The License for Missile Production for Patriot, promised to Ukraine by the US President, will not solve our urgent problems. We explain why assembling the PAC-3 is more complicated than it seems even to pessimists.
At the beginning of the year, we predicted the missile and aviation strikes of the enemy throughout 2026. Its industrial capabilities and organization of combat use then indicated that in June-July one should expect a certain pause amid regular raids of 200-400 UAVs to deplete Ukrainian air defense, as in the summer the Russians would focus on Donbas. We assumed a mass raid on Independence Day or a series of powerful strikes after the accumulation period of previous months — 800-1200 UAVs and 60-100 missiles at once.
In summary, for June the average raid was a combined attack of 200-400 strike UAVs and decoy UAVs, plus 5-30 missiles. The goal was to overload air defense and hit targets in the rear. The intensity was lower than in May, but the attacks remained regular and dangerous.
On the night of July 4-5, the enemy used an X-31p anti-radar missile (from the Black Sea waters), three X-59/69 cruise missiles (from the temporarily occupied territory of Zaporizhzhia region), and 125 strike UAVs. 112 UAVs and three X-59/69 missiles were shot down/jammed (the X-31p did not reach the target and disappeared from radar, likely due to electronic warfare).
From July 5 to 6, the enemy launched 419 air attack means, including: 68 missiles of various types (ballistic, X-101 cruise, “Caliber,” “Zircon,” etc.) and 351 UAVs. 363 targets were shot down/jammed — 37 missiles and 326 UAVs.
The last two strikes on Kyiv suggest that the enemy is changing its attack tactics. There is suspicion that unknown means have been used. Four times, ballistic missiles were fired; missile units were deployed in positional areas with increased security and camouflage measures, even though they were operating on their own territory.
According to the Air Force command, the enemy used two anti-radar X-31p missiles from the Black Sea during the raid, which was previously typical for strikes on Odesa and the region.
The missile engine fragments from air-launched cruise missiles, the Kh-101, sparked lively discussion among professionals: some experts claim that the Russians stole the technology for monocrystalline 3D titanium printing from the Americans; others argue that Soviet engineers developed this technology back in the 1970s. There is, of course, no consensus, but the fragments are genuinely intriguing. If our researchers confirm the hypotheses, it can be assumed that the Kh-101 can now carry a warhead weighing up to 1000 kg over a range of up to 5500 km. Not the best news. But unconfirmed.
These strikes exposed the main issue — the extremely limited capabilities of our Air Forces to repel ballistic missile strikes.
The only truly effective anti-missile system is the MIM-104 Patriot anti-aircraft missile system with interceptor missiles PAC-3 (modifications MSE or CRI).
The main developer and manufacturer of these interceptors, the American company Lockheed Martin (Camden, Arkansas plant), is now trying to increase annual production from 500 to 650 missiles. That is, if an enemy attack involves 30 ballistic missiles, annual production is sufficient for 20 air defense battles. This does not account for the need to maintain national air defense capabilities to the level of guaranteed interception and supply interceptors under current contracts. There are also manufacturers in Japan and South Korea, but we are not fortunate in reaching agreements there.
The issue with producing the PAC-3 (Patriot Advanced Capability-3) interceptor is not the super complexity of the technology, but the extremely complex combination of high-tech components and specific production methods that cannot be accelerated simply by extending working hours or increasing the number of shifts.
To assemble one missile, products from 400 manufacturers are involved.
The solid-fuel engine is supplied by Aerojet Rocketdyne. The production of mixed powders for solid-fuel rocket engines is in a global crisis. Furthermore, the time needed for polymerization, which cannot be hastened, must be considered. One can enlist help, but it requires time, standard agreements, deployment of necessary technological lines and processes, and ultimately, the disclosure of proprietary technological secrets.
A separate issue is the stringent control over the production outcome of such an engine. Many remember the 9k79 missile hitting a residential building in Brovary. The cause was the explosive combustion of a solid-fuel engine, which, due to excessive storage times, had internal cracks that increased the combustion area. The result was an engine explosion, detachment of aerodynamic control surfaces, uncontrolled flight, damage to a residential building, and human casualties. At Lockheed, rejected engines are simply sent for disposal. Not for repair, but for disposal. The manufacturer does not want to risk the lives of Patriot launch facility crews.
The seeker head (SH) is a separate problem: you cannot use commercial components there — the missile endures 30–50 g overloads at launch and during maneuvers. This is clearly not a job for a tourist navigator! PAC-3 is a highly maneuverable hit-to-kill interceptor (physically intercepts by ramming the ballistic target) that moves at speeds up to 6170 km/h (about Mach 5+). Imagine the performance of the components that control the interception of a ballistic missile, which is relatively small in size and flies at high speed. The SH operates in the K-band (millimeter range), must be resistant to external radio-electronic interference, and the microchips and other microelectronics are manufactured to military standards. Figuratively speaking, engaging civilian manufacturers without launching new technological processes and lines is impossible — this is not a washing machine and not even an electric car.
