Patriot SAM replacement

bring_it_on said:
The PATRIOT sensor is old and needs to be recapitalized with something more modern and actually capable of supporting defeating current and future threats. This needed to happen a decade ago. I would love to see an IG or DOD report citing the risk associated with having a sensor relying on decades old technologies against modern ballistic missiles, low observable missiles and aircraft and hypersonic threats and actually quantifying the impact on lives lost, and cost involved of doing maintaining that..But they are probably too busy to do such an analysis..
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Ukraine is writing that report for us.
 
bring_it_on said:
The PATRIOT sensor is old and needs to be recapitalized with something more modern and actually capable of supporting defeating current and future threats. This needed to happen a decade ago. I would love to see an IG or DOD report citing the risk associated with having a sensor relying on decades old technologies against modern ballistic missiles, low observable missiles and aircraft and hypersonic threats and actually quantifying the impact on lives lost, and cost involved of doing maintaining that..But they are probably too busy to do such an analysis..
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The LATMDS contract was issued under the rapid prototyping pathway that Congress had authorized to speed up procurement with less controls to meet the very situation you mention, but Congress imposed a five year time limit. Raytheon failed to meet the terms of the contract to develop the radar in the five year time limit and it took them six years and 34% overspend. Certain members of the Senate were understandably upset as the Army knowing of the delay and the law never moved the contract to the standard major capability acquisition pathway which at $13 billion plus R&D $billions? it qualifies as. (Its an unknown if the other competitors for the contract Lockheed and Northrop Grumman would have succeeded, but as said Raytheon failed)
 
It took six years instead of five? On highly capable "rapid" requirements with timelines that were compressed enough where none of the other competitors could even offer up clean sheet sensors? What a bummer...we should have not have pursued a rapid path to develop and look to to field this capability then and waited ten plus years to get this into the hands of soldiers by following the other acq pathways..

Let's also reduce spending while we're at it so we add more delay and continue to push overdue sensor modernization to the right. :rolleyes:
 
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Cordy said:
The LATMDS contract was issued under the rapid prototyping pathway that Congress had authorized to speed up procurement with less controls to meet the very situation you mention, but Congress imposed a five year time limit. Raytheon failed to meet the terms of the contract to develop the radar in the five year time limit and it took them six years and 34% overspend. Certain members of the Senate were understandably upset as the Army knowing of the delay and the law never moved the contract to the standard major capability acquisition pathway which at $13 billion plus R&D $billions? it qualifies as. (Its an unknown if the other competitors for the contract Lockheed and Northrop Grumman would have succeeded, but as said Raytheon failed)
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Needs to remember what happened to cause the added year.

A little bug called covid and Congress mandated 8 month shut down. The fact that was only a year delay is a surprise.
Ainen said:
Happened once as a first time surprise. After winter 23/24 patriots are basically inconsequential.
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Which is why Russia been avoiding targeting anything in the Patriot AO...
 
Firefinder said:
Which is why Russia been avoiding targeting anything in the Patriot AO...
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Strikes happened many times in 2024 in all cities covered with Patriot batteries, from capital AD region (from shaheds to ballistics) to Odessa, Kharkiv and Dnipro.
But May example was a classic AD ambush - in that capacity, daily bimbing with glide bombs is long since completely uninterrupted. Which is serious, as RUSI expects that this year UMPK production alone will hit 70 thousand.

It isn't that big of a bite at patriot - it does that it can. It does things it's designed to very well. It isn't magic; there is geography, there is mathematical overwhelming, there are technical limitations of system design dating back to 1980s, there is number of interceptors.

It just isn't designed to be LRSAM, and without getting SM-6 on land there is no fast way to make western SAM system capable of it.
MRSAM are just about enough to provide protection against glide attacks at sea - that is, if the target is the system itself. When it came to protection of others, they ended up too vulnerable.
 
