SMD SYMPOSIUM — Senior Army leaders have approved plans to boost the number of Patriot units inside the force, in a bid to alleviate the high demand for the air defense capability, according to a three-star general.
“Army senior leaders from the secretary [to the] chief, recognize the demands on the Patriot force and that we are addressing that through increasing their Patriot units that are out there,” Lt. Gen. Daniel Karbler, the head of US Army Space and Missile Defense Command and Joint Functional Component Command for Integrated Missile Defense, told reporters today.
Karbler declined to specify how many additional air defense assets the service has decided on. Today, there are 15 battalions fielded across the active-duty force. The service has programmed funding for a 16th battalion, but it is not manned or fielded yet, according to an Army spokesperson. Each of the battalions includes four Patriot batteries.
“We have a requirement to grow a Patriot force structure; we will grow a Patriot force structure,” Karbler said. However, it’s not just as simple as making the decision, in part, because of the service’s ongoing recruiting challenges. Karbler said service leaders are continuing to craft “levers” to incentivize air defenders to remain in uniform and also lure “young specialists to switch over.”
The push to grow the Patriot force comes after years of high operational tempo rates and concerns over readiness if there are not enough soldiers to meet the global demand for the air defense assets.
“Many times, soldiers go for six months and get extended to nine months. Many times, they deploy for nine months and extend to 12 months [and] sometimes they think they’re going for a year to get extended … into 15 months,” Karbler said.
That heightened demand has some lawmakers concerned, and in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal 2023, they included a “sense of Congress regarding the importance of air and missile defense capabilities” and tasked Army leaders with assessing the “validity of existing battalion and interceptor acquisition objectives” and submitting a report. That legislation also provides Army leaders with the authority to grow the Patriot force up to 20 battalions, but it will need additional dollars to actually buy the additional Patriot batteries.