The Patriot system used in 1991 was an anti-aircraft system that was hacked up to work against missiles. The Patriot system being fielded today is considerably different and much improved.
Iron Dome isn't comparable. Iron Dome is made to shoot down short-range rockets and shells. It makes intercepts against slow moving targets at low altitudes. It would not likely have much success against a mach 5 Scud that would spend only a few seconds within Iron Dome's engagement range before impact.
Iron Dome is vastly superior to Patriot in one key area, namely cost. Shooting down cheap Palestinian rockets and mortars at $2 million/missile for Patriot would not be feasible, but at $30-50,000/missile for Iron Dome is completely doable. I don't know what Patriot's success rate would be against these targets, but given its cost, it doesn't matter if it was 100%, it still wouldn't be workable.
Comments
The Patriot system used in 1991 was an anti-aircraft system that was hacked up to work against missiles. The Patriot system being fielded today is considerably different and much improved.
Iron Dome isn't comparable. Iron Dome is made to shoot down short-range rockets and shells. It makes intercepts against slow moving targets at low altitudes. It would not likely have much success against a mach 5 Scud that would spend only a few seconds within Iron Dome's engagement range before impact.
Iron Dome is vastly superior to Patriot in one key area, namely cost. Shooting down cheap Palestinian rockets and mortars at $2 million/missile for Patriot would not be feasible, but at $30-50,000/missile for Iron Dome is completely doable. I don't know what Patriot's success rate would be against these targets, but given its cost, it doesn't matter if it was 100%, it still wouldn't be workable.