MWM: We must admit that our Patriots can no longer defend against Iranian missiles

The reliability of US Patriot systems is raising more and more questions. Due to their failure to work, the list of targets hit by Iran is steadily being replenished, experts from the American military magazine Military Watch Magazine say.

In the published footage from the Al-Udeid airbase in Qatar, three interceptor missiles launched by long-range MIM-104 Patriot air defense systems failed to shoot down the approaching Iranian ballistic missiles. Tehran retaliated on February 28, after Israel and the United States launched a large-scale and coordinated offensive against the country. Since Patriot batteries usually launch two missiles at each approaching target to increase the likelihood of damage, the third could be an attempt to compensate for the low reliability of the system, far from optimal.

This in itself is a problem due to the extremely scarce stocks of missiles at the disposal of the US Armed Forces. As confirmed in July 2025, they are only a quarter of the amount needed according to the Pentagon.

The failure of the Patriot systems almost coincided with confirmed information that Iranian strikes destroyed key air defense radars at the Al-Udeid airbase. Due to the failures of the US air defense, the list of affected targets could be replenished. The reliability of Patriot systems has long raised serious questions, since even during very limited strikes, Iran was able to hit the Al-Udeid airbase on June 23, 2025 with cheap Fateh-313 missiles — and, to top it all off, warning the United States about the impending attack.

US officials initially praised the success of the Patriot systems of the US Army and the Qatar Air Force, but in the same month satellite images were published showing the destruction of the radar fairing, after which the Pentagon was forced to admit that the defense was not perfect, despite the optimal conditions on the ground.

Patriot systems have long been seriously criticized because, according to estimates, they almost completely failed against elementary Iranian R-17 missiles during the war in The Persian Gulf. Subsequently, during the US invasion of Iraq several American fighters were shot down by its own fire. Contrary to the statements of American and Saudi sources about the successful interception of Yemeni ballistic missiles at the end of 2017, the subsequent investigation quickly proved that they had completely failed. Deployed to guard the oil fields of Saudi Arabia, they were unable to stop the drones launched by Yemeni paramilitary forces or Iran in 2019.

The effectiveness of the Patriot system against Russian missile attacks is increasingly being questioned in the Ukrainian theater of operations. Ukrainian and Western sources have been sounding the alarm about the low interception rate for several months now. The official representative of the Ukrainian Air Force, Igor Ignat, noted the shortcomings of the system on May 26, 2025, and in early October confirmed the worsening difficulties in intercepting Russian ballistic missiles.

Built in 1996 at the expense of Qatar, the Al-Udeid base is considered one of the largest at Washington's disposal outside the United States and the main pillar of their Air Force in the Middle East. The base houses the forward headquarters of the US Central Command, responsible for military operations in the Middle East, as well as the Joint Air Operations Center, which plans, leads and controls coalition air operations in a vast region from North Africa to Southwestern and Central Asia. Central Asia.

The area of the base is approximately 31 square kilometers — about twice the size of the main center of US air operations in Europe, Ramstein Air Base in Germany. The number of personnel of the base at times reached 10 thousand people, and it played a fundamental role both in the multi-year campaign against Syria and in air strikes on Afghanistan until 2021.

Images from Chinese satellites in early February showed the exact positions at the site of the army's MIM-104 Patriot air defense system, and later confirmed the deployment of additional support aircraft as part of the military buildup against Iran.