Israel has
moved a third Iron Dome anti-rocket system north, to deal with any possible
attacks coming out of Syria.
There, the two year old civil war is leading to weapons storage sites being
captured by rebels and the contents disappearing. Israel
fears that someone will grab some rockets and someone to operate them and
launch attacks on Israel.
Northern Israel is sparsely populated and not very
vulnerable to the many 122mm artillery rockets favored by terrorists because
these only have a range of about 20 kilometers. But the Syrians have hundreds
of longer range missiles and rockets that can reach Israel’s
largest cities farther south. Another problem with this is that the cities are
easier to hit because the populated area is so large. This caused some unexpected
problems with Iron Dome last Novemb
Although the Iron Dome system succeeded in shooting down about 85 percent of
the rockets Hamas fired at Israeli populated areas last November, the number
that had to be shot down was something of a shock. It was originally believed
that only ten percent of rockets fired at smaller towns and villages would need
to be intercepted by Iron Dome missiles. The rest would fall into unpopulated
areas that are common near the northern and southern borders. But the eight
day bombardment by Hamas rockets last November saw 1,500 larger or longer
ranged rockets fired at larger targets (cities). This meant a third of the
rockets headed for populated areas and thus needing an Iron Dome interceptor
missile. Even though Israel
has ordered more Iron Dome missiles, too many rockets headed for populated
areas in a short time means some incoming rockets that should get an
interceptor missile won’t.
A solution may lie in Iron Dome’s software. Iron Dome uses two radars to
quickly calculate the trajectory of the incoming rocket and does nothing if the
rocket trajectory indicates it is going to land in an uninhabited area. But if
the computers predict a rocket coming down in an inhabited area, a Tamir guided
missile is fired to intercept the rocket. This makes the system cost-effective.
Further improvements in the software may make it less necessary to fire
missiles. That's mainly because most of these unguided rockets land in
uninhabited areas but the few of those that do land in populated areas inflict
casualties. The system was so successful and reliable that it was found safe to
fire one missile, instead of two, at each incoming rocket. In addition, during
the eight day campaign last November, the Iron Dome software was updated almost
daily as users reported any problems which were collected and fixed quickly and
a new version of the software created, tested, and issued.
There’s nothing special about the rest of the Iron Dome system. The Tamir
missiles each weigh 90 kg (200 pounds), are three meters (9.8 feet) long, and
160mm in diameter. They have the usual components of a guided missile (rocket
motor, electronics, and mechanical devices to actuate the fins and batteries).
Without the predictive software Iron Dome would quickly run out of missiles and
be much more expensive to operate as well.
The first real rocket threat for Iron Dome was from a terrorist organization
(Hamas) operating out of an area (Gaza) that is basically home for Palestinian
refugees who have been there for over 60 years and want nothing less than the
destruction of Israel.
A similar organization (Hezbollah) controls southern Lebanon
and is also dedicated to the destruction of Israel,
using 40,000 unguided rockets they received from Iran.
Hezbollah last attacked with rockets in 2006.
Israel is
organizing a force of 13 Iron Dome batteries to defeat Hezbollah and Hamas
rocket attacks. Israel
keeps moving these batteries around, making them less of a target for missiles
or terrorists. Each of the five existing Iron Dome batteries has radar and
control equipment and three or four missile launchers (each containing twenty
missiles). Two more batteries are on order. Each battery costs about $40
million, which includes up to a hundred Tamir missiles (costing $90,000 each).
The U.S.
contributed nearly $300 million for development of Iron Dome.
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