be half full that we’ll get to run that program, and so we’re actually within the planning course of in determining what that’s going to seem like shifting ahead.”
Lozano, who now has the title of Director of Hypersonic, Directed Vitality, House, and Fast Acquisition, led the current tour for Hegseth at Redstone.
Regardless, new interceptors and launchers that permit for over-the-shoulder photographs can be an vital, if not important, functionality increase for Patriot. The air and missile protection risk ecosystem features a rising variety of faster-flying air-breathing and ballistic threats, a lot of which additionally come together with extra complicated and/or erratic flight profiles.
Earlier this yr, the U.S. navy notably confirmed that “Russian tactical enhancements, together with enhancements that allow their missiles to vary trajectory and carry out maneuvers moderately than flying in a conventional ballistic trajectory,” had created actual challenges for Patriot methods provided to Ukraine. It is a prime instance of the risk image the Military is already confronted with.
In talking at Redstone with Secretary Hegseth, Lt. Col. Moebes did spotlight the immense position that Patriot has performed so far in Ukraine, regardless of the aforementioned points, particularly because the nation’s solely actual choice for partaking incoming ballistic threats.
A Patriot missile system operator urged People to face shoulder to shoulder with Ukrainians, saying:
We need to thank the American folks for supplying us with the weapons we want. Your help permits us to guard our cities and the individuals who dwell in them. pic.twitter.com/Ikb01YOutE
— Ukrainian Air Drive (@KpsZSU) March 6, 2025
Patriot methods with expanded engagement envelopes, in addition to launchers that don’t must slew to face the route of the goal earlier than firing, would additionally supply advantages for responding to massive quantity strikes, particularly ones the place targets are incoming from a number of vectors concurrently. A future Patriot launcher able to firing various kinds of interceptors vertically would supply additional benefits for addressing complicated assaults that embody various threats with totally different efficiency profiles, as nicely.
Uncrewed launcher autos with excessive levels of autonomy, whether or not loaded with Patriots or different munitions, supply further advantages, together with further operational capability with out main calls for extra further personnel. The launchers additionally assist scale back threat to human operators, even when pushed ahead in higher-risk environments. This all creates new concentrating on dilemmas and totally different dangers of pop-up threats for adversaries.
The Military is already working to broaden Patriot’s capacity to identify and observe targets with new Decrease Tier Air and Missile Protection Sensor (LTAMDS) radars that provide 360-degree protection. It is a main enchancment in comparison with the extra restricted, forward-facing area of view supplied by the AN/MPQ-65. The brand new Built-in Battle Command System (IBCS) community additionally provides Patriot methods considerably larger entry to offboard monitoring and concentrating on information. Along with the aforementioned advantages, over-the-shoulder engagement and vertical launch capabilities can be crucial to get essentially the most out of LTAMDS.
All this being stated, you will need to level out that the Military’s Patriot pressure general is extremely strained. A succession of crises in recent times, along with help to Ukraine, have underscored how the service’s capability to offer Patriot help is worryingly insufficient to satisfy present operational calls for, not to mention these of a future high-end battle. These issues prolong to stockpiles of interceptors, in addition to the whole variety of methods out there. TWZ has been calling consideration to those points for years now.
The Military, along with Raytheon (the Patriot system’s prime contractor) and Lockheed Martin (the prime contractor for the PAC-3 MSE), has been attempting to take steps in recent times to reverse these traits. This contains work to ramp up PAC-3 MSE manufacturing and plans to ascertain 4 new Military Patriot battalions within the coming years. Nevertheless, questions stay concerning the velocity with which any of that may really arrive, particularly given the demand for Patriot globally, which has grown in mild of its efficiency in Ukraine. Earlier this yr, deliveries of recent Patriot methods to Switzerland had been notably delayed to assist meet the pressing calls for of the Ukrainian armed forces.
What is evident is that the Military is now actively pursuing crucial new capabilities to assist forestall air and missile threats from slipping behind its Patriot batteries.
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