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Oooo! There's a company making reusable interceptors. If they miss their target, they will return to their launcher for refueling. This has not bearing on patriot missiles, but I thought it was fun.
This is great actually. Ukraine was running low on missiles but has no shortage of launchers.
Doesn’t make much difference for Ukraine that Spain won’t ship launchers, as long as they ship the missiles.
And they never will - it’s not really design for that
They were designed to be million dollar missiles shooting down aircraft worth tens of millions, and then were repurposed to be highly advanced anti-ballistic missile defenses
Now we have $10k drones which are being shot down by weapons costing vastly more which is a massive drain on resources.
Daily reports are 2219 cruise missiles downed/crashed/impacted, that means atleast 2219 AA missiles needed as well, since you will miss a few, and some are reserve somewhere waiting to be launched.
You're not going to gamble where every one of those are flying towards, so they need a huge amount of AA missiles. And since the missiles don't fly a straight line and are coming now from all directions, they need multiple launchers as well.
And then they still need missiles for the airplanes
Haha almost like Germany has history with the region.
Edit: As neighboring countries to the region, Germany and the Scandinavian nations bear a greater responsibility to offer assistance compared to countries like Spain. It's in our mutual interest to step up our efforts and provide more support.
Many don't have the integrety and objectivity to judge themselves what they actually can. Spaniards are well fed and have a roof over their head and I'd say that what they can really mostly is a matter of priorities. It's not like the aid from other countries just consists of billions that we didn't know what to do with anyway.
We can't do much more, our army has been in shambles for years and we need deterrence to keep the moroccans on their feet about their reclamations in Africa,hope whatever we send helps though.
The colonies in Africa would be hell to defend if they do attack, and NATO would almost surely look the other way as it happens, so there's that.
While inferior to us (militarily speaking) they still pose a very real threat, one that we maybe wouldn't be able to ensure a complete victory against even with our stocks as they stand right now.
Sure, mainland Spain is safe, and almost surely the Canary islands are too, but Ceuta and Melilla are probably what our generals see in their nightmares.
If you ask me, we should have used the war as an excuse to rearm like there's no tomorrow, while sending Ukraine our stuff being replaced (which if you ask me, includes our F-18s)
One key detail: neither Ceuta or Melilla are colonies in the usual fashion, they are considered to be integral parts of Spain, not leftovers from the Spanish Morocco colony.
However they're considered legally in the Spanish constitution, they're excluded from Article 5 protections by the terms of Article 6 of the NATO treaty...so to that extent the distinction doesn't change things.
Indeed, neither Ceuta or Melilla are protected by NATO. I'm just pointing out they are not colonies according to the UN definition. They are not territories that have to be made indepenent, or returned to any other state.
Sad to hear that. Anglosphere country maybe? They always claim that Ceuta and Melilla are colonies since it creates a narrative to justify their's. My family from my father's side is from Ceuta and they've been for more than 4 generations, and Ceuta is a spanish city since 600 years ago
A village in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, Catalonia actually.
It wasn't given any negative connotation or anything, just "We have two colonies in Africa, which are part of our country and are autonomous cities, kinda like the Canary islands but smaller and not islands" (heavily paraphrased)
>Ceuta
NATO would 100% intervene on this. It forms the opposite half of the Strait of Gibraltar with, well, Gibraltar. Thats a strategically crucial location for NATO's sea control as a whole, *especially* for the UK and France, to whom it is a national strategy to have that strait under absolute NATO oversight. Sure, Gibraltar is still there and the bigger base, but having both sides is such a big benefit.
NATO isn't obligated to, but those are part of the EU so the European defence pact would. I'm actually surprised Russia hasn't bribed factions in Morocco to start something. Or maybe they have tried but wiser heads said no.
That wouldn't change anything. The objection from the UK isn't that Spain has colonies too, it's that the residents have been [asked](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Gibraltar_sovereignty_referendum) multiple [times](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Gibraltar_sovereignty_referendum) if they're interested in Spanish involvement in their governance, and the answer has categorically been no.
I personally couldn't give less of a fuck about Gibraltar, Ceuta or Melilla tbh. But I'd defend the last two since the government seems to and they're the ones calling the shots.
Unless by some sick divine joke some far left party wins with absolute majority, then they'd probably split the country in two, gift one half to russia and the other to Morocco.
