When They say "I hate America", what do you think They mean?

georgeob1 wrote:

Caprice,

Complex weapons systems often do have flaws, or, as is more likely in the incidents reported in the 60 minutes piece you cited, lend themselves more readily than foreseen to human errors.

You couldn't have read the entire article because it states right in it that "the Patriot isn't like most weapons systems: it's almost completely automatic." The non-automatic part being the ability of human operators to override the system, but even then, they have mere seconds to do so. I also know you didn't see the piece on television because the crux of the matter is that the military knows they have a weapon which is defective and yet they continue to use it despite the tragic outcomes that should never occur. The military cites skewed statistics on the Patriot. They continue to spend money on a weapon that should never have been kept in use once the knowledge of its real potential (or rather lack thereof) was known. Even after knowing there was a definite problem with the Patriot, it was still used in combat in the war in Iraq which directly caused the unnecessary death of an American pilot.

All I can say is that I'm glad I am not currently an American taxpayer.

Quote:

This year alone, the Pentagon will spend more than a billion dollars on the Patriot program. And Raytheon is selling more and more Patriots to countries in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe.

(Above quote from the 60 Minutes web site.)

georgeob1 wrote:

I repeat an earlier question I posed here. Why are some Canadians so agitated about the many flaws of the United States? Cause and effect seem far out of proportion, and the complaints either insubstantial or vague and far reaching. Have you reached a state of such perfection that all this really matters so much? Are there no windmills in Canada for you to tilt?

Cause and effect seem far out of proportion? Complaints are insubstational or vague? Says who? You? And just exactly what are you talking about anyway? It's almost pointless asking you a question because you never respond anyhow.

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caprice wrote:

[
All I can say is that I'm glad I am not currently an American taxpayer.

...Cause and effect seem far out of proportion? Complaints are insubstational or vague? Says who? You? And just exactly what are you talking about anyway? It's almost pointless asking you a question because you never respond anyhow.

1. Me too.

2. Says me. Have you asked me any questions that I have failed to answer, or at least attempt to?

3. I think your knowledge of surface and air - to - air weapons systems is probably not very great. No shame there. I spent a fair amount of time in the business, and am confident I know what I am talking about vis a vis Patriot. Almost all the weapons systems in use, even the most successful, have known defects. Nothing remarkable there - unless you are a producer for 60 minutes and need to get a show out.

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Quote:

One would also hope that the historical experience to which Steve has referred would have given him a greater understanding of this point than he has exhibited in these and other threads.

Wooo I am chastised. Totally unjustifiably of course.

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Of course.

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caprice wrote:

Read this and you may feel differently about American military weapons. It was a story 60 Minutes did this past Sunday.

The Patriot Flawed?

The fact that the story contained in the link claimed that the patriot had been originally been built 40 years ago (which was completely incorrect) and that they were quoting some facts from the original Patriot program (deployed in the First Gulf War) NOT the information about the CURRENT Patriot program (The PAC-3 system) leads me to take your source with a grain of salt.

But even if we take it all as gospel, the fact must be understood that the Patriot did EXACTLY what it had been designed to do, which is, shoot down airplanes. The Patriot (Past and current) was NOT originally designed to shoot down incoming tactical ballistic missiles, it was designed to provide medium to high altitude intercepts of high speed, high performance jet aircraft. In this task, it works magnificently. It has the ability to 'sanitize' the airspace it 'controls' and it was only when the software was 'fiddled with' to provide SOME anti ballistic missile protection, that people started to look at it as an ABM system that happened to knock down aircraft.

Please keep in mind that when you use a tool outside it's intended purpose, or try to alter a tool to do a job it was not designed to do, there can and will be 'unexpected consequences'.

The consequence of 'tuning' an air defense radar's software package fine enough to provide intercept solutions for an incoming ballistic target will result in lots of spurious targets. And that can lead to accidents like the ones described.

Just my 2 cents (pre tax)

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Fedral wrote:

The fact that the story contained in the link claimed that the patriot had been originally been built 40 years ago (which was completely incorrect) [...]

PATRIOT

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First of all to quote the site linked:

May 67 The Secretary of Defense selected Raytheon's Missile Systems Division as the prime contractor for the SAM-D project. He also decided that the system would enter an Advanced Development period to demonstrate its functionally unique features, while minimizing the financial risks of full-scale Engineering Development.

November 69 First launch of the SAM-D missile

Missiles are built AFTER award and before launch so the date of the original 'D' build would be somewhere around 1968.

1968 + 40 years = 2008 (current date is 2004 for those of you in hibernation)

Second, the first actual Patriot missiles were not delivered to the Army until December of 1981.

Third, the current Patriot that is fielded (The PAC-3) was a completely different missile than the original or the upgraded PAC-2 and was not selected until 1994 and didn't even enter production until 1995.

The mistake the writer made is he mistakes a military system with II or III with an earlier system bearing the same name.

