Israeli Anti-Missile Defence Systems

The two companies, which cooperated in developing the operational Arrow-2, on Jan. 23 announced an agreement to jointly work on the Arrow-3. “This new agreement is the next logical step in our relationship with Boeing and a strong opportunity for both companies to play a bigger role in the missile defense market,” says IAI President and CEO Itzhak Nissan.

The Arrow-3 is designed to intercept missiles above the atmosphere and at longer range than the Arrow-2, thus enabling several interception attempts against any incoming missile and increasing the likelihood of success. Specifically, Israel is developing the Arrow-3 to anticipate a nuclear threat from Iran. “Israel is too small to absorb a nuclear strike,” a senior defense source says. “The Arrow-3 will minimize the chance of enemy missiles penetrating our defense shields.”

Like the Arrow-2, the Arrow-3 is a two-stage, solid-propellant interceptor but is equipped with an exoatmospheric kill vehicle that is designed to hit to kill and not use a proximity warhead like the Arrow-2. The overall interceptor is slightly smaller than the Arrow-2 and uses the same launch system. IAI tested the launcher using a model of the Arrow-3 interceptor last September and is preparing for the first flyout test in the second half of 2012.

Arrow-3 will use the next-generation “Green Pine” active, electronically scanned array radar, known as “Great Pine,” which is believed to have a detection range of 900 km (563 mi.). It will also receive data from the U.S. AN/PTY-2 X-band radar deployed in southern Israel, enabling an early detection of incoming missiles and a longer preparation time for interception

Cyberspec wrote:Seems to be quite effective. Something like a 70% success rate according to info I saw, which is pretty good considering the targets. The only down side is the cost. One ID projectile/missile is estimated to cost (depending on source) between $45000-$62000, while the Fajr rockets cost between $1000-$2000.

It’s very hard to see how it (Iron Dome’s success rate) could be more than 5 or 10 percent.

As American President Barack Obama hailed the ‘resounding success’ of Israel’s US-financed Iron Dome antimissile system on the first of his tour there, missile experts have newly unveiled that Iron Dome’s success rate during the regime’s November war on Gaza was as low as zero.


While Obama used his Wednesday’s tour of an Iron Dome installation, “celebrating a technological wonder built with the help of American dollars” and seeking to showcase US support of the Zionist regime, there was no mention about the “intensifying debate” on whether the promotion of the system’s success rate was “more illusory than real,” says a The New York Times article on Thursday.

Contrary to Israeli claims that Iron Dome’s success rate in destroying incoming Palestinian rockets during the regime’s massive military strikes against the blockaded Gaza strip was 90 percent, studies by weapons experts in the US and Israel suggest that the anti-missile system “destroyed no more than 40 percent” of the rockets “and perhaps far fewer,” the report emphasizes.


Many rockets, they argue, were “merely crippled or deflected” but not destroyed as claimed, allowing intact or dying rockets to fall on populated areas.

Following the wildly exaggerated claims by the Israeli regime about Iron Dome’s success rate, the US Congress also described the system as “very effective,” pledging an additional USD680 million for deployments through 2015.

According to the report, Richard Lloyd, a weapons expert who has written a critique of Iron Dome for engineers and weapons designers, and Theodore Postol, a physicist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who helped reveal major Patriot antimissile failures in 1991, analyzed new videos on the performance of the Israeli anti-missile system and found that Iron Dome “repeatedly failed to hit its targets head-on.”

“It’s very hard to see how it could be more than 5 or 10 percent,” the report quotes Dr. Postol as saying.


Moreover, the daily adds, Mordechai Shefer, an Israeli rocket scientist formerly with Rafael, Iron Dome’s maker, studied about two dozen videos and, in a study published last month, “concluded that the kill rate was zero.”

Meanwhile, the paper underlines that Iron Dome’s performance is the key to a potential Israeli decision whether to take military action against the Islamic Republic as it has repeatedly threatened, hinging on its estimate of possible retaliatory costs, “including damage inflicted by rockets fired from southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip,” not to mention Iran’s own long-range ballistic missiles.


Amid the growing anxiety over any Iranian retaliatory strikes on Israel in case of an American or an Israeli attack against the country, as often threatened by officials of both allies as a ploy aimed at pressuring Tehran into abandoning its right to use peaceful nuclear technology, “the Israeli public saw Iron dome’s (reported) early successes” against rocket fire from Gaza “as proof” that it can tolerate retaliatory strikes, the report adds, citing Israeli antimissile program’s founder, Uzi Rubin.

Following the Gaza cease-fire last year, the report notes, Lloyd began scrutinizing “hundreds of online videos of Iron Dome in action,” looking for “unambiguous signs of success: pairs of fireballs (at night) or smoke clouds (during the day) that formed as speeding fragments blew up a warhead.”

However, “he found very few,” the daily adds, citing Lloyd.

Lloyds method of video analysis won scientific backing during the 1991 US-led Persian Gulf war against Iraq, as the American military boasted that its Patriot interceptors, built to protect Israel against potential missile attacks by Iraqi dictator at the time Saddam Hussein, had succeeded 96 percent of the time.

MIT scientist, however, “analyzed broadcast videos and found only misses,” according to the Time’s report.

In Israel, meanwhile, Lloyd won support from Reuven Pedatzur, a military analyst and former fighter pilot “long skeptical of his country’s antimissile claims,” who found an Israeli police report saying that 109 rockets launched from Gaza - roughly twice the military’s figure - hit urban areas.