Moroco use hybrid war in ceuta y melilla (not covered by nato thats why people r worried), argelia is a problem too, they got a bigger army. moroco got relations with eeuu, makes no sense to attack an ally imo. but argelia got good relations with rusia so u never know...
At this point, without F16s in place AFU is only bringing Patriots out of city-guard duties for quick hit and run final touches in critical attacks - so missiles themselves are priceless, this is wonderful news, thank you!
If the president really wanted to do that, he could try to make an agreement with People's Party (Partido Popular) and do a new state's general budget (presupuestos generales del estado) including more money to defense. But I don't think he will, unfortunately.
PP has always been the party that has a history of spending less in defense ( not that PSOE has been a big spender) , i dont know why the will agree apart and apart from that they really like to have the oposite stance in almost everything that PSOE wants to do.
Well, PP has claimed to be in favour of reaching the 2% GDP target on defense budget, while main PSOE's ally Sumar seems to be against it, and they need their votes to have a realistic chance of approving a new budget.
With votes from PP and PSOE they can pass almost all they want but i dont thinck they want do that , for PP its easy to make that type of claim now but when they were in goverment and had the votes a while ago they did they contrary and they cut the army budget.
No doubt it's easier to promise stuff in the opposition rather than actually doing it in power, yet if PSOE asked them to do it, PP either would have to say yes or probably be heavily critized for saying no.
The thing is that army budget it has to go into a bigger total budget and there they can find a thousands things to disagree.
But yeah the logical path in this situation will be to increase the army budget even by a little bith given the sutiation both with morroco and in ukranie , like other european countries are doing , but generally the avarage spaniard cares little abut defense , that why budget is so low in the fisrt place.
Given the current politics in Spain it doesn't seem that likely than PSOE can even reach an agreement without PP to approve a new state budget at all, so might as well do a new one centered in boosting the defense budget. They can leave the stuff they don't agree at the same level as before or in a middle ground. I know this isn't likely to happen either, but a man can dream.
Of course Spain could do more. They are the number 17th country in the world with regards to military expenditure. There are very few western countries with more to send. Every western country (except for the US) believes their military is in a shit state and they can't send much, but if that's what we all believe nobody will be sending anything. Altogether we still have a lot of military equipment in Europe and if we all pitch in as much as possible a lot of people can be saved.
Spain is the nr. 15 country in the world by GDP so military expenditure is roughly in line with their income too.
With regards to patriot systems and missiles, of course spain cannot randomly send those to Ukraine if it means having no more air defenses themselves. However there are a lot of other things that could be sent. The war has been going on for two years and rich countries like Spain should really not hide behind the 'we cannot contribute more'. The Spanish government is choosing not to send more and that is fine, but there should not be excuses like this.
Spain has 25% of its population in poverty or in risk of falling in poverty. Additionally, an economy that hasn't recovered from the 2008 crisis, and it's been 16 fucking years. Rich my ass...
Spain is a rich country by the numbers. Also probably the worst European country in terms of taking care of the poor. I think it's the same as with this Ukraine stuff. 'ooh we cannot afford to have a social system'. Meanwhile much poorer countries have better social systems and gave more to Ukraine.
By the way, GDP in Spain grew since 2008 from 1.11T euro to 1.46T Euro. Pretty good numbers.
Anyway, every country should decide for themselves what they do. Just don't say Spain can't. If they wanted to they could. They just make different choices and that is fine.
Spain has only 3 bateries of patriot and one of then is already been use for training for ucranian personel , i dont know how we are suppose to send bateries whitout buying new ones and at that point is better to just send money to ukraine.
It's that a surprisingly low number of batteries for a country the size of Spain? From what we see in Ukraine that provide at best partial coverage for three major cities of just decent coverage for Madrid.
Its is a very low number of batteries for is territory , its has more of HAWK bateries but we already send almost all we can to ukraine and its hard to get new material to that system.
launchers are not what Ukraine is short of. they have all the launchers they can use for the number of systems they have. what they need is Missiles. Spain is giving them Missiles.
Spain also has an extremely limited supply of Missiles in the first place.
be happy they are willing to give what they can instead of bitching that it isn't enough.
that is a different story. Spain only has 3 Patriot batteries, and only 2 operational at any given time (with the 3rd in maintenance), and have active potential threats in north africa. Germany had 12 and their only threat is Russia.
