October 10, 2005 :: Kyodo :: News
Japan will deploy some eighteen Patriot Missiles around the country by 2011, reports the Kyodo news service, citing the Japanese Defense Agency. “It is desirable to put PAC-3s in place at all of our 24 air defense artilleries nationwide. We need more than 30 PAC-3s to defend the entire airspace of Japan,” Kyodo quotes a senior official at the Air Self-Defense Force as saying. The official added that Japan needs more than thirty to defend the nation from limited, short range attacks. According to Kyodo, the additional deployment of eighteen PAC-3s will bring the count to 32, implying that Japan already has some fourteen interceptors. Whether these fourteen are all PAC-3s or if the number includes some less-advanced PAC-2 interceptors is not clarified.
The Japanese are able to develop the additional Patriot interceptors because of an agreement reached with the United States in March which gives Japan a license to do so.
Also left unclear from the reports is whether the numbers refer to the missiles themselves or, as seems more likely, to batteries of missiles. To spread thirty-two missiles over twenty four locations would mean many air bases would have only a single interceptor—not much of a defense. (Article)
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