Article

2014-07-13 Science & Technology

Israeli Rocket Defense System Is Failing at Crucial Task, Expert Analysts Say

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Posted by Flick Snore3762 2014-07-13 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11126 views ] Top

#1 some (maybe most) of the Hamas missiles don't actually have warheads.

Posted by lord garth 2014-07-13 00:34|| 2014-07-13 00:34|| Front Page Top

#2 This has always been typical of missile interceptors. A SCUD warhead that was from a missile that was hit by a Patriot slammed into a barracks in the first Gulf War.

The primary goal of the interceptor is to knock the missile off target. Where the Patriot failed at times, was that the interception took place late in the flight path. Iron dome intercepts farther away so hopefully the warhead, after being knocked off target, falls into an unpopulated or lightly populated area.

Posted by DarthVader 2014-07-13 00:39|| 2014-07-13 00:39|| Front Page Top

#3 Richard Lloyd, a weapons expert and consultant who is a past Engineering Fellow at Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems

I've nothing to add.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2014-07-13 01:11|| 2014-07-13 01:11|| Front Page Top

#4 In the first Gulf War the Patriot intercepts rates were worse in Israel then in Saudi. The reason for that was a more random mix of delay times in the Israeli phone system. In Saudi microwave links were used instead of phone ones. I hope Iron Dome makes no use of said phone network.

Posted by 3dc 2014-07-13 03:40|| 2014-07-13 03:40|| Front Page Top

#5 The entire conflict becomes a one-sided war of missile attrition if a sweeping ground assault is delayed. Without going after the bastids decisively, and finally putting them to the sword, the economics and time favour Hamas.

Posted by Besoeker 2014-07-13 03:48|| 2014-07-13 03:48|| Front Page Top

#6 A good first step in ancient castle sieges applies. Turn off the water.

Posted by 3dc 2014-07-13 06:55|| 2014-07-13 06:55|| Front Page Top

#7 and gas and power

Posted by Frank G 2014-07-13 07:52|| 2014-07-13 07:52|| Front Page Top

#8 In the first Gulf War, the Patriot was in the initial stages of development for theater anti-missile defense. It wasn't designed for that. It was designed for anti-aircraft defense as a replacement for the much older Nike Hercules AA system. As an AA system, all you had to do was get in the proximity of the target and explode a warhead creating shrapnel that would degrade engines and fuselages, making it an unstable air platform or reducing its ability to reach its target. Studies* in the 80s suggested its employment in the other capacity and modification development didn't start till the end of the decade for want of priority funding. As an anti-missile system, you need a kinetic round, hit a bullet with a bullet, or at least near on to direct contact to divert.

When the initial batched were deployed in the Gulf, there was no direct linkage between intel that reported a launch and the units in the field. The detect time even with the local phase array radar only allowed about a second to determine to launch. There was no chance to shoot, then look to see if you hit before you would launch again (shoot-look-shoot). Too quick. Instead, they ripple fired two at a time (shoot-shoot-look) in the hopes that they could direct the second one to vector intercept if the first missed. Statistically, at that rate, the best you can do is 50%. Hip shooting with an initially fielded system. Good luck.

The barracks that got hit was because the Patriot battery was down for an upgrade in its software as begin among the first fielded, they were still working on the system and literally sending software patches as quickly as they could get them out.

* Those studies were funded by an authorization put into the budget by a Senator from Indiana, Dan Quayle. He'd picked up a study paid for by the (then) West German government to study theater missile defense potential of the long in development Patriot system. That Dan Quayle the MSM enjoyed maligning at every turn for things the one gets away with daily.

Posted by Procopius2k 2014-07-13 08:53|| 2014-07-13 08:53|| Front Page Top

#9 The Iron Dome system is pretty good. It ignores things that are going to miss, and things that are going to hit something get a hard whack, way up in the air to send it off course.

The key success is that the Israelis do not feel helpless, instead they are confident that they can respond and triumph. War is politics by other means, and this system is great politics.

Posted by rammer 2014-07-13 11:46|| 2014-07-13 11:46|| Front Page Top

#10 Mr Postol has obviously never been faced with the project-options of Time, Money, Effectiveness, and Need; with having a choice of only two of those.

Posted by Pappy 2014-07-13 12:43|| 2014-07-13 12:43|| Front Page Top

#11 What a fundamentally stupid error in his logic. You do not need to detonate the warhead, just render it inoperative. That means taking out the rising mechanism, or damaging the structural integrity of the explosives within it, or similar damage that refers the warhead ineffective. The shock and high speed shrapnel can do that without "detonating" the warheads.

What a piece of crap article.

Posted by OldSpook 2014-07-13 17:14|| 2014-07-13 17:14|| Front Page Top

#12 Stupid autocorrect. "fusing mechanism" (not rising).

Posted by OldSpook 2014-07-13 17:15|| 2014-07-13 17:15|| Front Page Top

#13 These are also the people who have been saying for the past forty years that a working system would be destabilizing and evil. And have been actively goldbricking US antimissile efforts during that time period.

BUT, of course, we can trust them to tell us whether Iron Dome is working or not, even though a working Iron Dome would invalidate their last forty years of belief systems.

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2014-07-13 17:19|| 2014-07-13 17:19|| Front Page Top

#14 There is no such thing as a conventional explosive which doesn't detonate sympathetically.

Posted by Throth Mussolini4291 2014-07-13 18:27|| 2014-07-13 18:27|| Front Page Top

#15 Depends on the nature of the explosive. Some require high energy, some not as much. For instance, you can burn C4 or hit it with a hammer, it will not explode. You need a blasting cap or det cord for that stuff. And if it were shock sensitive, most stuff would not survive artillery shell launch forces. Shrapnel through the casing is likely enough to cause the warhead to malfunction, possibly without detonating it.

Posted by OldSpook 2014-07-13 19:09|| 2014-07-13 19:09|| Front Page Top

#16 The PATRIOT was originally designed as a fixed-wing Air Defense system, later given Missle Defense capability.

Posted by JosephMendiola 2014-07-13 19:32|| 2014-07-13 19:32|| Front Page Top

#17 FYI CNN this AM > repors that Israel is claiming that over 800 rockets have been intercepted by its Iron Dome BMD System.

Posted by JosephMendiola 2014-07-13 22:03|| 2014-07-13 22:03|| Front Page Top

23:32 DarthVader
22:22 JosephMendiola
22:19 JosephMendiola
22:13 JosephMendiola
22:06 JosephMendiola
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21:06 Alaska Paul
20:50 Alaska Paul
20:49 Thineng Angailet7166
19:33 Procopius2k
19:32 JosephMendiola
19:28 JosephMendiola
19:13 OldSpook
19:09 OldSpook
19:06 Barbara
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19:03 Barbara
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18:58 Flineck Flusock4496
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18:27 Throth Mussolini4291
18:21 Barbara
18:19 Besoeker