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Comment by auslander | Hacker News Reader

Also: "As a stopgap measure, the Israelis had recommended rebooting the system's computers regularly."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIM-104_Patriot#Failure_at_Dha...

I read further down, and it got more interesting. Success rate is claimed from 95% by ones to below 10% by others. "standard firing doctrine on average four Patriots were launched at each incoming Scud .. suggests low confidence in individual missiles".

suggests low confidence in individual missiles

Or the high consequence of an individual miss. Not that I disagree that Patriot took a long time to evolve to effectiveness, but it's probably more complicated. Take for example the Phalanx CIWS, which fires hundreds of rounds at each target, even though theoretically a single round should be enough, because missing a single incoming target would be very, very bad.

Yeah, but bullets a dumb and cheap. The multi $M rocket with radar, guidance should have at least 90% hit rate against SCUD like big target. Agree, not an easy task for Mach 5 SCUD.

should have at least 90% hit rate

Why? Just because it's expensive?

Iraq had substantially customized their Scuds, attempting to increase their range. This customization was not totally successful as it destabilized the missiles in flight.

The resultant tumbling made them highly inaccurate as to target, but it has been suggested it also made them much harder to shoot down.

Sources: https://fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/missile/al_hussein.htm, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Hussein_(missile)

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