Can Israel’s ‘Iron Dome’ Blunt Hamas Rockets?
The counter-rocket defense system was tested and declared ready to operate back in February, but had yet to be deployed until now. As rockets pelted Beersheva and Ashdod, the government and the military were attacked by commentators like Yossi Melman of Ha’aretz, who asked why it hadn’t yet been rolled out to protect their civilians under fire:
There can only be three explanations for this despicable conduct. One, IDF commanders and senior officials in the defense establishment — first and foremost among them Defense Minister Ehud Barak — are indifferent to the distress of the people in the south, who have suffered repeatedly from mortar and rocket attacks. Two, the IDF is afraid of a failure in intercepting a missile, which would publicly reveal the inadequacy of Iron Dome. On the back of remarkable success in testing, developers have boasted repeatedly it is the best system of its kind in the world.
The third, even more cynical, possibility is that Iron Dome has not been deployed because of the fear that it will be shown to have limited capabilities, which would not allow it to be sold abroad. According to reports in foreign publications over the past year, Israel is negotiating to sell the Iron Dome to Brazil, Singapore, and India.
The military, obviously, had its own explanations. One general questioned the wisdom of deploying the system before enough batteries are available to protect the entire southern region. The worry is that if only some cities are protected, Hamas will bear down and target other cities, causing more intensive damage. Indeed, when it was announced that the first battery would be set up next to Beersheva, residents of Ashdod and Ashkelon asked, “Why them and not us?”
With the knowledge that the system is still unproven, the government has taken care to lower expectations. As Iron Dome was finally deployed Sunday, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made an effort to lower expectations, cautioning that it “will not give a full or comprehensive solution to the missile threat.”
Even if it isn’t full or comprehensive, real evidence that the expensive system with the reassuring name represents any form of solution will offer a much-needed boost of confidence to the jittery population of southern Israel.
I wish the Israeli scientists could devise a defense weapon that would turn incoming missiles around and make them go back where they came from. Justice!
Speaking as a former US Army Ordnance officer (Vietnam), I suspect Iron Dome has not been deployed previously because of two reasons.
It cannot possibly intercept every terrorist projectile lobbed into its area of defense – even if it worked perfectly, and because the Iron Dome rockets are much too expensive to use against cheap enemy projectiles.
Only when each Iron Dome rocket is cheaper to manufacture than the cheapest terrorist mortar round or rocket, might Iron Dome become effective. Otherwise the terrorists will simply overwhelm Iron Dome with a massive barrage of cheap mortars and rockets until the defensive system is exhausted. Israel could go bankrupt trying to build enough Iron Dome rockets to intercept each terrorist projectile. This costly system might work in a very limited area, such as in providing immediate defense against a couple incoming enemy projectiles for a small military site until that site can call in a fire mission of its own to suppress the attack, but it can never protect cities against mass incoming.
I agree. Using expensive interceptor missiles against very cheap unguided rockets isn’t a very good approach. The opponent can simply fire large numbers of those rockets to overwhelm and deplete the number of interceptors, and then fire at will. Probably the best the Israelis can do is to prioritize the incoming rockets and try to stop the ones heading for the most important targets (e.g. schools and hospitals). They can’t hope to intercept them all.
A better approach would be to use a laser to destroy the rockets. This has been successfully tested but isn’t ready for deployment. Lasers are expensive to buy but pretty cheap to fire.
interesting insight.
But they wouldn’t deploy agains mortars, would they? And don’t you think they would have thought of a mechanism to sift rockets without payloads from the real things? I’m no expert on these matters, and what you said sounds reasonable, but if Israel is capable of developing such a system, certainly they would have thought of the downsides ahead of time.
I suspect that Iron Dome is only going to be used when the rockets are destined to hit high value destinations. For example, if the Grads can hit Beersheba, they can hit Dimona, Isreal’s nuclear reactor and nuclear weapons production site. Obviously Iron Dome would be used to stop that.
As long as the terrorist rockets are terribly inaccurate, this might be enough.
One wonders why, instead of this system, they didn’t develop something similar to the Phalanx CIWS land based version (C-RAM). This is a Gatling gun system used to destroy incoming missiles. It could defend individual villages and towns, and its 20mm uranium projectiles are far cheaper than any Iron Dome rocket could be. It has been used successfully in Iraq to defend against rocket and mortar fire.
Brazil is a client to buy Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense shield?
Yah! I was puzzled by that as well. Who the hell is firing rockets at Brazil?
The Israelis should not be afraid to deploy the missile system. No defense system is foolproof, especially a brand-new one. Even if Iron Dome is 90% effective, that would be a great success for a new and unproven system. Everything needs to be tested in the real world and the Israelis should just get on with it. And, once flaws are identified in the design, they can be fixed for even greater accuracy. But holding this system back will only encourage attacks from Hamas and Hezbollah, because they will think that it simply doesn’t work. Prove them wrong, even if it isn’t 100% accurate.
