Originally Posted by
tartare
M
EDIT: OK - I see - Patriot far too large, complex and expensive. Possibly also escalatory. So what's the smallest high altitude missile intercept system you could get away with?
Well Starstreak extends the threat to 20 000' per Wiki. Wouldn't that be sufficient to interrupt effective operations if the Russians are short of PGW as is widely speculated ? We simply don't know how many have been supplied and I have no idea how quickly re-supply can be manufactured- normally months I would imagine, unless every component supplier makes it highest priority;
Don't forget the Ukranians have S 300 systems which are supposedly good to 100 000' - question is, how many and how mobile are they ? I do recall seeing at least one kill attributed to to this early on in the war.
EDIT:
" Upgraded S-300PS SAMs
were sent to the southern region of Ukraine in January. Sensing an attack by the Russians from
Crimea, the deployment was prescient and likely bought the Ukrainians time defending the south. The Ukrainian military only has about 100 S-300 launchers in total, so the friendly forces had to make difficult decisions on where to deploy them.The Ukrainians also re-deployed a battalion of S-300s on February 11 to the Donbas region expecting a gnarly fight there. This unit is part of the 160th Air Defense Missile Brigade and was moved from the Odessa region."