[thatcat]

Iran copied oreshnik system, added decoys and other stuff, patriot is not effective against hypersonic, multiple vehicle missiles or decoys (which would require 1 patriot per vehicle) and is dependent on 2 radar systems functioning in the correct locations and the correct angle of attack from firing location. See Ted Postol's coverage https://www.youtube.com/live/Q2yQ3kBAQIk?si=JLvN2mVleKv64YDs. Even patriot is <5-10% effective in footage review from early Iran conflict before they started using hypersonic multiple vehicle missiles.

[JumpCrisscross]

> patriot is not effective against hypersonic, multiple vehicle missiles or decoys (which would require 1 patriot per vehicle) and is dependent on 2 radar systems functioning in the correct locations and the correct angle of attack from firing location

This is mostly accurate. Patriot is effective against every "hypersonic" it's been fielded against, though that's mostly because Russia doesn't actually have a hypersonic missile. Iran, fortunately, doesn't have hypersonics–where did you get the idea they do?

Decoys are an issue. Two radar systems not really an issue.

> patriot is <5-10% effective in footage review from early Iran conflict before they started using hypersonic multiple vehicle missiles

Patriot has been about 33% effective. Becasue we fire 3 missiles at each target as standard course. Which means close to 100% intercept rate when targeted. "When targeted" may contain some bullshit, but it's a hell of a better bet than anything Postol is peddling without ample fact checking. (His record has been spotty for a while, particularly when it comes to OSINT.)

Put it another way: Iran has hit...tens of meaningful targets? In America and Israel? Do you think their missiles are just that terrible that they fire hundreds to thousands and a vanishing percentage go where they're meant to? (I'm ignoring that many of the high-value hits were with drones. Not missiles.)

[thatcat]

How would you know how many vehicles there are when it separates late? Some Iranian munitions have 80 vehicles. Maybe they don't have the fastest hypersonics or large payloads in them, but it seems like the combination of high speed + multiple vehicles + late separation poses an extreme challenge to these systems. I'm sure he's exaggerating or has biased sample data, but the missile intercept marketing team seems to be exaggerating quite a bit as well. There are many videos that seem to show them squirming around in the sky like lost sperm and then blowing up without hitting the missile and falling to the ground.

[dlubarov]

We need to have realistic expectations though - air defense is an inherently asymmetric problem. The US broadly has the best air defense, but it's explicitly not focused on Russia or China, because it acknowledges that deterrence is the only plausible defense there.

While Iran isn't a superpower, they have hypersonic weapons that no system can intercept very reliably, and a sizeable assortment of ballistic missiles. Even if all other militaries joined forces, they probably couldn't intercept every single projectile coming out of Iran, at least not without depleting their interceptors to unacceptable levels.