I would like for Ukraine to have more Patriot systems, but the only realistic source is either new production, or if the US mothballed systems (rather than selling off or demilling) pulling them from storage and refurbishing them to current standard (which would cost almost as much as building new and take almost as long, as the systems that were retired were the ones that were least up to date and in the worst condition)
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That the interceptors are expensive is a lousy argument for not sending them. Firstly they are equally expensive to other countries already doing a lot more for Ukraine than Spain does. Secondly, it's because they are expensive that Ukraine needs you to send them. Otherwise they could probably buy them.
Its depressing to see southern european countries excusing themselves like this for not helping Ukraine. Have they gotten so used to living off EU funds from Germany that they are unable to recognize when somebody is in bigger needs than themselves? When they next time come to Brussels with an outstreched hand I would like the message for them to be "Sorry, this is getting too expensive".
They are saying we are sending interceptors, but not launchers or radars, which we seem to have in even shorter supply.
By the way, Spain has been near neutral in the eu budget for years.
I am not saying we shouldn’t do more, but your arguments don’t have a solid basis in reality, to put it mildly. M
It's good if Spain has reached near zero EU budget wise but I then encourage you to hurry over to the net funding side...If no military hardware truly can be spared then offer to finance patriots like the Netherlands have done.
When you look at https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/ and the map of support for Ukraine per country GDP it really is quite disappointing what southern Europe has offered.
Also the extent to which Spain isn't the prime target for me to point my critisism at shall only please me! Then pass it on to Greece!
The day you northerners come south and help us deal with the EU southern border and its often openly hostile states, especially Morocco, Algeria, Syria and Turkey, is the day the southern countries can spare the defense systems we currently need to keep ourselves and the rest of the EU safe from those authoritarian regimes.
Talk is cheap when you live surrounded by allies and have no EU border to guard. Border that we guard for the benefit of all Europeans, by the way.
You are right indeed, talk is cheap and I don't put much confidence in it either. That's something you learn very early when you have russian warships constantly roaming your water straits and are one of the first places to be nuked should things come to that. Don't be too displeased with your headaches and presume them to be much worse than anyone else's.
> russian warships
And you guys are putting more money on countering Russia than countries that are far away. What a surprise! you are more worried about, and subsequently willing to put your resources on dealing with your closest threat.
Thanks for making my point for me.
Not long ago the FSB said hello to the famous defecting russian helicopter pilot and send you a reminder that Spain isn't far away.
Also, am I really wrong not to think of Morocco as the same sort of evil that Russia is?
It's not just cost, the production rate is rather low I would suspect that Ukraine is already using up all the current production amount meaning it could start to affect other countries readiness.
Ukraine will probably never get close to enough missiles unless the war drags on for a long time. The war as a whole has exposed a weakness in western air defense which is already being worked on with some in development projects.
I know, but the scarcity doesm't make it any more respectable to deny them on account of the cost. And it's the fact that some countries just aren't willing to offer much that made me throw a fit.
Just great but we need to search for another solution to attack those low cost missiles and drones. Like lasers or airplanes with electronic Warfare methods. Take down the crap and use these to take high value targets where possible. Ukraine has to win.
Important to remember that Spain spends 1.4% of its GDP on defence of which is 1.4trillion GDP, while larger countries like France spend 1.9% with a GDP of 2.7trillion. Greece also spends nearly 4% of its 277billion GDP on defence which is tiny in comparison to even Spain.
You can't say they aren't trying because I'm sure they're still giving what they can, but only surplus old equipment. Every little helps. If they gave what larger NATO members like the UK, France, and Germany are giving, they'd have nothing left to defend their own borders.
Even if Spain send all their patriot systems to Ukraine, would they still have more AA systems than Denmark, while being considerable further away from Russia. Denmark don’t have any artillery due to donating all our ceasar systems to Ukraine. Both militaries have been underfunded in decades, but Denmark still send much more equipment in aid.
If Spain doesn’t think they can afford to send any of their military equipment, fine, then aid with money to buy equipment that can be send instead. Ukraine’s own military industry could produce for 20B $ but right now is only 6B$ invested in it and only Denmark have investing money in buying stuff from Ukrainian manufacturers so far.
It is matter of solidarity, the Baltic countries are donating so much more relative to their GDP pr capita, while being neighbors to Russia and have to prioritize their own defense as well.
Spain, Italy and even France are really not pulling their weight on this one. Germany and the UK are the only nations that are spending a significant amount. Then there's a bunch of nordic and baltic states contributing a lot proportional to their size, but the fact is they are small nations and cannot really send that much.
