1,800 PAC 3 missile interceptors were expended in the first two weeks of the Iran war. 😯
"NATO allies for this permission, the problem has always been supply, because it's the Americans that make them. Yeah, it is supply, and it's a supply problem based on massive use by the Americans of Pac-3 interceptors during Operation Epic Fury. Just to give you an example, we spoke about this the other day, there were 1,800 Pac-3 missile interceptors that were expended in the first two weeks of the Iran War. That's a huge issue, because around 650 Pac-3s are made per year. So when you add that all up, that's a three-year supply line chain in order to replace 16 days worth of interceptors. So there's a chronic shortage. Germany, they already have a license for developing Pac-2 and Pac-3 Patriot missiles, and a little bit later we'll go on to the difference between Pac-2 and Pac-3. And Ukraine and President Zelensky has been saying for months, they've got the engineers, they've got the capability, just give us the license and the ability to do it. And this week, apparently Trump relented. Right, go on then, tell us how the Patriot missile system works and why there's some complexity around it. I think firstly, the caveat is that this is a license, right? It's not a missile. It's permission to build a factory that doesn't exist yet, supply chains, facilities, you've got sensitive technology, and every one of those particular bits, whether they're made in the same location or whether it's disparate locations, they all will become a target for the Russians inside Ukraine. So it does change Ukraine's future, but we're talking years, we're not talking months in the making, and that's obviously an issue as well. I just want to give the viewers an idea of what Patriot is when we talk about Patriot. Let's just take a look at a quick video here. It's more than just a missile, okay? We talk about it as a missile, but it's not. It's a battery. So what a battery includes is it includes a radar. So the radar, for example, has the ability to look further than the PAC-3 can intercept. So just because a radar can see possibly out to 100 miles, it doesn't mean that the effective use of the PAC-3 is at 100 miles. It's much closer in, but it can detect the threat earlier. You're talking about C2, Commander Control Center. You're talking about the launchers as well as the missile itself. So the PAC-3, which Zelensky said today, is the best. The difference between the PAC-2 and the PAC-3 is the PAC-2 is the missile that's specifically designed to take out aircraft and cruise missiles. It's the PAC-3 bit that Zelensky is after, and that's the bit that goes after the ballistic missile threat. One battery is about a billion dollars. So it's not chicken feed, but I think what's interesting is we spoke to Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, Admiral Vendier, earlier on, and listen to what he's got to say about the Patriot acquisition. So the context is today, the prediction of Patriots is limited, and so the U.S. are struggling with the industry they have to procure all the customers they have."
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1,800 PAC 3 missile interceptors were expended in the first two weeks of the Iran war. 😯