Yossi Melman / Iron Dome may not be as effective as the IDF thinks
Officials painted a rosy picture of the missile defense system after the recent successful test, but a number of unaddressed issues may shoot down their optimism.
By Yossi Melman Tags: Israel news IDFEverything about the last test of the Iron Dome missile defense system, created to intercept all manner of launched projectile within a 40 kilometer radius, came up smelling like roses.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the test was "an important milestone for the security system and the defense industries." Ministry director general Udi Shani promised "We will act to actively deploy the batteries in the field as soon as possible." Brig. Gen. Eitan Eshel, head of research and development in the defense ministry, praised the system's performance and Yossi Drucker, the administrative head of the weapons development authority, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems.
But the most cloying description was beyond all doubt supplied by Uzi Rubin, one of the pillars of weapons projects in Israel. Still under the strong impression the test made on him, Rubin wrote: "This is a milestone in military technology. Whoever did not witness the clouds of destroyed grads in the skies has never seen such a soul-warming display in his life. During the test, a missile like a Qassam with a very short-range was fired and the Iron Dome missile was fired toward it. What happened was that the Iron Dome missile set out an extremely short time after the Qassam registered on the radar equipment, flew up, was bored and made a couple of rounds to pass the time, and when the Qassam arrived, the missile intercepted it like lightning and turned it into a wave of splinters. I have never seen anything like it in my life, and even the people from Rafael were amazed."
But, despite the admiration and praise which the Rafael engineers deserve for developing the system in record time, the truth is that the capabilities of the Iron Dome and the test results are more complicated than that.
Dr. Nathan Farber, a lecturer in aeronautics at the Technion, and a former rocket scientist for the military industry, is skeptical.
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Test of the Iron Dome rocket-defense system on Monday July 19, 2010. The military said the test was highly successful. |
| Photo by: Defense Ministry |
His estimates are based on a decade of experiments, and what he saw in a short, censored video the Rafael staff and the defense ministry supplied to television stations.
"Five rockets were fired (three grads and two Qassams ). That's not exactly a shower of grads. Of the five, two were expected to hit on target, and they were successfully intercepted. None of them was short-range. I checked the angle of fire a few times, and in no case were they lower than 45 degrees. That means that that only steeply routed rockets were intercepted. The matter of flat routes was not examined in this test. It will continue to be the weak point of the system whose capabilities will only be revealed unfortunately during a war."
Farber sounded the alarm on Iron Dome's weaknesses years ago. He believes Sderot should be defended with the Vulcan-Phalanx cannon, which are available and much cheaper.
"I never claimed the Iron Dome could not intercept rockets with high route angles," he said. "It definitely can intercept missiles at a range of 20 kilometers. The problem is that it has weaknesses, which they are attempting to conceal from the public."
The most prominent weakness is that the system has difficulty intercepting mortar shells and Qassams (flat route weapons ) whose range is 4.5 kilometers or less. These are the mortar shells and Qassams that have been launched at Sderot and the areas bordering Gaza for the better part of a decade, and the reason Iron Dome was reportedly developed in the first place.
The generals, with chiefs of staff Dan Halutz and Gabi Asheknazi and air force commanders in the lead, did not see defense of the home front as a critical element in their war plans. In their view, as defined by Uzi Rubin, "defense of the home front is not [the army's] problem, and doesn't have to be funded by the defense budget." And so they fought bitterly to defeat any effort to fund and develop a system of defense against short and mid-range missiles, in sharp contrast with their support for the Arrow (Hetz ) system against long-range Scud and Shahab missiles.
In the end the generals gave in, because of pressure from then-defense minister Amir Peretz and public opinion following the trauma of the massive firing of Katuyshas by Hezbollah in the Second Lebanon War, and the near-constant firing of Qassams on Sderot and the surrounding area. In other words, the army gave up its struggle for an active defense in Israeli military doctrine.
It wasn't a knockout, though. A rearguard war continues to be conducted. The air force founded and trained, with an obvious lack of enthusiasm, a special antiaircraft battalion to operate the Iron Dome. But there are only two such batteries to date, because the defense system is having difficulties funding additional equipment.