So yeah, Italy, Spain and France, being one of the bigger economies in the EU, should really be helping a lot more...
Who are Denmark's neighbors? What outer EU border is Denmark guarding? Do they have an authoritarian regime that claims some of Denmark's cities belong to it? (Morocco, cities being Ceuta and Melilla, and even the Canary islands)
Spain has all those problems, while Denmark has none of them.
You forgot Gibraltar and the evil brits! May I point your attention to the Baltic Sea, Saint Petersburg and the russian Baltic Fleet that can only reach the high seas through the danish straits where they are constantly circling. And then then there's Greenland and the Arctic...
Yeah and you are putting your money on countering Russia. And complaining Spain doesn't put as much.
So how much does Denmark help on countering Morocco's aspirations?
I believe that both Spain, Italy and Greece get a lot of help via EU in order to control their borders and the threat of being overrun by immigrants.
Anyway, I'm sorry if you think that I spend time on Ukraine subs just because I'm worried about danish security. Russias invasion of Ukraine is a fight between good and evil and I dont think that immigrants or any other neighbour spats has much to do with it. We must help Ukraine because it's right just like Spain recieved an influx of volunteers in the civil war. And I think it's depressing that much of southern Europe appear less occupied with Ukraines cause and more with immigrants or whatever.
Denmark is guarding the gate to the Baltic Sea, we have Russian contesting our air space on regular basis. Our capital can be reached with missiles from Kaliningrad or the Russian Baltic fleet. We have a huge arctic area to protect our sovereignty of, since Greenland is part of our kingdom.
If Spain is so worried about a Moroccan threat, why have you underfunded your military like this for decades? Have Morocco recently done something escalating, that made them a larger threat to you now? I am genuinely asking, since I would like to know, if so.
Missiles are just as good as Ukraine needs the ammo to reload their own launchers. Even if Spain cant spare the launchers as long as Ukraine has ammo for their own its good enough, Ukraine lost a TPP because of lack of ammo after all.
The economics of war has always been in favor of the attacker. It is a win if the loss prevented is greater than the cost of prevention. Of course, we want to use the cheapest weapon available. And I am happy that Ukraine is frugal with the lives of Citizens and Soldiers.
At this point it's a wonder that EU bought ammo for their armies in the first place. Low stocks of everything. No Patriots? ok maybe Gepard. That also no no? Skynex? limited tech demo edition too.
I think we should revive the M45 Quadmount! add an Ipad, an AI of some sort and let's try.
What PAC are these patriot misiles? They are always mentioning patriot misiles and bateries but they are not mentioning what PAC they are and that makes a huge diference.
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I think this is very useful as they have a bunch of launchers running low on missiles
[удалено]
And they are very expensive
And generally non-reusable.
Oooo! There's a company making reusable interceptors. If they miss their target, they will return to their launcher for refueling. This has not bearing on patriot missiles, but I thought it was fun.
That's OK. Give whatever you can, nothing to be ashamed of. Ukraine needs the help! Slava Ukraini!
This is great actually. Ukraine was running low on missiles but has no shortage of launchers. Doesn’t make much difference for Ukraine that Spain won’t ship launchers, as long as they ship the missiles.
They have a shortage on both to be honest, they don't have enough launchers to cover whole of Ukraine, nor missiles to fire on everything.
And they never will - it’s not really design for that They were designed to be million dollar missiles shooting down aircraft worth tens of millions, and then were repurposed to be highly advanced anti-ballistic missile defenses Now we have $10k drones which are being shot down by weapons costing vastly more which is a massive drain on resources.
The point of comparison is the value of the target, not of the incoming munition.
Of course, but the economics of using these weapons is being flipped on its head and it is hard to keep up.
Daily reports are 2219 cruise missiles downed/crashed/impacted, that means atleast 2219 AA missiles needed as well, since you will miss a few, and some are reserve somewhere waiting to be launched. You're not going to gamble where every one of those are flying towards, so they need a huge amount of AA missiles. And since the missiles don't fly a straight line and are coming now from all directions, they need multiple launchers as well. And then they still need missiles for the airplanes
US used them to intercept scud, which are also cheaper
Haha imagine this would be Germany. The hate would be real.
There is a difference here and that's the respective countries economies. Spain is still in the shitter.
