I released a video a few days ago about how China had built a mock-up of a US Patriot Launcher.
But the WHY they did it really wasn’t explored because the point of the video was to explain how Ukraine didn’t sell a Patriot system to China.
However, it is most likely that China needs a realistic looking Patriot launcher to train drone and loitering munition AI on how to find these systems.
AI needs training data. But most pictures of the US Patriot system are taken from the ground. AI is only as good as its training data, so pictures must be taken from the air. In order to do that, you need to construct a mock-up and run drones against it from different angels.
So this is why China might have constructed such a realistic looking replica.
Slides available below:
Or as a Power Point here.
Now I'm just a Data Science student, who is more focused on the math behind AI than implementation, but I would humbly like to expand why having a model is beneficial, all the photos from the database have another thing in common, they are the center of attention in a war it is verly likely we wouldn't want our tools out in the open, additionally the ideas of lighting come into play, and also having drones that you are training taking the data is far better than the intermediary of a camera.
And in all likelihood, somewhere, someone(s) is doing just this for any and all things the warped and twisted mentality of humans can think up