Slashdot Mirror
Israel's Iron Dome Missile Defense Shield Actually Works
Hugh Pickens writes "Sarah Tory reports that the debut of Israel's Iron Dome missile defense shield has added a new element to the conflict between Israel and Palestinians in the Gaza strip, one that military officials are calling a 'game-changer.' Israeli officials are claiming that the shield is destroying 90 percent of missiles and rockets it aims at that have been fired into southern Israel by Hamas. This level of success is unprecedented compared with older missile defense systems such as the American-made Patriot model used during the 1991 Gulf War. The missile-defense system can detect rocket launches and then determine the projectiles' flight paths and only intercepts rocket or artillery shells if they are headed for populated areas or sensitive targets; the others it allows to land. It takes a lot of raw computing power to rapidly build a ballistic profile of a fast-incoming projectile, make a series of quick decisions concerning potential lethality, and launch a countermeasure capable of intercepting said projectile in-flight. One reason Iron Dome is showing a much more robust capability than the Patriot system did is simply that its battle control hardware and software are several generations more advanced than those early interceptor systems. 'Israeli officials point out that Iron Dome saves money despite the fact that the interceptors cost up to $100,000 each,' writes Tory. 'The cost of rebuilding a neighborhood destroyed by a rocket attack — not to mention people wounded and lives lost — would be far greater than the cost of the interceptor.' Most important, the system buys Israel time, allowing it to plan out an appropriate response without the political pressure that would be generated by hundreds of potential deaths."
One other large difference that the summary glosses over is that there's a big difference between the Katyusha and improvised rockets of Hamas, and the much larger Scud missile used by Iraq. There's almost an order of magnitude difference in size and range, and a several-fold difference in speed.
There's a correspondingly large difference between the Tamir interceptor missiles used as part of the Iron Dome and the Patriot missile.
Still, on the whole, it's probably a good thing that we are getting better at setting our lethal weapons against each other, rather than at people.
There was a huge problem with the Patriot system early on where the tracking computers lost so much accuracy even after only running continuously for 8 hours that the system would fail to intercept threats. The short term solution was to reboot the system at regular intervals.
GAO Report: Patriot Missile Defense (Official report)
Patriot Missile Software Problem
Round off errors and the Patriot missile
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Holy crap, check this thing out!
Color me impressed...
I have heard about 2/3 rate, not 90% rate. There is little room to independently separate propaganda exaggeration from actual facts.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Here's a handy diagram that may help to explain things. Try showing restraint when your neghbourhood has been invaded, bulldozed, and then built on.
There was never an Arab state by the name "Palestine" which owned any of the land in what is known as Palestine or Israel. The West Bank was seized by Israel from Jordan in a self-defensive war in 1967, who had itself held it in an illegal occupation from 1948-1967. Prior to that the land was held by the Brits, and before them the Turks/Ottomans, before that the Crusaders, before that the Romans, and before them... the Jews.
Gaza is at present fully under Arab rule, so none of your points apply there, it's not clear what they're "fighting back" against.