Prior to the First Gulf War, ballistic missile defense was an unproven concept in war.
During Operation Desert Storm, in addition to its anti-aircraft mission, Patriot was assigned to shoot down incoming Iraqi Scud or Al Hussein short range ballistic missiles launched at Israel and Saudi Arabia.
The first combat use of Patriot occurred January 18, 1991 when it engaged what was later found to be a computer glitch.
There were actually no Scuds fired at Saudi Arabia on January 18.
This incident was widely misreported as the first successful interception of an enemy ballistic missile in history.

Throughout the war, Patriot missiles attempted engagement of over 40 hostile ballistic missiles.
The success of these engagements, and in particular how many of them were real targets, is still controversial.
Postwar video analysis of presumed interceptions by MIT professor Theodore Postol suggests that no Scud was actually hit; this analysis is contested by Peter D. Zimmerman, who claimed that photographs of the fuselage of downed SCUD missiles in Saudi Arabia demonstrated that the SCUD missiles were fired into Saudi Arabia and were riddled with fragments from the lethality enhancer of Patriot Missiles.
Prior to the First Gulf War, ballistic missile defense was an unproven concept in war. During Operation Desert Storm, in addition to its anti-aircraft mission, Patriot was assigned to shoot down incoming Iraqi Scud or Al Hussein short range ballistic missiles launched at Israel and Saudi Arabia. The first combat use of Patriot occurred January 18, 1991 when it engaged what was later found to be a computer glitch. There were actually no Scuds fired at Saudi Arabia on January 18. This incident was widely misreported as the first successful interception of an enemy ballistic missile in history.
Throughout the war, Patriot missiles attempted engagement of over 40 hostile ballistic missiles. The success of these engagements, and in particular how many of them were real targets, is still controversial. Postwar video analysis of presumed interceptions by MIT professor Theodore Postol suggests that no Scud was actually hit; this analysis is contested by Peter D. Zimmerman, who claimed that photographs of the fuselage of downed SCUD missiles in Saudi Arabia demonstrated that the SCUD missiles were fired into Saudi Arabia and were riddled with fragments from the lethality enhancer of Patriot Missiles.
MIM-104 Patriot