And so the defense ministry is counting on sales of the system to other countries. The French journal Intelligence Online says that Singapore paid for a large part of the development, and is planning on making purchases. American magazine Defense News reports that India is also interested. Defense Minister Ehud Barak also had to try to collect money from U.S. President Barack Obama, and received a promise of over $200 million for equipment.
For any reasonable home front defense in the north and south, there is a need for 200 batteries of defense systems at a cost of $500 million. There is no chance that the money will be found.
And there is another problem: the cost of an Iron Dome missile is $100,000, as Yossi Drucker himself admitted in an interview with American media. That is a very high price to take out a homemade missile that costs about $100. And beyond all else, Iron Dome, developed in order to defend Sderot and the areas around Gaza, still has difficulties defending them against short range Qassams.
Yet another problem: Despite the success of the tests, they are only experiments and don't reflect the uncertainties of a battlefield.
Here is a suggestion to Rafael, the army and the defense ministry: Remove all doubt that the system can intercept missiles under real conditions. Why not place the experimental Iron Domes in the Negev (and even change their positions from time to time, in order to confuse the enemy ).
This way it will be possible for the system and its operators to gather real experience. At Rafael they claim to have produced hundreds of missiles for tests. Use some of them for "real time" interceptions, not perfectly timed and pre-planned experiments.
It would also be a wise step before mass producing these interceptor missiles, which have not been tested under battlefield conditions. If they succeed, fantastic. If not, the state of Israel will save a lot of money. And aside from that, the accumulated experience can help improve the system.
Why tell fairy tales about the Iron Dome missile looping lazily in the air? Bring down Qassams without going in circles.
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.. the system risks being defeated by false alarms triggered by cheap $1 chinese rockets - Israel and ultimately the US will end up being bankrupted by a ploy from the toy-department at WalMarts .. Who'd have thunk?
1. Iron dome is cheaper than a war. 2. Technologies like this usually become cheaper once they are developed and put in to use. 3. The cost can be offset by sales to the United States and India.
have you seen the disco light with the mirror that rotates to shoot the beam of light in different directions? use something like that to shoot a high powered lazer at incoming objects. The mirrior will rotate to aim the lazar from incoming signal from your tracking sytem. U.S. now has a 32 megawatt lazer technology to blow up aircraft that might be able to work on a highly relfective surfaced mirror such as used for the Hubble. Use the disco light from American DJ as a proto type.
Presently every Qassam that comes down without causing any damage is a failure from the shooters point of view. With Iron Dome deployed, every Qassam which is not shot down is a success, regardless of doing damage, as it "defeats" the Israeli defensive. Obviously the IDF is reluctant to issue reports of "we tried, but failed".
A $ 100 000.00 to take down a piece of sawage pipe called Quassam. Who pays for it ?
Doesn't anyone remember the Patriot anti missile? Beside making lots of noise and providing a false sense of security they were good for nothing. If there was such a reliable defense mechanism wouldn't the USA and its allies make sure it is developed right away for their own use in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan?
don't be surprised when all your tax dollars are spent on useless weapons...
The Phalanx, an automated rapid fire "machine gun" principle, is much cheaper to operate and is better for defending point targets, such as ships, army bases etc. It is widely used by the US and proven effective, but needs to be placed near the intended target. (Think "machine gun".) I suspect the Defense establishment made a strategic decision to develop the Iron Dome missile system for short range missiles to defend the larger area of northern Israel and the Gaza envelope, not particularly Sderot. Now that this is done, Phalanx will be purchased too. Buying Phalanx first might have caused the government not to spend on Iron Dome.
Dude, your goverment doesn't buy anything they make a list and send it to Washington. I (US taxpayer) pay for it.
The exaggerated kassams are nothing more than chubby fireworks. In case the Iron Dome is intended to stop those poor dumb kassams; it needs to be turned off during the firework shows, otherwise the system will consider “alarm! kassamas are coming”. On the other hand don’t worry about the high price of the Iron Dome, the American tax payers will eventually pay for it without knowing what they are paying.
is the iron dome effective against a cluster bomb? shooting 1 on top of you?