There is a much better answer here – one that would be 100% effective at silencing all rocket fire out of Gaza AND signal to all of the other sandworm terrorists in the region that any further attacks on Israel would be met with consequences that are so horrific that only the truly insane would contemplate.
Gaza is only a few square miles of area. The Israelis should nuke it and be done with the Hamas problem – along with any assistance there from the Brotherhood-ruled Egypt.
You seem to have confused Israel with Hamas.
It is Hamas, not Israel, that has genocidal aspirations, and Hamas, not Israel, that is only too happy to kill their own people if it also means killing some of the enemy.
Or did you think nuclear radioactivity would just stop at the border?
Well spoken, Sayan!
Wayne: if you like those kinds of solutions, here’s one for you. Israel could announce that, as of a particular date, every rocket launched from the Gaza Strip toward Israel would result, immediately, in one square kilometer of the Strip taken back by Israel, annexed, and bulldozed. No doubt the first few times, empty land would be taken, but not for long.
The Gaza Strip is 160 square kilometers in size. I imagine we’d see changes pretty quickly.
(Is this legal? Why not? Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip unilaterally, not in response to any agreement or treaty. And in response to an act of war — which firing rockets at kindergartens certainly is — this would be a reasonable response… perhaps an overly tame one.)
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
Technically, if an air burst nuke were used, there would be no localized fallout, just as there was no fallout in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Hence the amount of radiation reaching Israel would be minimal.
However, it would be a really bad idea!
What happened to the laser defense system that Israel and the US developed?
http://www.missilethreat.com/missiledefensesystems/id.63/system_detail.asp
Occam 2 “It cannot possibly intercept every terrorist projectile lobbed into its area of defense – even if it worked perfectly, and because the Iron Dome rockets are much too expensive to use against cheap enemy projectiles.”
True. They have tried to compensate for this by not wasting missiles. The system is designed to track the path of an incoming rocket and determine if it will land in and area to be defended (city or military base) or in an open area and only fire if it will hit something important.
The missile costs around 35 – 50k each, much more than a Kassam, however not horribly expensive. Rafael has some customers lined up already so production costs should go down.
Right now so far as I know they only have one battery so this deployment is more political than anything. They wanted to put it up north to guard an air base but understandably the folks in Beersheva would like it now.
Hamas it seems can only get off less than 100 shots/day. They are well covered by IDF counter fire and lose a lot of fighters by counterstrike.
Anyway I hope it works as advertised. The rocket fire from Hamas is psychological terrorism and even modest success would be a big blow to them.
#7 Spindok; What you say – to the best of my knowledge – is correct, however do you know if one Iron Dome battery radar can process multiple incoming simultaneously? Kassams are cheap, & mortar tubes & projectiles are cheaper, & plentiful (especially when the enemy gets theirs free from Iran, while the IDF must pay for each Iron Dome rocket.
Remember, mortars come in small (60mm), large (81mm), & back-breaking sizes (or at least they did back in my day when we handled the 4.2″). So big mortars can’t be dismissed as too small to be worth intercepting – especially if one is coming right down on the Iron Dome launcher. I bet that one gets a high priority for intercept, while the city gets triaged. Kassams are woefully inaccurate, but mortars can be deadly accurate, if zeroed-in properly.
I figure Iron Dome could be overwhelmed if multiple tubes all launch at once. But even if it can process multiple incoming, someone is going to have to make some quick decisions – triage under fire – for which ones get the intercept command. I think Iron Dome might work fine protecting a small highly important point position, but can even multiple batteries ever hope to provide a plausable defense for a large area like a city taking barrage fire from multiple directions?
I doubt Hamas is capable of coordinated or sustained fire, because Israel would detect and take out any large scale setup of launchers before they could be used.
Israel can pat its belly and rub its head at the same time, unlike most countries.
The Iron Dome should be used on Samantha Power.
Wouldn’t it be great if the “LOVE BOAT” just mysteriously disappeared in the Mediterranean? I’m not sure if she’ll be on it but all her faithful followers will.
I would say that they should use regular unguided rockets and try to hit these impossibly difficult targets, resulting in the warhead falling into Palestinian neighborhoods. This can hardly be Israels fault, and maybe they might decide it isn’t so nice when your kids get vaporized while playing ball!!
Old saying:
“That which goes up must come down.”
When Hamas fires a rocket,
Israel will destroy it over their Mosques,
Palestinian fruit stands, and civilian heads.
Selling shovels to dig tunnels will again become profitable.
Old saying:
“That which goes up must come down.”
That’s top secret information! You should try to keep that on the down-low or the arabs might catch on.