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Fedral wrote:

1968 + 40 years = 2008 (current date is 2004 for those of you in hibernation)

I really don't want to pick on words, but the original cbs-link said

Quote:

The Patriot was originally built nearly 40 years ago

:wink:

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My mistake, but the facts stand, speaking of the original Patriot when the current missile they are fielding is a completely different missile with the same moniker but approximately 25+ years difference is like comparing the:

Thunderbolt
http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/p47.htm

with the:

Thunderbolt II
http://www.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?fsID=70

The military likes to keep names for simplicity sake, but one must be sure of WHICH system one is discussing before speaking.

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Fedral: As Walter said, not meaning to be nit-picky, but you didn't really read the entire paragraph. If you had, you would have realized you took the entire thing out of context.

CBS Patriot Story wrote:

The Patriot was originally built nearly 40 years ago to shoot down aircraft. But just before the 1991 Gulf War, its manufacturer, Raytheon, modified the Patriot to shoot down tactical ballistic missiles.

The idea they are conveying is that at its original inception nearly 40 years ago, it was made to shoot down aircraft. Then, just before the Gulf War, it received a modification to target missiles.

The crux of the story on 60 Minutes tells the viewer that the Patriot system is more flawed than the military is willing to admit and they knew about these flaws for years before they ever attempted to remove them. And even today the Patriot is not the type of weapon it is purported to be. They are spotlighting an obvious failure in the system that the taxpayer should know about since it is their money that is being used to continue building a system that is flawed beyond a tolerable measure.

Your initial post on this slams the reporters at 60 Minutes as being fairly free with the truth. Now I have little respect for the news media in general, but I think the people at 60 Minutes are credible. They have been doing what they do for well over 30 years. If they were as careless with the truth as your post implied, they wouldn't be on the air.

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Didn't we also hear that the Patriot missile also did more harm than good? That the success rate of the Patriot missile was less than 50 percent?

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Here's a link on the Patriot missile during the Gulf War. My less than 50 percent success rate was close. In Israel, they estimated a 40 percent success rate. http://www.cdi.org/issues/bmd/Patriot.html

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georgeob1 wrote:

Have you asked me any questions that I have failed to answer, or at least attempt to?

Yes. See the following.

You quoted recent figures, but are they improved over figures prior to NAFTA?

You make it sound as though it is more advantageous for Canadians than it is for Americans. How is having an open border more advantageous to one country over the other?

So...are you saying you expected the Canadian customs officers to let you travel back and forth between Canada and the U.S.A. without any interference?

Click here to see initial post which you either didn't see or ignored entirely.

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cicerone imposter wrote:

Here's a link on the Patriot missile during the Gulf War. My less than 50 percent success rate was close. In Israel, they estimated a 40 percent success rate. http://www.cdi.org/issues/bmd/Patriot.html

And again, you are quoting figures for the ORIGINAL Patriot missile NOT the PAC-3 missile that is fielded today.

PLEASE understand that the current incarnation of the Patriot is completely different from the version that was fielded during the First Gulf War (Desert Shield/Storm)

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Fedral, Since I have not kept up on the news on the Patriot missile since the first Gulf War, my thinking on this subject is not current. I only remember Russia making a claim recently that the have developed some form of star wars that can shoot down missiles.

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So then....what are its present statistics? Are they much improved?

60 Minutes wrote:

And the military has since confirmed news reports that Patriots with simulated missiles had problems with "friendly firein exercises in 1997, 2000, and 2002" -- including one instance when a Patriot with simulated missiles would have, if its missiles had been real, "shot down an entire four-ship formation of F-16's."

And what of Navy Pilot Lt. Nathan White? Certainly his death supports the claims made in the 60 Minutes story.

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caprice wrote:

And what of Navy Pilot Lt. Nathan White? Certainly his death supports the claims made in the 60 Minutes story.

His death proves what I stated in my earlier post:

1) The Patriot is brutally effective at its original purpose (Destroying aircraft in it's airspace control zone)

2) Messing with the control software of an air defense radar to enable it to plot intercepts on ballistic targets can have some unpleasant and unintended consequences.

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caprice wrote:

So then....what are its present statistics? Are they much improved?

Here is a link to some info about the Patriot. It is a bit behind the actual deployed versions but it can give you a little idea about the differences between the different versions of the missile. I am still looking on my comp for the better link I have on the Pat PAC-3 and will post it as soon as I can.

http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/program/patriot.htm

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Fedral wrote:

caprice wrote:

And what of Navy Pilot Lt. Nathan White? Certainly his death supports the claims made in the 60 Minutes story.

His death proves what I stated in my earlier post:

1) The Patriot is brutally effective at its original purpose (Destroying aircraft in it's airspace control zone)

2) Messing with the control software of an air defense radar to enable it to plot intercepts on ballistic targets can have some unpleasant and unintended consequences.

You sound as though you support the Patriot. I hope this is not the case.

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When They say "I hate America", what do you think They mean?

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