[Goose]

I think another issue with providing them with a patriot missile system battery is that a single battery costs about a billion dollars, and each missile costs 3 million dollars.  Given how much each draw down package has been, and how long this war might last, I worry it's out of the cards.  From what I'm seeing Greece and Bulgaria both have S-300 systems, so maybe the United states could sell Patriot batteries to them, to get them up to NATO standard and have those donated, but that's a of immense proportions ask, and both those countries have a lot of politics to deal with when it comes to supporting Ukraine.

All true. Another "dirty little secret" that has become obvious from this war is that the S-300 isn't very good at shooting down low-flying cruise missiles. Not surprising. Such missiles are significantly "stealth" because of their small size (low RCS) and the fact they are close to the horizon. Lots of ground clutter there. You don't have lots of time to detect, acquire, and destroy. Depending on the geometry, it may be impossible for a given launcher to do the job. Many improvements were made to the S-400 to address exactly these problems. However, experience in Syria has been at best mixed on how well those improvements worked.

To be fair, the S-300 was designed to operate as part of a system, not by itself. Target detection was to be performed by radars specifically designed to do that. In the Ukraine it is unclear to me how much of that system is operational, or even present. I know they lost a lot of S-300s when Russia took Crimea in 2014, and historically Crimea is where most of the air defense was concentrated. Probably lots of the detection was lost too. I am sure they have compensated as best they can, but it isn't a simple problem. I can't imagine Russia would let a Tombstone/Big Bird just sit there radiating. Ukraine would need to protect that asset like mad and eventually something would get through.

[Goose]

I think another issue with providing them with a patriot missile system battery is that a single battery costs about a billion dollars, and each missile costs 3 million dollars.  Given how much each draw down package has been, and how long this war might last, I worry it's out of the cards.  From what I'm seeing Greece and Bulgaria both have S-300 systems, so maybe the United states could sell Patriot batteries to them, to get them up to NATO standard and have those donated, but that's a of immense proportions ask, and both those countries have a lot of politics to deal with when it comes to supporting Ukraine.

All true. Another "dirty little secret" that has become obvious from this war is that the S-300 isn't very good at shooting down low-flying cruise missiles. Not surprising. Such missiles are significantly "stealth" because of their small size (low RCS) and the fact they are close to the horizon. Lots of ground clutter there. You don't have lots of time to detect, acquire, and destroy. Depending on the geometry, it may be impossible for a given launcher to do the job. Many improvements were made to the S-400 to address exactly these problems. However, experience in Syria has been at best mixed on how well those improvements worked.

To be fair, the S-300 was designed to operate as part of a system, not by itself. Target detection was to be performed by radars specifically designed to do that. In the Ukraine it is unclear to me how much of that system is operational, or even present. I know they lost a lot of S-300s when Russia took Crimea in 2014, and historically Crimea is where most of the air defense was concentrated. Probably lots of the detection was lost too. I am sure they have compensated as best they can, but it isn't a simple problem. I can't imagine Russia would let a Tombstone/Big Bird just sit there radiating. Ukraine would need to protect that asset like mad and eventually something would get through.