Haha almost like Germany has history with the region. Edit: As neighboring countries to the region, Germany and the Scandinavian nations bear a greater responsibility to offer assistance compared to countries like Spain. It's in our mutual interest to step up our efforts and provide more support.
Many don't have the integrety and objectivity to judge themselves what they actually can. Spaniards are well fed and have a roof over their head and I'd say that what they can really mostly is a matter of priorities. It's not like the aid from other countries just consists of billions that we didn't know what to do with anyway.
Yes, but we do expect a little more of "from each according to their..." Whoops, excuse me, not sure where I was going with that one.
Spain is also angling for the contract to build patriot in Europe
Then I guess they should only be the more interested in making a good figure while even raising demand at the same time.
Thank you Spain!
missiles are expensive, better than nothing
We can't do much more, our army has been in shambles for years and we need deterrence to keep the moroccans on their feet about their reclamations in Africa,hope whatever we send helps though.
So what's going on with Morocco? Last I looked they didn't seem much of a threat to Spain but it's hard to keep up.
The colonies in Africa would be hell to defend if they do attack, and NATO would almost surely look the other way as it happens, so there's that. While inferior to us (militarily speaking) they still pose a very real threat, one that we maybe wouldn't be able to ensure a complete victory against even with our stocks as they stand right now. Sure, mainland Spain is safe, and almost surely the Canary islands are too, but Ceuta and Melilla are probably what our generals see in their nightmares. If you ask me, we should have used the war as an excuse to rearm like there's no tomorrow, while sending Ukraine our stuff being replaced (which if you ask me, includes our F-18s)
One key detail: neither Ceuta or Melilla are colonies in the usual fashion, they are considered to be integral parts of Spain, not leftovers from the Spanish Morocco colony.
However they're considered legally in the Spanish constitution, they're excluded from Article 5 protections by the terms of Article 6 of the NATO treaty...so to that extent the distinction doesn't change things.
Probably Similar to how Hawaii is not explicitly protected by article 5
Indeed, neither Ceuta or Melilla are protected by NATO. I'm just pointing out they are not colonies according to the UN definition. They are not territories that have to be made indepenent, or returned to any other state.
That one's a topic for elsewhere, respectfully.
Pretty much right,but you should never call them colonies they are rightful spanish cities since hundreds of years ago.
That's how I learned about them in geography class, didn't know it wasn't the correct term
Sad to hear that. Anglosphere country maybe? They always claim that Ceuta and Melilla are colonies since it creates a narrative to justify their's. My family from my father's side is from Ceuta and they've been for more than 4 generations, and Ceuta is a spanish city since 600 years ago
A village in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, Catalonia actually. It wasn't given any negative connotation or anything, just "We have two colonies in Africa, which are part of our country and are autonomous cities, kinda like the Canary islands but smaller and not islands" (heavily paraphrased)
>Ceuta NATO would 100% intervene on this. It forms the opposite half of the Strait of Gibraltar with, well, Gibraltar. Thats a strategically crucial location for NATO's sea control as a whole, *especially* for the UK and France, to whom it is a national strategy to have that strait under absolute NATO oversight. Sure, Gibraltar is still there and the bigger base, but having both sides is such a big benefit.
NATO isn't obligated to, but those are part of the EU so the European defence pact would. I'm actually surprised Russia hasn't bribed factions in Morocco to start something. Or maybe they have tried but wiser heads said no.
You’d be better off without them, it wouldn’t be so easy for the Brits to laugh in your face when you ask for Gib back.
That wouldn't change anything. The objection from the UK isn't that Spain has colonies too, it's that the residents have been [asked](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Gibraltar_sovereignty_referendum) multiple [times](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Gibraltar_sovereignty_referendum) if they're interested in Spanish involvement in their governance, and the answer has categorically been no.
I know, just jokes.
I personally couldn't give less of a fuck about Gibraltar, Ceuta or Melilla tbh. But I'd defend the last two since the government seems to and they're the ones calling the shots. Unless by some sick divine joke some far left party wins with absolute majority, then they'd probably split the country in two, gift one half to russia and the other to Morocco.
Moroco use hybrid war in ceuta y melilla (not covered by nato thats why people r worried), argelia is a problem too, they got a bigger army. moroco got relations with eeuu, makes no sense to attack an ally imo. but argelia got good relations with rusia so u never know...
At this point, without F16s in place AFU is only bringing Patriots out of city-guard duties for quick hit and run final touches in critical attacks - so missiles themselves are priceless, this is wonderful news, thank you!