If IRON DOME is effective, the cost is not to be evaluated in thousands of dollars, but on lives it would suppose to save, as these lives are threatened by those very cheap qassams or grads. For a compareason: see the global cost for security measures against terrorism in airports all over the world, compared to the cost of effective attempts.
While it is a worthwhile technology to develop surely the better and much cheaper option would have been to develop a Vulcan-Phalanx type system or simply buy it off the shelf.
The US took it out of ship spare parts stores and mounted it on a concrete slab. Later land-based ammunition was bought that was self-immolating. Israel has the Phalanx already on your ships.
Phalanx is a nice CIWS good for mortars and missles but limited in range. Unless teh incomming is close, it is useless. It could be used to defend fixed bases, but not for civilian areas because no one knows where the missiles that are inbound are coming from. Now teh hard part. Phalanx rounds go outbound at 2000 rounds per minute or more. That means many rounds wont hit their intended targets. Those outbound rounds will eventually fall back to each. Some one will end up getting hit, unless of course each round has a timner fuze or self destruct mechanism after a certain flight time.
Put some in the battlefield in S. Israel and see how they work. I think they will be fine. But if there is a problem you tweek it and make it better. Either way Israel's enemies are humiliated again by the small state...made up of less than 1/2 of 1% of all the land in the Middle East ...that has been under Arab boycott since 1948, yet still prospers and finds new and better ways to go on.
taken out of Americans' pockets even Moldovia would prosper. Arab boycott? Are you kidding?
The fact is the Pals get billions maybe not from the U.S....which does give some money to the Pals...but from many countries. Although recently it seems the surrounding Muslim countries would rather supply goods rather than money. Why, you ask? Both Fatah and Hamas are notoriously corrupt and can't be trusted. Those who remember when Arafat died know this, Pal leaders flew to France not so much to mourn Arafat as to get his wife...the only one who knew where and had access to...the billions he hoarded in his personal and secret bank accounts. Nobody ever complained about that though, did they?
It won't destroy the terror aspect of missiles hitting open ground. That is the point of these cheap ineffectual rockets, sirens going off, families diving into shelters, iron dome or not, the rockets will still be a success.
As a fomer weapons systems engineer with experience of both missile point defence and close-in weapon systems, the Vulcan-Phalanx solution seesm to me the most reliabel and cost effective. Besides the interception performance issues that Farber raises, the question of cost ratios has not been addressed. Qassams, a simple ballistic rocket, cost a few tens (hundreds at most) of dollars for raw materials and assembly. The Grad is a cheap ballistic munition used in a multiple launch rocket system. But how much does an Iron Dome munition cost? The mssile is likley to use a costly millimeter-wave radar seeker and a sophisticated inertial guidance subsystem. My rough estimate is at last several tens of thousands of dollars for each mssile round.
Imagine, Palestinians build much more cheaper Qassams even without explosives and send them to their journey to Israel. Each one will cost you a fortune. Way to ruin Israel financially.
Iron Dome was dreamed up for politics. After Lebanon Olmert & Peretz needed a feel good factor to try boost their image so they said here is around $300 million go design something we need to know in advance what the thing will be like or how expensive it will be to operate ( things usually taken into consideration on military purchases ). It was just we need a domestically made solution its good for national pride. Then the 2 idiots kept boasting how its onlly 3-4 years away. In the end we got a product we just can't use each interceptor is around $30,000 ( not $100,000 ) but even at that price can we afford to use it? The US is offering thiis $200 million to get a couple of batteries operational before the end of the year but its a 1 time thing and of course for the midterms show we all care about Israel and its defensive only so can't hurt Obamas desire for a legacy. When each terrorist rocket cost $10 & each interceptor cost $30,000 and the terrorists have thousands of the things its useless. We couldn't have used Iron Dome during Lebanon or Cast Lead .. within ah hour we would have run out of interceptors. Its also no good for protecting towns on the Gaza border like Sderot because of the short fly time. It takes longer for iron Dome to lock on, launch and kill than it does for the rocket to leave Gaza and hit a site in Israel it will be nothing more than an expensive toy. Also the cost of operating this thing comes from the already shrinking military budget ,,, does the IDF want tp put $30,000 towards the cost of a new tank or 1 Iron Dome interceptor? Iron Dome was just created for politics not defense
The Technion guy quoted in the article says the Phalanx system would work better at shooting down Kassams. That may be, but it has a bit of a side effect: every second you shoot it, a few dozen 20-mm cannon shells fly off in the general direction of the incoming missile. They fly for several kilometers in a ballistic arc. What happens when and where they land could be problematic.