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Firefinder said:
A little bug called covid and Congress mandated 8 month shut down. The fact that was only a year delay is a surprise.
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Not to mention the technical requirements themselves..LTAMDS is a very substantial leap in capability over what's currently out there with the PATRIOT Bn's. There were folks in the Army that wanted to upgrade current PATRIOT sensor once more (perhaps the active electronically scanned array upgrade that Raytheon proposed) to allow industry to have multiple mature competitive clean sheet offers that could be selected for a future replacement but the advancement in threats and delay to move (mostly funding related) prevented that from happening leading to current sensor and award. Thus there was very little in terms of real competition here in terms of mature offerings that were designed to Army requirements. That said, folks in Congress would do well to sit down with the folks operating or testing out the sensor to understand what it brings to the table and why it is badly needed (need to accelerate funding not dial it back leaving units with outdated equipment).
 
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Hanse said:
That's six to eight batteries, each with their own radar, and all the launchers and support vehicles.
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Are you sure? Consensus seems to be that a battalion is made up of four batteries, each consisting of up to eight launchers + radars etc.

Screenshot_20250412_162129_Chrome.jpg Screenshot_20250412_162733_Chrome.jpg
 

FM 3-01.85 Appendix B

www.globalsecurity.org www.globalsecurity.org

B-1. Patriot is a guided missile system designed to defeat the future air and missile threat, which includes theater missiles (TBMs, ASMs, CMs), fixed and rotary wing aircraft and UAVs. The system normally fights as a battalion, which usually consists of five batteries or fire units (FUs) operating under the control of a fire direction center (FDC). However, there are some battalions that currently have six batteries due to theater and type of mission.
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1744445794791.png

And 8 launchers per battery.
 
Any word on whether or not the LTAMDS is compatible with legacy Patriot? Can existing customers upgrade to LTAMDS within their existing Patriot batteries? Or do they have to go all-in and also buy IBCS for it to work?
 
JakobS said:
Any word on whether or not the LTAMDS is compatible with legacy Patriot? Can existing customers upgrade to LTAMDS within their existing Patriot batteries? Or do they have to go all-in and also buy IBCS for it to work?
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It is not a US Army program of record as the Army required LTAMDS to be compatible with IBCS only. but Raytheon has developed it to a point where the company is now offering LTAMDS to Patriot users as an upgrade to the existing sensor independent of any IBCS upgrades.
 
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The Army has validated LTAMDS has reached the beyond prototype stage and reached Milestone C production and deployment phase of the program after eight successful flight tests under the 2019 contract.

https://breakingdefense.com/2025/04/army-moves-ltamds-into-low-rate-initial-production/

Ref. above info requiring 73 C-17 flights transporting a Patriot battalion anyone know how many parts the LTAMDS will have to broken into to fly on the C-17 and will it make inter-theater transport any easier than the MPQ-65.
 
Defense Updates has just put out a video concerning how LTAMDS could improve the Patriot battery:


The U.S. Army has officially approved a new air and missile defense sensor for low-rate production, marking a significant step toward replacing its aging Patriot system.
Known as the Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor (LTAMDS), the next-generation radar is a vital upgrade to the US Army’s Patriot system, specifically designed to counter the growing complexity of modern aerial threats.

Maj. Gen. Frank Lozano, program executive officer for missiles and space, recently said LTAMDS, “is a huge, significant capability. We anecdotally say it doubles legacy Patriot radar capability and not only does it double it, it provides you 360-degree capability.

”This milestone comes on the heels of the U.S. Army’s successful completion of a comprehensive flight test campaign, followed by the radar’s approval under the Department of Defense’s Major Capability Acquisition Milestone C.


In this video, Defense Updates analyzes how LTAMDS would provide big boost to Patriot Air Defense System ?
#defenseupdates #patriotmissile #LTAMDS
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Chapters:
0:00 TITLE
00:11 INTRODUCTION
01:17 SPONSORSHIP - NordVPN
01:51 BACKGROUND
03:50 LTAMDS
04:48 WORKING
07:02 ANALYSIS
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