European air-defense systems are outperforming American Patriot batteries.

According to the Chief of the French Armed Forces, the Franco-Italian SAMP/T air-defense systems deployed in Ukraine are performing better than the American Patriot batteries.

They are reportedly intercepting russia’s upgraded missile attacks — the same ones that Patriot batteries have struggled to stop.

The United States is losing its military edge, and its weapons risk becoming obsolete. This is the cost of abandoning Ukraine. By not helping Ukraine, America has lost a crucial opportunity to test and improve its military technology in real combat conditions.

Source: Marijn Markus

by Jackal8570

36 comments

  2. So why not give them more? Such fucking bullshit statement. I’d rather have 10 Patriots than 1 SAMP/T

  3. Makes perfect sense but you can’t tell them that.

  4. The USA will lose much more than just market share in weapons.

  5. Guys, this statement is coming from France. Let’s keep this is perspective here.

  6. I know people like to shit on the US but if you think they’re falling behind militarily, you’d have to be insane.

  7. Did Ukraine say this? This is like Kegseth coming out and say patriot has been out performing Samp-T. Let’s let Ukraine decide.

  8. USA has given Ukraine the most up to date cutting edge versions of its arms?

  9. The Netherlands also stopped sharing intelligence with the US because we have proof that they leaked it to the Russians. The US isn’t what they used to be.

  10. And United States is more concerned about making weapons more and more expensive not more efficient. It’s just a business

  11. That is such a careless statement, Patriots have been a known interceptor that can be observed and planned against. When it was new it too performed a lot better

  13. It’s a slow painful burn. But Europe will step up, because it will have no choice. America is giving away opportunity after opportunity for what?

  14. Look at Airbus, look at Boeing. Pride always comes before a fall…

  16. Nice if true, but I would prefer something more tangible evidence. US is still helping Ukraine via shared intel, allthough helping less than desired.

  17. Honestly that’s what I thought Venezuela & Nigeria were all about. Picking soft targets to test stuff on. That way the US doesn’t get dragged into muddy waters, but can still have a testing ground.

  18. In the new era of cheap drone attacks and dummies, the Patriot system is too expensive. Spending 100s of thousands to shoot down things that cost a few thousand is not ultimately a winning strategy.

  19. By repute the best performing system is apparently IRIS-T. The sooner they roll out a hypersonic interceptor for it the better. Against anything non-ballistic Ukraine media has praised it as essentially having a 100% success rate.

  20. This article gives more details.

    SAMP/T’s architecture and radar operate with fundamentally different frequency bands, coverage, and engagement logic. Patriot’s AN/MPQ-53 operates in the F–G band (~4–8 GHz) with a defined search sector (officially ~90° for search and ~120° for tracking), while SAMP/T employs the Arabel X-band radar (~6.2–10.9 GHz) with a different scanning geometry and, crucially, near-circular coverage of its engagement zone. The Aster 30 missile family also features distinct midcourse and terminal guidance characteristics and different kinematic profiles from the MSE. These differences mean that a flight profile designed to defeat Patriot’s sensors and timing may be far less effective against SAMP/T.

    Another implication is that the russians likely did not universally redesign the Iskander missiles to evade every air-defense system. Instead, they seem to have optimized specific parameters against the Patriot PAC-3/MSE configuration — possibly adding radar-decoy measures tuned to exploit Patriot radar characteristics. That approach is far more feasible than a wholesale, generational missile redesign.

    The good news for Patriot operators is that this appears to be primarily a software, flight-profile, and sensor-exploitation issue — meaning countermeasures are plausible and relatively quick to implement.
    [https://en.defence-ua.com/weapon_and_tech/sampt_beats_patriot_system_in_the_iskander_fight_and_what_that_reveals_about_russias_ballistic_missile_upgrades-16421.html](https://en.defence-ua.com/weapon_and_tech/sampt_beats_patriot_system_in_the_iskander_fight_and_what_that_reveals_about_russias_ballistic_missile_upgrades-16421.html)

  21. Guess the Ukrainians should stop asking for Patriots then, just ask this Frenchman

  22. Better for EU to finally wake up and become a leader in technology…

  24. He’s not allowed to help Ukraine, and he’s followed his orders to a T

  25. Then why is Ukraine moving to purchase two dozen Patriot systems? That’s a lot of money for a supposedly second rate AA system.

  26. Wow, you mean to tell me the older and out of date PAC-2 Patriot missiles aren’t performing as well as modern missiles?????

    I’m so surprised…

  27. “By not helping Ukraine…”

    No more to see here, so dumb. The US has provided more help than any other nation. Fact check me.

  28. Gotta love all the ways our current leadership has weakened the country. Economically, militarily, diplomatically, morally and ethically compromised 80 years of global leadership in less than a year.

  30. Ukraine got the latest SAMP-T but the oldest patriot that can still fire. Not exactly a flex. I’m surprised patriot is still efficient after Russia got to tune their attacks and missiles.

  32. Just for the record, the officer on the picture is not our Chief of Staff, that would be newly appointed Fabien Mandon.
    He said it during a recent Senate hearing.

  33. But, but, but ’Merica has the bigliest weapons in the world.

    It was announced yesterday the Royal Air Force is sending a team with anti drone and detection equipment to Brussels to help defeat the [drones that have been seen near the airport.](https://news.sky.com/story/uk-deploying-specialist-raf-team-to-defend-belgium-from-rogue-drones-13467164)

    Of course this will mean the RAF and the manufacturers can test and train on the equipment in the real world.

    Testing helps development.

  34. Yeah, the US borrowed money to prop up Europe for too long.  Now that the US is more in debt than Europe, it’s good that Europe is picking up some of the burden.  I’m looking forward to Europe paying to stop China now.

  35. I support Ukraine 100% and think we should give them anything they need to defeat Russia. That said these comments may be intended to prompt the US to give them more and newer weapons. I hope we do but I take these performance comparisons with a grain of salt. On the other hand if our weapons are underperforming now is the time to find out.

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