Phlanx is designed for protecting small spaces like a military base or a battleship certainly not a town full of civilians. As you say there is also the shrapnel issue and considering the main threat from kassams is not so much the explosion but the shrapnel then do we want a whole load of shells flying all over the place. Guns are not an exact science. The Phlanx is like a shotgun your shell is is full of ball shrapnel and there is so much of the stuff in there at least 1 is probably going to hit. Iron Dome is an assassins rifle 1 accurate shot. The problem is its too expensive to operate and in towns like Sderot there isn't enough time to launch and kill the terrorist rocket before it hits. If we were talking about protecting from the odd rocket and being fired at a city further away like Ashkelon maybe Iron Dome is good. Before Cast In the 3 years between the Gaza pull out - Cast Lead thousands of rockets were fired, how many of them would we have shot down before we said we just can't afford to protect you because the majority of the IDF budget is being spend on shooting down terrorist rockets rather than hardware it needs to operate. There is no solution right now and once the stuff we get from the US in a one off gift is used the army is going to start saying its to expensive to use if its coming out of our budget.
who would want to live down range of a phalanx emplacement.
When debris lend somewhere in Gaza, they will produce the best side effect possible to stop firing into Israel
The system was never intended to be able to shoot down 100% of rockets. No defensive system for any type of weapon is capable of that. A bullet vest does not stop 100% of bullets, and tank armour does not stop 100% of shells. So stop whining about poor planning and deception. Probablities are part of any weapon system. Don't set unrealistic expectations. The system will improve over time. The point of it all is to give the army breathing space in another confrontation, so that home front casualties can be reduced, while the army does its job. That it will do. It does not replace the need for a ground army or air force. No one ever claimed that it would seal israel hermetically.
IN THE BEGINNING. Then technological improvements reduce cost.
If the Hezbollah have at least 40,000 missiles (possible 60,000) and the Syrians posses at least that number then on will have to produce at least 80,000 anti missile missiles. At a cost of $100,000 per protective missile, this comes to $8,000,000,000, just for the ammunition. Add to this the cost of the radar systems, and launching platforms and replacement systems for those destroyed during the conflict and one reaches truly astonomical sums. If the defence budget is about 55 billion shekels or $13.75 billion then this swallow almost the entire budget and will not ensure success.
those that have read my posts and rubbished me can now shut their mouths, because it doesn't matter how good it is regardless, it cannot handle anymore than 20 at a time when they can send 50 or more, peace is the only solution, otherwise the world will go bankrupt by financing israel.
It great ideal but much like US Star Wars program it works best under ideal conditions and limited due to high cost to use it. If Hamas or Hezbollah get HARM missiles then is radar will get taken out quickly and then its worthless.
hamas shoots hundreds a year . which means they will do more damage just making israel intercept them.then when they land. i still think making peace is cheaper
A hundred thousand dollar missile to destroy a hundred dollar rocket that, 95% of the time, lands in an open field? Wile E. Coyote. Super Genius.
They have radar to examine where the rockets will land before they do land. Since most rockets miss, most won't get intercepted... Of those who do not miss, we need to factor in the damage they'll do if they do hit.
The system detects the target range and only shoots missiles aims at populated areas. Missiles targeting open area are allowed to land without interception. Read the article.
is by launching decoy missiles in the 1st (and even 2nd salvos). This is to draw fire from Iron Dome and waste their shots. Then launch real missiles on the 3rd and following salvos..