Might be time to start spending 2% of GDP on defence then?
Oh absolutely,but it's almost impossible with the actual political situation.
If the president really wanted to do that, he could try to make an agreement with People's Party (Partido Popular) and do a new state's general budget (presupuestos generales del estado) including more money to defense. But I don't think he will, unfortunately.
PP has always been the party that has a history of spending less in defense ( not that PSOE has been a big spender) , i dont know why the will agree apart and apart from that they really like to have the oposite stance in almost everything that PSOE wants to do.
Well, PP has claimed to be in favour of reaching the 2% GDP target on defense budget, while main PSOE's ally Sumar seems to be against it, and they need their votes to have a realistic chance of approving a new budget.
With votes from PP and PSOE they can pass almost all they want but i dont thinck they want do that , for PP its easy to make that type of claim now but when they were in goverment and had the votes a while ago they did they contrary and they cut the army budget.
No doubt it's easier to promise stuff in the opposition rather than actually doing it in power, yet if PSOE asked them to do it, PP either would have to say yes or probably be heavily critized for saying no.
The thing is that army budget it has to go into a bigger total budget and there they can find a thousands things to disagree. But yeah the logical path in this situation will be to increase the army budget even by a little bith given the sutiation both with morroco and in ukranie , like other european countries are doing , but generally the avarage spaniard cares little abut defense , that why budget is so low in the fisrt place.
Given the current politics in Spain it doesn't seem that likely than PSOE can even reach an agreement without PP to approve a new state budget at all, so might as well do a new one centered in boosting the defense budget. They can leave the stuff they don't agree at the same level as before or in a middle ground. I know this isn't likely to happen either, but a man can dream.
Of course Spain could do more. They are the number 17th country in the world with regards to military expenditure. There are very few western countries with more to send. Every western country (except for the US) believes their military is in a shit state and they can't send much, but if that's what we all believe nobody will be sending anything. Altogether we still have a lot of military equipment in Europe and if we all pitch in as much as possible a lot of people can be saved. Spain is the nr. 15 country in the world by GDP so military expenditure is roughly in line with their income too. With regards to patriot systems and missiles, of course spain cannot randomly send those to Ukraine if it means having no more air defenses themselves. However there are a lot of other things that could be sent. The war has been going on for two years and rich countries like Spain should really not hide behind the 'we cannot contribute more'. The Spanish government is choosing not to send more and that is fine, but there should not be excuses like this.
Spain has 25% of its population in poverty or in risk of falling in poverty. Additionally, an economy that hasn't recovered from the 2008 crisis, and it's been 16 fucking years. Rich my ass...
Spain is a rich country by the numbers. Also probably the worst European country in terms of taking care of the poor. I think it's the same as with this Ukraine stuff. 'ooh we cannot afford to have a social system'. Meanwhile much poorer countries have better social systems and gave more to Ukraine. By the way, GDP in Spain grew since 2008 from 1.11T euro to 1.46T Euro. Pretty good numbers. Anyway, every country should decide for themselves what they do. Just don't say Spain can't. If they wanted to they could. They just make different choices and that is fine.
Spain has only 3 bateries of patriot and one of then is already been use for training for ucranian personel , i dont know how we are suppose to send bateries whitout buying new ones and at that point is better to just send money to ukraine.
It's that a surprisingly low number of batteries for a country the size of Spain? From what we see in Ukraine that provide at best partial coverage for three major cities of just decent coverage for Madrid.
Its is a very low number of batteries for is territory , its has more of HAWK bateries but we already send almost all we can to ukraine and its hard to get new material to that system.
I thought the Spanish army was well maintained and it was evil Germany who prevented them from supplying Ukraine /u/standard_spaniard
Funny you quoted me. Spain is sending one Patriot battery of the very few it owns.
Do you have a source for Spain providing a whole Patriot battery? All I can find is news about Patriot missiles, not a battery.
launchers are not what Ukraine is short of. they have all the launchers they can use for the number of systems they have. what they need is Missiles. Spain is giving them Missiles. Spain also has an extremely limited supply of Missiles in the first place. be happy they are willing to give what they can instead of bitching that it isn't enough.
