Romania aids Ukraine with Patriot delivery, secures U.S. compensation
In October 2024, Romania delivered one of its two newest Patriot PAC-3+ battery systems to Ukraine. It has now come to light that Romania will receive compensation from the USA in a few years. Here’s what makes the Patriot PAC-3+ special.
The American Department of Defense announced awarding RTX (Raytheon) a contract worth $946 million to produce Patriot system components. This order is for Romania under the FMS (Foreign Military Sales) procedure and is set to be completed by December 31, 2029. It compensates for delivering the only operational PAC-3+ battery to Ukraine.
Patriot PAC-3+ – the final evolution of the famous US system
The currently built Patriot batteries are in the PAC-3+ standard, significantly outperforming older models from the 1980s and 90s. The key features include the PAC-3 MSE missiles and the IBCS command system, an integrated air and missile defence system.
IBCS (Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System) is a network-centric approach to air defence that enables integrating many previously separate systems into one. A major advantage is, for example, the decentralization of battery data. Unlike older systems, the destruction of the command point, known as the EOC (Engagement Operation Center), does not "silence" the entire battery system if its other elements survive the attack.
In the case of Patriot systems operating within IBCS, the possibility of connecting undamaged elements like radars and launchers to another EOC greatly complicates the enemy's effort to "silence" air defence. It is also worth mentioning that in the coming years, Patriot users with the PAC-3+ version will have the opportunity to replace AN/MPQ-65 sector radars with a viewing angle of 120 degrees with new LTAMDS radars capable of detecting objects in 360 degrees.
The second crucial component is the highly effective, albeit costly, PAC-3 MSE missiles (over $5 million each). Their mass production only began in 2018. Unlike the usual fragmentation warhead, these missiles use kinetic energy exclusively to destroy targets, making them a more reliable way to hit a target but requiring pinpoint accuracy. Thanks to them, shooting down, for instance, Iskanders-M or hypersonic KH-47 Kinzhal missiles is not a problem.
