The top US general shared new details at a Pentagon briefing on how Patriot air defense systems shot down Iran’s missile strikes on Monday.
“We believe that this is the largest single Patriot engagement in US military history,” Gen. Dan ‘Razin’ Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday morning.
M1M-104 US Patriots, along with Qatari air defenses, defended against Iran’s retaliatory ballistic missile strike on Al Udeid Air Base, located in Qatar and America’s largest military base in the Middle East. The attack came after the US bombings of three Iranian nuclear facilities over the weekend.
At a press conference on Thursday, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Caine walked through both the US strike and Iran’s response.
Caine first spoke about air defense operators at Al Udeid. US military leaders, as US President Donald Trump confirmed earlier this week, received warnings that Iran intended to attack US bases in the region earlier on Monday. Even with a warning, intercepting a ballistic missile isn’t necessarily easy.
The Patriot system is a sophisticated defense platform, but there are several technical, operational, and strategic challenges that complicate intercept attempts. The system is a hit-to-kill weapon requiring precision against threats coming in fast, and in the case of Iran’s retaliatory attacks, there were over a dozen ballistic missiles.
At Al Udeid, American forces assumed a minimum force posture, the general said. “Most folks had moved off the base to extend the security perimeter out away from what we assessed might be a target zone,” Caine said. Roughly 44 US Army soldiers remained at Al Udeid operating two Patriot batteries.
A Patriot battery consists of radar and control systems, launchers armed with interceptor missiles, power generation units, and communication equipment all operated by trained crews to detect, track, and intercept incoming threats.
Caine said those soldiers were “responsible for defending the entire base,” noting the oldest one was a 28-year-old captain and the youngest a 21-year-old private who’d been in service for less than two years. The crews operating the Patriots were deployed from US forces in South Korea and Japan, Caine said.
As night fell in the area, the Patriot crews were instructed to point their missile batteries north toward Iran. Control of the Patriot systems were transferred from the service members outside of the vehicles — a hot crew of one non-commissioned office and four soldiers — to the Patriot operators.
And then, Caine said, crews waited.
“You know that you’re going to have approximately two minutes, 120 seconds, to either succeed or fail,” he said, referring to how fast a ballistic missile can arrive.
At around 7:30 p.m. local time, Iran launched its attack. As incoming missiles were detected, “round after round of Patriot missiles are ejected from their canisters by an initial launch charge,” Caine said. While he declined to reveal how many rounds were fired because those details are classified, Caine said that there was reason to believe it was the largest single Patriot use in US military history. The air defense efforts were joined by Qatari Patriot crews.
The event was described as “a lot of metal flying around,” as Patriots took out missiles and boosters, and debris was falling to the ground. It has been confirmed that none of Iran’s missiles hit the base. Furthermore, there have been no reported casualties.
Patriot surface-to-air missile systems and the interceptor missiles, manufactured by Raytheon, a subsidiary of RTX, and Lockheed Martin, respectively, have seen extensive and recent use by Ukraine, helping it engage and eliminate Russia’s ballistic missiles, aircraft, drones, and other threats throughout the war.
Before its deployment in Ukraine, the Patriot missile system was somewhat controversial due to some exaggerated success claims from the Gulf War and inconsistent real-world performance in later conflicts, which raised doubts about its effectiveness.
The system has seen significant upgrades, and the results in combat have made the Patriot a celebrated asset. Ukrainian officials have praised this system for its effectiveness. Kyiv’s main complaint is that it doesn’t have enough of them.
The briefing Thursday was in response to media reports that the strikes on Iran may not have sufficiently devastated its key nuclear facilities. Though there are indications the strikes dealt significant damage, questions remain about the future of the program, specifically Iran’s ability to rebuild and the whereabouts of Iranian stockpiles of highly enriched uranium.
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