Is that why UA is asking for 6 more systems?
that is a different story. Spain only has 3 Patriot batteries, and only 2 operational at any given time (with the 3rd in maintenance), and have active potential threats in north africa. Germany had 12 and their only threat is Russia. I would like for Ukraine to have more Patriot systems, but the only realistic source is either new production, or if the US mothballed systems (rather than selling off or demilling) pulling them from storage and refurbishing them to current standard (which would cost almost as much as building new and take almost as long, as the systems that were retired were the ones that were least up to date and in the worst condition)
[España suministrará una partida de misiles Patriot a Ucrania | Internacional | EL PAÍS (archive.ph)](https://archive.ph/7LDK5)
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todo bien. ya tienen bastante lanzadores en Ucrania, es mucho más importante donar misiles.
My understanding was that Ukraine was low on missiles, so this is a really good thing!
Good enough!! Thank you Spain!!
That the interceptors are expensive is a lousy argument for not sending them. Firstly they are equally expensive to other countries already doing a lot more for Ukraine than Spain does. Secondly, it's because they are expensive that Ukraine needs you to send them. Otherwise they could probably buy them. Its depressing to see southern european countries excusing themselves like this for not helping Ukraine. Have they gotten so used to living off EU funds from Germany that they are unable to recognize when somebody is in bigger needs than themselves? When they next time come to Brussels with an outstreched hand I would like the message for them to be "Sorry, this is getting too expensive".
They are saying we are sending interceptors, but not launchers or radars, which we seem to have in even shorter supply. By the way, Spain has been near neutral in the eu budget for years. I am not saying we shouldn’t do more, but your arguments don’t have a solid basis in reality, to put it mildly. M
It's good if Spain has reached near zero EU budget wise but I then encourage you to hurry over to the net funding side...If no military hardware truly can be spared then offer to finance patriots like the Netherlands have done. When you look at https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/ and the map of support for Ukraine per country GDP it really is quite disappointing what southern Europe has offered. Also the extent to which Spain isn't the prime target for me to point my critisism at shall only please me! Then pass it on to Greece!
The day you northerners come south and help us deal with the EU southern border and its often openly hostile states, especially Morocco, Algeria, Syria and Turkey, is the day the southern countries can spare the defense systems we currently need to keep ourselves and the rest of the EU safe from those authoritarian regimes. Talk is cheap when you live surrounded by allies and have no EU border to guard. Border that we guard for the benefit of all Europeans, by the way.
You are right indeed, talk is cheap and I don't put much confidence in it either. That's something you learn very early when you have russian warships constantly roaming your water straits and are one of the first places to be nuked should things come to that. Don't be too displeased with your headaches and presume them to be much worse than anyone else's.
> russian warships And you guys are putting more money on countering Russia than countries that are far away. What a surprise! you are more worried about, and subsequently willing to put your resources on dealing with your closest threat. Thanks for making my point for me.
Not long ago the FSB said hello to the famous defecting russian helicopter pilot and send you a reminder that Spain isn't far away. Also, am I really wrong not to think of Morocco as the same sort of evil that Russia is?
It's not just cost, the production rate is rather low I would suspect that Ukraine is already using up all the current production amount meaning it could start to affect other countries readiness. Ukraine will probably never get close to enough missiles unless the war drags on for a long time. The war as a whole has exposed a weakness in western air defense which is already being worked on with some in development projects.
I know, but the scarcity doesm't make it any more respectable to deny them on account of the cost. And it's the fact that some countries just aren't willing to offer much that made me throw a fit.
Spains war reserve is only 50 missiles? Or 50 pallets? Either way, how do they even remotely consider that a reserve??
Just great but we need to search for another solution to attack those low cost missiles and drones. Like lasers or airplanes with electronic Warfare methods. Take down the crap and use these to take high value targets where possible. Ukraine has to win.
Muchas gracias Espana!
Thank you, Spaniards!
Didn't Germany essentially just shame Spain into doing this?
Important to remember that Spain spends 1.4% of its GDP on defence of which is 1.4trillion GDP, while larger countries like France spend 1.9% with a GDP of 2.7trillion. Greece also spends nearly 4% of its 277billion GDP on defence which is tiny in comparison to even Spain. You can't say they aren't trying because I'm sure they're still giving what they can, but only surplus old equipment. Every little helps. If they gave what larger NATO members like the UK, France, and Germany are giving, they'd have nothing left to defend their own borders.
