Zach

see*

Very much doubt. Though we did some C-RAM in Iraq get some decent kills. I believe some FS/M-LIDS systems are in theater.

I think people have witnessed Ukrainians taking a whole of society approach to countering Shaheds and thought that this shit was easy. It is not, Ukrainians are surviving through immense hardships because they have to. There is not other choice for them.

It is going to be a massive doctrinal shift to stop operating like this. Additionally, stuff that can't move (like THAAD) needs to be well defended and dug in (the system is completely vulnerable to aerial attacks as it does only BMD).

Multiple displacements a day is going to require at minimum two batteries for each defended site (one to cover the site and the other battery as it displaces). But due to scarcity of IAMD assets, batteries are usually now deployed as singles. (PATRIOT is meant to fight as a force of 3-4 batteries)

Overall, the PATRIOT force might have to shift to proper displacement doctrine (multiple movement over the course of a day). However, since 1991 the PATRIOT force has been transformed into a city/fixed-site defense force that emplaces at fixed/prepared sites for 5-9 months.

The US has decent C-UAS effectors and sensors but the problem has been mass fielding. Stuff i have heard through the grapevine is that there are big cultural problems with crews as well (desensitization to alarms due to persistent mortar attacks).

Losses are to be expected, but i don't think the US has enough C-UAS assets in theater. For a long time now, there has been a particular lack of passive defense planning by the US for its IAMD assets. I can't say this loss was totally unexpected, it was eventually bound to happen.

Source: edition.cnn.com/2026/03/05/m...

Some of these radars (Turkey one being closest) can be relocated to allow the battery to continue functioning. Lastly, although it is hard to determine what exactly hit the radar from the sat images, I would place my bet on Shaheds.

This meant that they had an excess of 6 radars. Two of radars are deployed to Japan and one in Turkey to act in "Forward Based Mode" and provide early warning for the GMD system and Aegis systems at sea and in Europe (Poland and Romania).

The US can address the loss of this radar system by quickly moving another radar from either Turkey or else Japan. The US has always operated more TPY-2 radars than it had THAAD batteries. They had 13 AN/TPY-2 radar sets but until recently only operated 7 batteries (now 8).

Without the radar that battery is temporarily out of the fight and that means the Patriot batteries deployed to the base will have higher burden placed on them. THAAD and PATRIOT are meant to work together, with THAAD acting as upper layer and PATRIOT as lower layer.

A typical AN/TPY-2 radar is made up of 1x Antenna Equipment Unit (AEU), 1x Cooling Equipment Unit (CEU), 1x Electronic Equipment Unit (EEU), and 2x Prime Power Units (PPU). You can see in the sat photo above that rhe AEU, WEU and CEU got whacked pretty good.

Probably first major US loss of the conflict when it comes to ballistic missile defense. One of TPY-2 radars belonging to the THAAD battery deployed to Muwaffaq Salti Airbase in Jordan seems to have been struck. The full radar set goes over $200M.

Governor Newsom's recent comments about Israel were confusing and problematic at a critical moment, as the United States, Israel, and their regional partners confront significant threats from the Iranian regime. If the Governor intended to express concern about proposals to annex parts of the West Bank, that debate requires precision. Invoking the term "apartheid" is wrong and inflammatory, does not reflect the complex realities on the ground, and only risks inflaming tensions.

The future of the Democratic Party will be centrist Democrats saying factually true things (and in fact understating them) and the collective pro Israel lobby freaking the fuck out

Solid motors*

These missiles weren't really used in the April and October 2024 attacks nor were they used in any significant quantities in the June 2025 attacks. So no, the US did not burn through 3.5k PAC-3s in 4 days. It physical doesn't have enough launchers to launch of all these in the Middle East.

Lastly, the number of produced PAC-3s in US inventory stands at around 3.5k missiles and for PAC-2s around 6k (accounting for wartime losses but not accounting for donations to Ukraine, which are few anyway)

Parts that are produced now can be put into missiles that are going to be assembled many years from now. This is common in nearly every complex piece of equipment (aircraft, ships, vehicles, etc)

They just need certification in between to check the health of their sold motors. The US Navy in the early 2000s was firing missiles produced in the 1960s. Additionally you can't identify the age of a missile from the production date of a single component.

He also claims that Qatar's oldest missiles date to 2003-2004, when in reality it is closer to the mid 2010s. He also claims that missiles only have a sub-15 to 10 year lifespan, which is also false. Specifically, interceptors like PAC-1/2s have a 45 year lifespan.

I have no idea who Thomas Keith is but a lot of his tweets have been blowing up on both here and Twitter. All of his claims about things I know more than a little about have been false. This tweet is an example, he claims the classification date of a component to be the production date.

So the current 3.9k TLAMs being converted to Block Vs are all new builds Block IVs produced after 2004. After 2006 the number of firings was a bit less than 400~, which was made up for with new production.

In 2004-2006 Block IV was introduced and NAVAIR awarded a $1.6B contract for 2.2k new production missiles in August 2004. This was expanded to later include another 2.2k missiles. Older TLAMs were never converted into Block IVs in big numbers (programs did exist but with mixed results.)

To add to this, the number of fired TLAMs over the past 35 years is around 2.2k missiles. Over 80% of this being prior to 2004 so they were part of the 4.2k Block I/II/III missiles produced prior to 2004.

Well, it shows both. The Navy is inducting 4k TLAMs into recertification. These are 4k TLAMs they have on hand, not ones that have been fired. The yearly recertification is about 400-500~ missiles.

I am just pulling from the most recent US Navy WPN document. There were many TLAMs (Block I/II/IIIs) that were never converted to newer versions due to major differences between the various older blocks and newer blocks. The Navy hasn't been focusing on new production but recert of existing stocks.

The Navy had an inventory of 3.6k Block IV VLS + 1.3k Block IV CLS TLAMs. Of which 3.9k were being converted to various Block V configurations. The total combined TLAM buy stands at over 8k missiles, but many were too different/old to convert.