Current Deployment of Patriot Missile Battalions

Our air defense artillery assets consists of Patriot, THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) and the SHORAD (Short Range Air Defense) battalions and batteries, among other elements.

A Patriot Missile Battalion consists of four or five Patriot Missile Batteries. A Patriot Missile Battery consists of four or six launchers, each with four missiles. The United States has 16 Patriot battalions. There is one battalion in Germany and three battalions in South Korea and I gather at least one battery in the Gulf (not sure which). I gather the most elements of the other 11 battalions are in the U.S. As of 2010 it was reported that the U.S. Army operates a total of 1,106 Patriot launchers (1,106/16 = 60 launchers per battalion). According to a count developed from multiple open sources, our air defense battalions and batteries are located at:

Baumholder, Germany

5th Battalion, 7th Air Defense Artillery Rgt (Patriots)

5th Battalion, 4th Air Defense Artillery Rgt (equipped with 36 Avenger SHORAD systems, with 36 in prepositioned storage).

 

Fort Bliss, Texas:

1st Battalion/43rd Air Defense Artillery Rgt (Patriot)

2nd Battalion/43rd Air Defense Artillery Rgt (Patriot)

3rd Battalion/43rd Air Defense Artillery Rgt (Patriot)

5th Battalion/52rd Air Defense Artillery Rgt (Patriot)

Battery A, 2nd Air Defense Artillery Rgt (THAAD)

Battery B, 2nd Air Defense Artillery Rgt (THAAD)

Battery E, 3rd Air Defense Artillery Rgt (THAAD)

Battery A, 4th Air Defense Artillery Rgt (THAAD)

 

Guam:

Battery A, 5th Air Defense Artillery Rgt (THAAD)

 

Fort Sill, Oklahoma

3rd Battalion, 2nd Air Defense Artillery Rgt (Patriot)

4th Battalion, 3rd Air Defense Artillery Rgt (Patriot)

5th Battalion, 5th Air Defense Artillery Rgt (Counter Rocket Artillery and Mortar)

2nd Battalion, 6th Air Defense Artillery Rgt (C-RAM, Sentinal, Stinger/Avenger)

3rd Battalion, 6th Air Defense Artillery Rgt (Patriot)

 

Fort Hood, Texas

4th Battalion, 5th Air Defense Artillery Rgt (Patriot)

1st Battalion, 44th Air Defense Artillery Rgt (Patriot)

1st Battalion, 62nd Air Defense Artillery Rgt (Patriot)

 

Fort Bragg, North Carolina

3rd Battalion, 4th Air Defense Artillery Rgt (Patriot/Avenger?)

1st Battalion, 7th Air Defense Artillery Rgt (Patriot)

 

Fort Campbell, Kentucky

2nd Battalion, 44th Air Defense Artillery Rgt  (Counter Rocket Artillery and Mortar)

 

Suwon Air Base, South Korea

6th Battalion, 52nd Air Defense Artillery Rgt (Patriot)

2nd Battalion, 1st Air Defense Artillery Rgt (Patriot)

D Battery, 2nd Air Defense Artillery Rgt (THADD)

1st Battalion, 1st Air Defense Artillery Rgt (Patriot)

 

Location unknown:

B Battery, 62nd Air Defense Artillery Rgt (THAAD) – activated 2016

 

This listing does not include National Guard units. It is also not definitive.

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Christopher A. Lawrence
Christopher A. Lawrence

Christopher A. Lawrence is a professional historian and military analyst. He is the Executive Director and President of The Dupuy Institute, an organization dedicated to scholarly research and objective analysis of historical data related to armed conflict and the resolution of armed conflict. The Dupuy Institute provides independent, historically-based analyses of lessons learned from modern military experience.
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Mr. Lawrence was the program manager for the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base, the Kursk Data Base, the Modern Insurgency Spread Sheets and for a number of other smaller combat data bases. He has participated in casualty estimation studies (including estimates for Bosnia and Iraq) and studies of air campaign modeling, enemy prisoner of war capture rates, medium weight armor, urban warfare, situational awareness, counterinsurgency and other subjects for the U.S. Army, the Defense Department, the Joint Staff and the U.S. Air Force. He has also directed a number of studies related to the military impact of banning antipersonnel mines for the Joint Staff, Los Alamos National Laboratories and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation.
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His published works include papers and monographs for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation, in addition to over 40 articles written for limited-distribution newsletters and over 60 analytical reports prepared for the Defense Department. He is the author of Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka (Aberdeen Books, Sheridan, CO., 2015), America’s Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam (Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia & Oxford, 2015), War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat (Potomac Books, Lincoln, NE., 2017) , The Battle of Prokhorovka (Stackpole Books, Guilford, CT., 2019), The Battle for Kyiv (Frontline Books, Yorkshire, UK, 2023), Aces at Kursk (Air World, Yorkshire, UK, 2024), Hunting Falcon: The Story of WWI German Ace Hans-Joachim Buddecke (Air World, Yorkshire, UK, 2024) and The Siege of Mariupol (Frontline Books, Yorkshire, UK, 2024).
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Mr. Lawrence lives in northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C., with his wife and son.

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10 Comments

  1. Chris, I heard on the news that Patriot missiles were in Saudi Arabia (none in Iraq, at least not protecting the attacked bases).

  2. U.S. Sends Additional Capabilities to Saudi Arabia
    Oct. 11, 2019| BY C. Todd Lopez

    In the wake of an Iranian attack on Saudi Arabian oil facilities last month, Defense Secretary Dr. Mark T. Esper announced that more capabilities have been authorized to deploy in support of the long-time U.S. partner.

    At a Pentagon news conference today, Esper said he authorized the deployment of two fighter squadrons, an air expeditionary wing, two Patriot missile batteries, and a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, system to Saudi Arabia.

  3. The Saudi’s have PAC-2 Patriot Missiles: supposedly 6 Battalions. Maybe, but that sounds like an awful lot of missiles.

    Not sure where they are located, but reports from the drone attack on their refineries indicate that the Patriots did not perform well.

    The Patriots, fairly or not, seem to have a poor reputation. Reading between the lines, this may be why some countries are eyeing Russian SAM systems.

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