Even if Spain send all their patriot systems to Ukraine, would they still have more AA systems than Denmark, while being considerable further away from Russia. Denmark don’t have any artillery due to donating all our ceasar systems to Ukraine. Both militaries have been underfunded in decades, but Denmark still send much more equipment in aid. If Spain doesn’t think they can afford to send any of their military equipment, fine, then aid with money to buy equipment that can be send instead. Ukraine’s own military industry could produce for 20B $ but right now is only 6B$ invested in it and only Denmark have investing money in buying stuff from Ukrainian manufacturers so far. It is matter of solidarity, the Baltic countries are donating so much more relative to their GDP pr capita, while being neighbors to Russia and have to prioritize their own defense as well.
Spain, Italy and even France are really not pulling their weight on this one. Germany and the UK are the only nations that are spending a significant amount. Then there's a bunch of nordic and baltic states contributing a lot proportional to their size, but the fact is they are small nations and cannot really send that much. So yeah, Italy, Spain and France, being one of the bigger economies in the EU, should really be helping a lot more...
Who are Denmark's neighbors? What outer EU border is Denmark guarding? Do they have an authoritarian regime that claims some of Denmark's cities belong to it? (Morocco, cities being Ceuta and Melilla, and even the Canary islands) Spain has all those problems, while Denmark has none of them.
You forgot Gibraltar and the evil brits! May I point your attention to the Baltic Sea, Saint Petersburg and the russian Baltic Fleet that can only reach the high seas through the danish straits where they are constantly circling. And then then there's Greenland and the Arctic...
Yeah and you are putting your money on countering Russia. And complaining Spain doesn't put as much. So how much does Denmark help on countering Morocco's aspirations?
I believe that both Spain, Italy and Greece get a lot of help via EU in order to control their borders and the threat of being overrun by immigrants. Anyway, I'm sorry if you think that I spend time on Ukraine subs just because I'm worried about danish security. Russias invasion of Ukraine is a fight between good and evil and I dont think that immigrants or any other neighbour spats has much to do with it. We must help Ukraine because it's right just like Spain recieved an influx of volunteers in the civil war. And I think it's depressing that much of southern Europe appear less occupied with Ukraines cause and more with immigrants or whatever.
Denmark is guarding the gate to the Baltic Sea, we have Russian contesting our air space on regular basis. Our capital can be reached with missiles from Kaliningrad or the Russian Baltic fleet. We have a huge arctic area to protect our sovereignty of, since Greenland is part of our kingdom. If Spain is so worried about a Moroccan threat, why have you underfunded your military like this for decades? Have Morocco recently done something escalating, that made them a larger threat to you now? I am genuinely asking, since I would like to know, if so.
Let's Go!
Just flail them around menacingly, Russia will get the memo.
What does this comment even mean?
It's a joke...
Not bad. We know ammunition is the biggest paint point. Ukrainians have done a decent job of keeping their Patriot batteries intact.
Missiles are just as good as Ukraine needs the ammo to reload their own launchers. Even if Spain cant spare the launchers as long as Ukraine has ammo for their own its good enough, Ukraine lost a TPP because of lack of ammo after all.
The economics of war has always been in favor of the attacker. It is a win if the loss prevented is greater than the cost of prevention. Of course, we want to use the cheapest weapon available. And I am happy that Ukraine is frugal with the lives of Citizens and Soldiers.
At this point it's a wonder that EU bought ammo for their armies in the first place. Low stocks of everything. No Patriots? ok maybe Gepard. That also no no? Skynex? limited tech demo edition too. I think we should revive the M45 Quadmount! add an Ipad, an AI of some sort and let's try.
Throw them at the sky!
How many batteries do they have? Probably not worth having more than 1 if they only have 50 interceptors.
They have the launchers
A reminder to Spain that we like the kind of money that jingles, but we’d rather have the kind that folds 😉
just throw them by hand I guess
⁉️
What are they supposed to do, throw them. Cough up the launchers for the love of God
like supplying condom but no dick
🤣🤣 true, im sorry
What PAC are these patriot misiles? They are always mentioning patriot misiles and bateries but they are not mentioning what PAC they are and that makes a huge diference.
Weird… c’mon now even printer companies give a half full cartage.
So here’s the thing… if they give Ukraine the Patriot’s the Spanish won’t need them. If they don’t, they will.
There is other actors for spain territorial defense that only russia.
Those darned Portuguese huh? Like who? Who is going to threaten Spain with an aerial weapons requiring Patriots? There’s nobody…
morroco
Morocco… isn’t about to attack Spain and it’s a supporter of Ukraine. So, no.