The movement of a shell from a cannon is described by a system of 16 differential equations. A computer calculates this effortlessly. Nowadays, even a tablet can handle it. With missiles that fly at speeds of up to three kilometers per second, it is much more complicated: the onboard computer is constantly looking for a meeting point with the target, predicting the trajectory of both the target and itself under conditions of constant change in the rocket’s weight, center of mass position, and a host of other factors. Otherwise, it will miss, and there is no second attempt. Can such a computer be assembled in a garage, for instance? Or at some hypothetical Torghmash?
Before ramming the ballistic target, the PAC-3 releases a cloud of tungsten pellets, increasing the impact area and destructive effect. In other words, the initiation block (Lethality Enhancer) must work with pinpoint accuracy and precision timing. Clearly, engaging, for example, Rolex for producing a Lethality Enhancer is a foolish idea. Ukrainian contractors of the Defense Forces have been mastering initiation electronic boards for UAV munitions for a few years, and this is much more complicated. Moreover, there aren’t many candidates for subcontractors.
Another bottleneck is the flight control mechanisms, as the missile maneuvers and intercepts along a rather complex trajectory. The PAC-3 has aerodynamic rudders and 180 impulse micro-engines (Attitude Control Motors) in the nose section for rapid lateral maneuvering (divert) in the final phase. Without this, hit-to-kill wouldn’t be possible. These micro-engines are solid-fuel based (all problems of this type of propellant have been described above). The issue of their assembly requires an enormous amount of highly skilled manual labor and meticulous quality control. Assemblers with such skills don’t come from employment centers, they are very expensive, and if the factory didn’t have enough of them BEFORE the contract, recruiting and training them will automatically extend order fulfillment time. Without orders, it’s not profitable for companies to keep such highly paid specialists just in case. Before the war, there weren’t many orders.
A small percentage of defects in civilian production isn’t a tragedy, but in the production of missile defense systems, a zero-defect culture has become the norm. Engineers and inspectors who maintain such standards are cultivated over generations. Meanwhile, in 2025–2026, Ukraine ordered the training of bachelors in the field of G “Engineering, Manufacturing, and Construction”: electrical engineering (G3) — 2590 full-time state-funded places, mechanical engineering (G11) — 2012, automation, computer-integrated technologies, and robotics (G7) — 1948. How many have enrolled is unknown, but there was a perpetual shortfall in these specialties because mathematics is difficult and generally unnecessary for children because “there’s a calculator in the phone.” We will see these bachelors in 2029. Just as the culture is passed from generation to generation, right.
We don’t stop at quality control procedures for finished products. The Japanese, for example, tested their first missiles for six months to ensure they actually knew how to assemble them. Before that, they spent 24 months organizing production. Japan can assemble up to 30 PAC-3s per year at the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries plant.
A consortium of European countries is trying to deploy the production of PAC-2 GEM-T missiles (up to three thousand missiles per year), which are technically and technologically simpler than the same PAC-3 MSE. This has turned into a grueling multi-year financial and technological project worth over five billion dollars. The company COMLOG (Germany) will assemble the first PAC-2 missiles in 2028, starting in 2024, while the Polish consortium PGZ received a license to produce launchers and launch containers for PAC-3 in 2018, but only began actual production in 2023–2024.
The time from receiving an advance payment to the finished missile appearing in the Camden plant warehouse is between 24 to 36 months. Translating from corporate to understandable terms: in 2026, missiles paid for in 2024 arrive at the warehouse.
And we haven’t even touched on the issue of production organization, which requires specific machines with production timelines of up to one and a half years.
Therefore, the announcement that Ukraine is being granted a license to produce missiles for the MIM-104 in no way overcomes the shortage of interceptors and will not do so in the coming years. However, something must be used for defense. We will leave out the organization of interactions with subcontractors, which we mentioned earlier. And it’s not a fact that all 400 are willing to cooperate with five or six “efficient managers.”
Looking at the problem relatively realistically, we could be discussing investments of billions of dollars, full integration into the American defense industry, and an organizational-preparatory period lasting five to ten years. We currently have none of the above.
At the beginning of the year, our air defense demonstrated the capability to consistently repel daily raids of up to 250 UAVs; challenging but manageable — 500-600 UAVs; at the brink of critical load, but retaining all system functions — 800-1000 UAVs. A thousand aerial targets today is the upper limit of our air defense.
Expect raids of 1200–1500 UAVs and 60–100 missiles simultaneously over several consecutive days. Under such conditions, the number of missed targets will increase, and air defense will have to prioritize rather than cover everything according to plan.
The Ukrainian air defense systems could be overloaded if the enemy strikes with more than 1500 UAVs daily over two to four days, but this hinges on the capabilities of the Russian defense industry and its accumulation of aerial assault means. Such a strike would be extremely costly and equally challenging to repeat.
The acute shortage of interceptor missiles for the Patriot air defense systems gives a clear understanding that the situations where everyone hears the impact, but the alert siren sounded somewhat later, will increase. There will be more destruction of critical infrastructure and civilian targets because the PAC-3 manufacturing technologies do not exist in Ukraine, and creating them in a few months is unrealistic.
Everyone knows how to roll up any piece of paper, including a production license for anything.
In the cover image: Equipment specialist Jason Cunkle checks the Patriot missile control unit at the Letterkenny Army Depot. Photo: U.S. Army/Pam Goodhart
