US forces fired 402 Patriot interceptors in the first 16 days of Operation Epic Fury; combined Gulf-partner stockpiles drew down by roughly 86 per cent. Germany’s 35-PAC-3 procurement for Ukraine equals about two launcher reloads. Lockheed Martin’s January 2026 deal to scale PAC-3 MSE production to 2,000/year by 2030 doesn’t bend forward.
The piece tracks how Ukraine’s air-defence stack is being rebuilt mid-war around the SAMP/T NG combat test (8 systems from France, Denmark’s €1.47bn rejection of Patriot), the COMLOG GEM-T volume bet ($3.7bn German-funded), Diehl Defence’s IRIS-T scaling, and 100,000 interceptor drones a year at sub-$15k per intercept. The Fire Point + Diehl “Freya” Patriot alternative is now paused by the Mindich corruption scandal.
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US forces fired 402 Patriot interceptors in the first 16 days of Operation Epic Fury; combined Gulf-partner stockpiles drew down by roughly 86 per cent. Germany’s 35-PAC-3 procurement for Ukraine equals about two launcher reloads. Lockheed Martin’s January 2026 deal to scale PAC-3 MSE production to 2,000/year by 2030 doesn’t bend forward.
The piece tracks how Ukraine’s air-defence stack is being rebuilt mid-war around the SAMP/T NG combat test (8 systems from France, Denmark’s €1.47bn rejection of Patriot), the COMLOG GEM-T volume bet ($3.7bn German-funded), Diehl Defence’s IRIS-T scaling, and 100,000 interceptor drones a year at sub-$15k per intercept. The Fire Point + Diehl “Freya” Patriot alternative is now paused by the Mindich corruption scandal.