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Well, what you and I need to know first and foremost is that modern missiles such as Sparrow and Patriot MIM use ARH(Active radar homing).

With ARH, a missile such as a Patriot (MIM-104) can and does detect radar bouncing off of its target(an Iraqi Scud-B missile in this case).Note that a missile that uses ARH is equipped with a radar transmitter to emit radar pulses to "illuminate" the target, a radar detector(reciever) to pick-up/detect radar pulses reflected off the target, some guidance control(could be inertial, optical, e.t.c) to guide the missile to its target, and an onboard computer and some logic to process signals.

In other words picture this: a Scud is in air,and as we all know, emits waves: EM waves,in particular IR waves.

So a ground-based radar station would mount equipment to detect missiles in air(could mount a radar dish, such as the big ones you see in movies) . How a radar detector works, ...read more!!.

Thus, the ground-based station illuminates the target(Scud) with radar signals, abd some of those signals are reflected off the target back to the ground-based radar station, these signals are processed to acquired flight information(coordinates of target, trajectory, speed, direction,...). Then this information about the target is "fed" or programmed into the Patriot missile for initial flight phase.

OK, with that information loaded inside it, the patriot is launched. After launching the Patriot, the ground-based radar station is USELESS...i.e. it is NOT needed for the rest of the missile's flight, hence the name Active Radar Homing, as opposed to SARH. Using the pre-programmed information loaded inside it, in addition to its on-board ARH system,the Patriot will locate its target.How? Radar beams are emitted off the missile's on-board radar emitter towards the target,and some of those waves are reflected off the target(scud), back to the patriot for processing(error correction, trajectory change, distance,speed). This process continues until the patriot "realises" the target(scud) is closer enough. At that stage the patriot will lock on to the target, and upon impact, detonate the high explosive devise, and what??? BOOOOM :) the target is destroyed......as well as the patriot too(the saddest part).

==>contrast this guidance method with the Track-Via-Missile method.

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Q: How does a patriot missile stop an incoming SCUD missile?
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