By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization
President Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin have made rapid moves to add missile defense and Naval forces to the Middle East in response to “escalations” by Iran and its proxy forces.
The USS Ford and its supporting Carrier Strike Group has been in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea for at least a week, and now Austin is adding a second Carrier Strike Group to the area and activated the deployment of Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile defense systems to the region.
“Following detailed discussions with President Biden on recent escalations by Iran and its proxy forces across the Middle East Region, today I directed a series of additional steps to further strengthen the Department of Defense posture in the region,” Austin said in a Pentagon statement.
Austin has ordered that the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group be re-directed to join the USS Ford in the Eastern Mediterranean. This is quite significant as the US Navy has already trained for “dual carrier” operations, the kind of interoperability which would enable a “massive” air attack campaign from the sea. The USS Ford, as a new, high-tech carrier, already operates with a much larger deck space and the ability to maintain a 33-percent increase in a sortie rate. Adding the USS Eisenhower Strike Group can add very large amounts of additional airpower, particularly in the event that the two carriers are “networked” and can maintain interoperability and coordinate operations.
“This carrier strike group is in addition to the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group, which is currently operating in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. It will further increase our force posture and strengthen our capabilities and ability to respond to a range of contingencies,” Austin said.
Missile Defense to the Middle East
Patriot missile batteries and THAAD systems will clearly offer a protective envelope for US forces in the region and parts of Israel potentially vulnerable to long-range ballistic missiles from Iran. The specific location of the Patriot and THAAD were not mentioned, likely for security reasons, yet these kinds of missile defense systems can protect US and Israeli force.
While the Patriot of the Gulf War era proved capable of knocking out SCUDs, and the weapon has shown capable of destroying multiple kinds of ballistic missiles, today’s Patriot is arguably positioned to counter Iran’s dangerous arsenal of cruise missiles. An interesting analysis on Iran Watch cites what it terms “deployed” and “possibly deployed” cruise missiles of various ranges. The longest range Cruise Missile cited in the analysis is the now-deployed Paveh LACM capable of traveling up to 1,600km, yet Iran Watch also specifies two newer “possibly deployed” cruise missiles with “unkown” ranges called the Meshkat/Soumar (Kh-55) and the Hoveizeh. Parts of Western Iran, given this weapons range, would be capable of targeting Israel, and of course Iranian proxies can likely fire them from much closer ranges as well. This places Israel and US forces at risk in the region to a very high degree, although the kind of guidance and target tracking technologies built into Iran’s cruise missiles may not be fully known.
Modern Patriot Could Stop Iranian Cruise missiles
While dispersed yet long-range precision interceptors could make a large difference when it comes to defending Israel and US allies from Hamas or Iranian rockets, the decision to send the Patriot seems to indicate the Pentagon’s growing confidence in its upgraded performance capabilities. While first emerging more than 30-years ago as a “Scud Killer” during the Persian Gulf War, today’s patriot is almost and entirely different weapon due to advanced fire control, paradigm-changing guidance technology and expansive multi-node, target-tracking networking.
It may not yet be clear which exact variant of the Patriot the Pentagon is sending, although many are likely to be the Patriot Advanced Capability -3, a kinetic energy interceptor engineered to track and destroy incoming enemy ballistic missiles. In recent years, however, the Patriot missile has received a series of paradigm-changing upgrades which now enable the interceptor to track and destroy two maneuvering cruise missiles. This ability is a massive change for the weapon, which was upgraded with software adaptations years ago through an effort called Missile System Enhancement (MSE). While this upgrade improved performance parameters in a substantial way in terms of explosive power, range and guidance .. the largest breakthrough with Patriot was demonstrated as recently as 2020 by Army Futures Command.
The Army has in recent years integrated a next-generation, Raytheon-built advanced radar called the Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense System (LTAMDS) which introduced an ability to better track and destroy moving cruise missiles and also intercept two cruise missiles with a single system. The speed of detection is entirely different, as is the range and aperture or “field of regard.” Raytheon engineers have explained the system to Warrior, explaining that LTAMDS upgrades fast to refresh its tracking detail by real-time radar updates while a threat is in flight. LTAMDS operates with three 120-degree arrays able to compensate for or cover “blind spots.”
These upgrades, should the most cutting edge variants be sent, likely explain why the Patriot is being sent to the Middle East as it is now precisely engineered to track and destroy weapons such as advanced Iranian cruise missiles. Unlike ballistic missiles which travel along a parabola-like up and down trajectory, cruise missiles are designed to elude radar by flying at lower altitudes parallel to the ground. This makes them much harder to track.
