The Patriot missile system is comprised of three essential pieces, the missile battery (a set of four boxed missiles on a trailer with hydraulic supports that can elevate the missiles for launch), the control van (a unit containing launch officer and asisstants), the radar unit, and Mast Unit, a trailer loaded with antennas and such for communication with batallion control.

The missile itself is a radar guided weapon, that uses terminal handshake as it gets closer to its target. This allows the control unit to make very fine adjustments in trajectory based upon highly accurate telemetry from the missile itself as it close in. The warhead is designed to fragment and destroy the target via proximity fusing, and was originally designed to disable an aircraft. During the Gulf war (Desert Storm) however, the Patriot system was upgraded to attack the SCUD battlefiedl missile. This became quite challenge for the warhead, since it not only had to disable the missile, but several Patroits were used to track and destory large pieces of the disentagrating missile.

The control van is the nerve center of the operation, and is manned by up to 4 people. The person in charge is the TCO or Tactical Control Officer, resposible for the final launch order, and ocmmander of the personnel in the van. The TCA or Tactical Control Assistant is usually an enlisted personnel rsponsibel for the actual control of many of the systems within the control van. The Commo, is the communications memeber of the team (also enlisted) and is respnosible for message traffic from higher authority. An optional fourth person in the van is the recorder, who is responsible for logging messages amd may also be asked to assist the TCO and TCA.

The major piece of equipment used in the control van is the radar screen which displays tracking and battle field information to the crew. A number of symbols are used to indicate friendly or hostile airborne targets. The inverted triangle (part of the aforementioned upgrade) indiicates a ballistic missile, a circle indicates a friendly aircraft, a diamond shape is used to indicate a hostile aircraft, and a football shape is used to indicate a patriot in flight. Whenever the system has a radar lock on a target, a hex shape appears around the normal symbol, and when an intercept occurs, a "tic-tac-toe" symbol is placed over the object.

The control of missiles themselves by the crew is classified, but it is fairly obvious that the crew can select which of several multiple targets the Patriot system will engage. Launch occurs, and missiles leave their armored boxes streaking skyward. As the missile closes, the radar system begins receiving data from the missile itsef, data that is used to further refine its flight path. This is exteremly important to the Patriot system, making the calculations for intercept more and more accurate by comparing the missiles location with the tracked target.

Tactically, it is believed the Patriot did, however, provide enough a deterrent to force Hussein to keep the missiles moving on their trailers such that they could be hidden from sight of U.S. aircraft. Politically, the Patriot could probably be credited with helping to prevent Israel from entering the Gulf war and tearing apart the fragile alliance between the Western and Arab alliance.

Specifications:

Guidance: Phased Array Acquisition, tracking, with SARH homing in terminal phase of mission
Maximum Range: Estimated at up to 160 km (37 nautical miles)
Propulsion: Thiokol TX-486 single thrust solid motor
Flight Speed: Estimated at Mach 3
Warhead: Blast/Frag (details classified)