Just how much cheaper it is to make a decoy instead of a missile if some of the missiles only cost 100$? I suspect the more cost effective approach for the launcher is to not think about decoys and simply launch more missiles...
The "rocket scientist" from the Technion bases his assessment on a PR video, a rocket scientist indeed. I wonder how could RAFAEL miss Mr Melman when they put together the staff who developed th eIron Dome, such an expert, how could they miss him?
I dont think Yossi Melman is smart. He is just a trouble maker waiting for response to this article. He should be ashamed to be that negative againist the defence department. He thinks that it is a pride to make such disgusting comments. He is not even educated to make such comments without concrete & educated facts.
The Nautilus Tactical High Energy Laser project was initiated in 1996. In 2000 and 2002, the THEL successfully destroyed incoming Katyushas and mortars. The cost per kill was about $3,000, the operational range about 5km. The project was to be jointly developed with the US. Because the Israeli top brass opted out and the project was entirely transferred to the US. Today, the US are developing a full range of solid and chemical laser weapons against numerous threats. The choice by Israel to walk out was disastrous in retrospect. It is still time to catch up but we will face the likes of Raytheon and Boeing.
and when america announced it the russians simply said "what? we did this 20 yrs ago", so sad, except the russians shelved it, why? it's not all weather.
I assume you know laser basics. It is not about weather but about chromatic dispersion. The US have made recently some technological breakthrough in this field. My point was the smart butts at the IDF would have been better inspired to pursue R&D in this field.
Normally, the people who test and accept weapons systems are those who are involved with the program in one way or another. They will benefit from a successful test. The American military has accepted some famously flawed equipment and systems based on inadequate tests. Can Iron Dome intercept a half dozen ballistic missiles at once? Nobody knows if iron Dome can even intercept one ballistic missile. Still, since America is largely footing the bill, it will mean another river of American money entering Israel. Can't knock that.
it doesn't take one to know that bribing people on a dud project is rife, especially in israel.
Natallie Durson is well informed, and it has been general knowledge in the US since Reagan that ballistic missile ("star wars") tests were rigged. You can read about it in MIT reports. Your childish mockery says all we need to know about you. And, by the way, "good luck".
Durson has an easy job. She reads news. If any happens to be in Israel's favor, she foolishly knocks it with a tone only used by those who consider themselves an authority. A tough child to be around in the vicinity of SF and a non-relenting Iron dome like stubborn mentality, she sit on her recliner, no on her bed, and decides "you know what, Iron Dome ain't workin, period." Then she figures it would be smart to add something about American money, so she does that too. Then she goes home lonely and goes to sleep. Tomorrow is another day and it begins from fresh, reading the news bout Israel, bashing it again, again no boy friend. You know, not for everyone life is easy. At least she has her cause -to see some people annoyed and bothered by her statements. If life is bitter, let some other people be annoyed as well.
explaining all this to us who no voice of authority possess.
Just open a dictionary and look-up "ballistic missile" before pontificating, Prof. Natallie...
If every time a mortar was fired at israel an area of a square mile was obliterated it would not be long before there is no place to fire from. Repudiate proportionality as a cover to kill jews. All jew killers should be disproportionately liquidated
Ah I see Israelis are more equla than others eh. It is no wonder your country is inceasingly seen as an apartheid terrorist state internationally. What you propose would destroy what little international sympathy Israle has.
tell me then the reason why israel gallops around the world especially russia telling them not to sell to iran and syria and so on? do tell.
If IDF uses carpet bombing, do you really think the others are gonna play dead. They can respond and have plans for acts of genocide. It is genocide when others are obliterated, not only Jews!!!
mr. melman, on the one hand i appreciate the transparency you bring to the public in this piece yet it seems so basic as to not reveal your hand to the other side and to maintain the power of oz. aren't you shooting yourself in the foot? or is the 'truth' going to get the nation an iron dome they can depend on and afford?