Saudi Missile Defense

The Houthi’s in Yemen are lobbing missiles at Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia does have a missile defense system (I assume made in America). Apparently they are missing the incoming missiles: http://www.businessinsider.com/saudi-missile-defense-failed-video-2018-3

A few other points:

  1. One interceptor appears to have “pulled a u-turn” and exploded over Riyadh.
    1. This interceptor may have been the source of the Saudi casualties (one dead, two injured)
  2. This could be the largest barrage of missiles fired at Saudi Arabia by the Houthi’s yet.

I wonder what interceptor Saudi Arabia was using. I wonder if failure is common with most missile defense systems (the situation with North Korea comes to mind here).

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Update:

This is not the first time we have discussed this problem:

Did The Patriot BMD Miss Again In Saudi Arabia?

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Christopher A. Lawrence
Christopher A. Lawrence

Christopher A. Lawrence is a professional historian and military analyst. He is the Executive Director and President of The Dupuy Institute, an organization dedicated to scholarly research and objective analysis of historical data related to armed conflict and the resolution of armed conflict. The Dupuy Institute provides independent, historically-based analyses of lessons learned from modern military experience.

Mr. Lawrence was the program manager for the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base, the Kursk Data Base, the Modern Insurgency Spread Sheets and for a number of other smaller combat data bases. He has participated in casualty estimation studies (including estimates for Bosnia and Iraq) and studies of air campaign modeling, enemy prisoner of war capture rates, medium weight armor, urban warfare, situational awareness, counterinsurgency and other subjects for the U.S. Army, the Defense Department, the Joint Staff and the U.S. Air Force. He has also directed a number of studies related to the military impact of banning antipersonnel mines for the Joint Staff, Los Alamos National Laboratories and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation.

His published works include papers and monographs for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation, in addition to over 40 articles written for limited-distribution newsletters and over 60 analytical reports prepared for the Defense Department. He is the author of Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka (Aberdeen Books, Sheridan, CO., 2015), America’s Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam (Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia & Oxford, 2015), War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat (Potomac Books, Lincoln, NE., 2017) and The Battle of Prokhorovka (Stackpole Books, Guilford, CT., 2019)

Mr. Lawrence lives in northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C., with his wife and son.

Articles: 1455

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