Pedatzur further discovered “evidence of wide destruction” inflicted by rockets fired by Palestinian Hamas militants.

A Finance Ministry report registered 3,165 claims of property damage, “including to cars and buildings in cities like Ashdod and Beersheba, both protected by Iron Dome battalions.”

Seems ridiculous to spend $100k on a missile to shoot down a $1 bottle rocket, but I guess it's OK if they're are not writing the checks...

GarryB wrote:War = truth is first victim... ask most Americans... indeed most westerners and they will tell you that the Patriot defeated the Scud.

Anybody who is interested in the subject knows that is not true, but it would be unpatriotic of the US media to dispel such a myth of US military superiority... bad for morale knowing our boys are not safe... imagine that... going to war and not being safe... how warped is that?

Regular wrote:

GarryB wrote:War = truth is first victim... ask most Americans... indeed most westerners and they will tell you that the Patriot defeated the Scud.

Anybody who is interested in the subject knows that is not true, but it would be unpatriotic of the US media to dispel such a myth of US military superiority... bad for morale knowing our boys are not safe... imagine that... going to war and not being safe... how warped is that?

I've seen this trend too. But before that they were saying that their equipment is too old and they need more and newer weapons, more soldiers, more bombs, more wmd's.
Israel on other hand can't let illusions fool them. You don't know what will happen in the future, US is flirting with Islamists, Arab spring didn't make place safer either, Obama supports Palestine. Most likely in the future Israel will have to stand by themselves and deal with all those problems US brought to them

GarryB wrote:War = truth is first victim... ask most Americans... indeed most westerners and they will tell you that the Patriot defeated the Scud.

Anybody who is interested in the subject knows that is not true, but it would be unpatriotic of the US media to dispel such a myth of US military superiority... bad for morale knowing our boys are not safe... imagine that... going to war and not being safe... how warped is that?

nemrod wrote:

GarryB wrote:War = truth is first victim... ask most Americans... indeed most westerners and they will tell you that the Patriot defeated the Scud.

Anybody who is interested in the subject knows that is not true, but it would be unpatriotic of the US media to dispel such a myth of US military superiority... bad for morale knowing our boys are not safe... imagine that... going to war and not being safe... how warped is that?

In fact Garry I can certify that I was one of the first victim of their filty propaganda.
During the first gulf war, the live, CNN, TF1, A2, BBC, etc....Patriots downed Scud, downed Scud, downed Scud, etc...
These filty sentences was swalowed by our poor washed brains -I was brain washed by militaries newspaper, and their so stupid TV document legend's wing, in french "les ailes de légende"-.
They swaggered their tanks are invicibles, their F-16/F-15/F-18 best aircrafts of the worlds, Patriots can downed every Saddam's hardwares, Sam are innefective against the best army of the world. In fact, underlying US weaponnery is better than any soviet hardwares. But....
After the war, when things were calmed you discovered, after a discret article in bottom of the page, that their filty patriots have never downed any scuds.
Their tanks could be crippled, if not burned.
Furthermore an old Mig-25 downed F-18, and a B-52, and missed several times to down F-15 and their F-111.
An old Sam 6 downed very easily F-16. I don't know what's happenned in iraqi air force, but they could inflict severe damages if they were more motivied. However in that time Saddam was only interrested by power, and avoided any problems with USA.


After our brain washed had to believe that none countries in the world could match with US hyperpower. In order to corroborate what I mean, fortunetly few years after came Internet, and we -amazed- learned that in fact US army has never easily won any war. In Korea as in Vietnam their best fighters hardly matched with soviet aircrafts.
Just last episode resumed what is realy US superpower.
An old Mig 17 -subsonic fighter-, downed 2 F-105 -supersonic figther-.
It means that without helped from Russia, US Army can never won a war.
If in 1991 we have no bastards like Gorbatchev, Chevardnaze, Yeltsin, the gulf war's result must be another thing.

Regular wrote:
And it has nothing to do with outdated equipment, monkey models, bad morale and bad training of Iraqi army? Even Iran kicked their asses while being outnumbered. Outcome wasn't surprising. Insurgency was harder than both wars. Don't know what Gorbatchev, Yeltsin and Chevarnadze has to do with it can You tell me more?

Even Iran kicked their asses while being outnumbered.

Back to Gorbatchov, and watching what he did for Russia,

GarryB wrote:
Gorbachev was 1000x more popular in the west than he was at home, and the irony is that gorby made all his changes... perestroika, glasnost, not to destroy the communist party, but to make it stronger... Gorby was never the leader of Russia. he was the last Soviet leader. Most westerners think he was a shining light for democracy... hahaha.

Communism as practised in the soviet union had the same basic problems of democracy in the west... small group with all the power and money and land and the majority of the population scraping by at different levels. The west probably had a bigger middle class of comfortable people but the gap is only getting bigger now and many children being born wont be able to afford to buy a house in their lifetime.

magnumcromagnon wrote:This is a bit off topic but apparently theirs a MIT professor (Theodore A. Postol Professor of Science, Technology, and National Security Policy Massachusetts Institute of Technology) that claims Israel's "Iron Dome" has a missile interception rate which is much lower than their claimed 84%. Professor Postol compares Iron Dome to the Patriot SAM's in interception success rate. I hadn't had the time to read through it however some people who have read through it are saying that he's making the case that Iron Dome's success rate is less than 20%:

http://www.magenlaoref.org.il/IndicatorsofIronDomePerformanceMarch122013.pdf