Yet another reason why the most advanced Patriots can better track multiple, high-speed targets is that the missile is now much more fully networked as part of the Army’s now operational Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS). In development for many years, IBCS is a meshed network of interconnected nodes able to share threat tracking among dispersed, otherwise disaggregated systems. With IBCS, which is now multi-domain, joint and fast advancing through ongoing upgrades from its maker Northrop Grumman. Years ago, IBCS integrated a Patriot radar with the Sentinel radar, THAAD and even F-35s as aerial nodes. Now Northrop Grumman is linking “maritime” nodes with air, ground and surface weapons.
Patriot – Example of Army Modernization
In a cutting-edge experiment in 2020, Army Futures Command was able to demonstrate the ability of the Patriot to intercept a maneuvering cruise missile during a “live-fire” exercise at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico.
This test and the overall maturation of the weapons system aligns closely with the Army’s recently published Air and Missile Defense 2028 Vision document. The service crafted the analysis in large measure to enable weapons like the Patriot to engage and destroy a new generation of threats….such as cruise missiles.
“Numerous countries are developing ground-, sea-, and air-launched land-attack CMs [cruise missiles] using an assortment of unconventional and inexpensive launch platforms. In addition, long-range, low-observable, advanced CMs enable our adversaries to present a complex air and missile defense problem with high-volume, high-precision missiles capable of 360-degree avenues of approach,” the Army Vision document states.
The Army text specifies some of the more challenging specifics associated with newly em
erging drone, helicopter, aircraft, and ballistic missile threats. For instance, regarding ballistic missile threats, the Army Vision report explains that advanced weapons are now engineered with “countermeasures, maneuverable re-entry vehicles, multiple independent reentry vehicles, hypersonic/supersonic glide vehicles and electronic attack.”
Austin was also clear that the Pentagon is prepared to respond with additional forces now on “prepare to deploy” orders in the case that urgent adjustments are needed and tensions in the warzone further escalate.
Two Carriers – “Dual Carrier” Operations in Mediterranean
Not long ago in the Pacific, the US Navy conducted “dual-carrier” war drills wherein two aircraft carriers operated in close coordination with one another to practice executing a massive air campaign, something which verified that several integrated carriers together could double the sortie rate, dwell time over targets and geographical envelope of attack. With USS Ford and USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Groups both off the coast of Israel, the Pentagon is making it clear that it has the ability to operate a sweeping, massive, multi-warship air attack on Hamas or Iran if necessary.
The “dual-carrier” training mission in the Pacific was successful, as it enabled the US Navy to ensure it could greatly “scale” and maintain a sustained air attack from the sea. It involved the USS Carl Vinson and USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Groups which conducted a range of maritime warfare operations, including anti-submarine warfare, naval replenishment, cross-deck flight operations, and maritime interdiction missions.
The US “dual-carrier” exercise was quickly and not surprisingly copied by the People’s Liberation Army – Navy, and it may have provided the confidence and conceptual framework for the Pentagon’s current decision to place two highly-lethal and likely integrated Carrier Strike Groups in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Often thought of as a venerable symbol of American power and presence, US Navy carriers have for years operated as an “ultimate deterrent,” meaning they certainly give potential adversaries pause when it comes to taking certain aggressive actions. The potential for an air campaign is massive, as each carrier can operate at least 75 to 90-aircraft, and one of the key take-aways from previous “dual-carrier” exercises was that flight paths, launches and missions could be synchronized, staggered and coordinated to optimize attack duration and effectiveness. For instance, with two carrier strike groups capable of integrating and networking operations, the US Navy could potentially operate two distinct, yet large air campaigns simultaneously. US Navy carriers could attack Hamas and Iran at the same time in a large-scale way should that be necessary.
The operational deployment of the USS Ford brings yet another host of extremely significant variables as it is capable of a 33-percent increase in sortie rate beyond the Nimitz-class. The largest advantage related to the dual-carrier groups now in the Middle East likely pertains to 5th-generation aircraft. Of course carriers and destroyers in the Carrier Strike Groups to protect carriers can launch long-range precision attacks with Tactical Tomahawks able to change course in flight and use Aegis radar and SM-3s to stop ballistic missile attacks, but perhaps of greatest significance, they can each operate 30-to-50 F-35Cs if necessary. Given the ability of the F-35s to easily network with each other on real time with Multifunction Advanced Data Link (MADL), US Navy maritime variant F-35Cs from different carriers could use the same command and control. F-35s could exchange ISR and targeting data with one another as well, a latency-reducing, target-attack enhancing circumstances.
Kris Osborn is the President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization and Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