Look at those idiot in Libya fire their AK’s into the air in celebration. Do you think they would do that if they knew that when those bullets come down they will be traveling at the exact speed they were when they left the barrel. It’s better that they continue to believe that the bullets just travel into outer space. Look how many got blown away by NATO because they thought they were being shot at. All of these guys should get honorable mention at this years Darwinian Awards.
I was shock to read this article about Israel’s Iron Dome.
It is so similar to something I wrote about in my soon to be published book, “the Dreams of Lucifer and Barack Obama” the Political Collaboration and secrets never released.
this is a paragraph excerpt from the book,
“Mr. President we have late-breaking news from Command Central at one of our underground bunkers in northern Maine, which is now completely operative.
The news is worse than expected. The bombing has proliferated with North Korea sending atomic missiles to southern California, where it has spread extensively to Northern Mexico. Most of Southern California, up to the city of St. Barbara is a blaze. Iran fired a load of ballistic missiles with atomic warheads at the State of Israeli and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Israel retaliated with ten-mile penetration missiles of the Gravity B61 type, aimed directly at eight of the nuclear development centers in Iran. However, most of Israel was undamaged. They had built an incredible series of Lucite globes, which covered the entire country. These giant twenty-four inch reverse magnetic spheroids actually deflected the missiles from the globes. The missiles ricocheted to Syria and the West Bank of Israel. Extensive damage was sustained by Saudi Arabia and Syria. Their oil fields and most of the city of Riyadh were destroyed.”
Wouldn’t be great if Israel could really do that. Easier to write about it than do it. the book will be out in early May…check it out on Amazon.
Where did you get the idea that I had sumitted the comment before??
Did you read it?? I had commented on an article earier on another subject
Check this out Please
Mr. President we have late-breaking news from Command Central at one of our underground bunkers in northern Maine, which is now completely operative.
The news is worse than expected. The bombing has proliferated with North Korea sending missiles to southern California, where it has spread extensively to Northern Mexico. Most of Southern California, up to the city of St. Barbara is a blaze. Iran fired a load of ballistic missiles with atomic warheads at the State of Israeli and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Israel retaliated with ten-mile penetration missiles of the Gravity B61 type, aimed directly at eight of the nuclear development centers in Iran. However, most of Israel was undamaged. They had built an incredible series of Lucite globes, which covered the entire country. These giant twenty-four inch reverse magnetic spheroids actually deflected the missiles from the globes. The missiles ricocheted to Syria and the West Bank of Israel. Extensive damage was sustained by Saudi Arabia and Syria. Their oil fields and most of the city of Riyadh were destroyed.
heh
That reminds me of an old Jewish joke:
A volcano erupts with a colossal explosion. Scientists predict that within three days, the ensuing giant tsunamis will flood the entire earth, and put all land under water.
The Pope appears on television and encourages everyone to accept Jesus Christ so at least their immortal souls will be saved.
The head Muslim imam also goes on TV to recommend that everybody immediately convert to Islam, so they may spend eternity with Allah.
The Dali Lama appears on TV and urges everyone to become Buddhist, so they may reach Nirvana.
The Chief Rabbi of Israel goes on national TV and says, “We have three days to learn how to live under water.”
badaboom
That’s a good one! I gotta’ kick out’a that.
Yah, the one thing you certainly can’t criticize the Jews for is a lack of ingenuity.
Frankly, I don’t know how effective such a system as Iron Dome could hope to work against the differing array of projectiles. I would think the radars neccessary would make the defense system a pretty fair target by itself. I guess greater minds than mine are working to make it viable. I’ve often wondered why a much lower tech system like tethered, high altitude ballons with all sorts of observation devices, infra-red, visual,radar and audio couldn’t be employed to spot the source of any attack immediately and target it and an area a kilometer around it for instant destruction. Nothing could be done about the incoming to Israel but, it would sure teach the rocketeers a lesson. It would stop soon! Otherwise Daniel in Brookline has a great solution too.
That’s not a bad idea! It would be cheaper and more energy efficient than drones. In some American city’s they have those gun-shot locator’s that almost instantaneously locate the source of the shot. That kind of thing would be handy for pin-pointing a target rich environment.
Another strategy they could try is if they intercept illegal rockets going into Gaza sabotage them so they’ll explode when they are fired or place a tracking device so they can easily locate where the stockpiles are being stored. They’d have to figure out a covert way of removing them then reinserting them into transport route. Is there a Jewish James Bond?
Whatever happened to radar detecting and aimed 155mm’s firing air burst shells? I would guess that would be the cheapest solution. Collateral damage for sure but a massive broadcast propaganda campaign aimed at those who would allow launchers on their land could make the jihadists unpopular. Worth a try I would think.
Doesn’t Israel have armed drones? Why can’t they pick-off the launchers, their crew of low-life’s, as-well as their stockpile of rockets. That might make the smarter muslims think twice before entering a career of rocket-launcher, of coarse that’s assuming there are any brain cells left in the mush that’s been created from years of studying the qaran and hadiths.