[sharemywin]

The Patriot system was originally designed to operate in Europe against Soviet medium- to high-altitude aircraft and cruise missiles traveling at speeds up to about MACH 2 (1500 mph). To avoid detection it was designed to be mobile and operate for only a few hours at one location.

http://archive.gao.gov/t2pbat6/145960.pdf

Page 2

dug into reference 48 from Wikipedia which referenced this article which I did a search on google.

[michaelmrose]

The fact that the bug manifests after a longer than normal period of operation doesn't ex post facto make it not a bug. If you add 2 and 2 and get 42 you failed.

It is however a good explanation why it remained undetected.