Israel's Iron Dome Missile Defense Shield Actually Works

both sides by LinuxGrrl · 2012-11-20 01:10 · Score: 2, Insightful

Anyone else thinking they should deploy it on the Gaza side too? Not instead (I know people will misread me). As well.

Re:both sides by Idarubicin · 2012-11-20 02:52 · Score: 4, Insightful

That depends--is anyone randomly lobbing unguided rockets into Gaza?

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~Idarubicin

OMFG Reagan was right? by concealment · 2012-11-20 01:11 · Score: 5, Insightful

You mean that SDI might work after all?

That will get us out of the nuclear age. A stop rate of 90% eliminates a first strike advantage.

But what's going to replace mutually assured destruction (MAD) when the destruction isn't assuredly mutual?

These missile shields could bring us closer to nuclear war, or end it forever when the party with the shield tells everyone else to drop their nukes or vanish in sparkly glowing fireballs.

Re:OMFG Reagan was right? by SJHillman · 2012-11-20 01:20 · Score: 3, Insightful

No, 90% still isn't enough to stop MAD between superpowers, although it might be effective against smaller aggressors (IE: Hamas). If you launch 50 nukes at each city, half of the cities will still be destroyed. 100 nukes at each cities and 90% will be destroyed. That's well within the capabilities of the US and Russia and probably other first-world nuclear powers as well. The sheer number of missiles will still overwhelm any defense. You'd need at least three or four nines effectiveness at a minimum to prevent MAD.
Re:OMFG Reagan was right? by benjfowler · 2012-11-20 01:21 · Score: 4, Interesting

Unlikely.
The shitbox unguided bottle rockets that the Muslims are terrorising Israel with, aren't coming in that fast, and can be cheaply and easily intercepted.
On the other hand, strategic weapons, like nuclear-armed reentry vehicles (which are hypersonic and can actively manoeuvre), are virtually unstoppable. Nothing under Heaven and Earth can stop these things in terminal phase.
MAD might be around for quite a while yet.
Re:OMFG Reagan was right? by Chrisq · 2012-11-20 01:24 · Score: 2

A stop rate of 90% eliminates a first strike advantage.
No it is more likely to eliminate second-strike capability. The reason that the USA and USSR had hundreds of times the number of warheads needed to wipe each-other off the map was so that the second strike, even with a heavily damaged system was virtually guaranteed to totally wipe out the opposition. If you have a situation where a first strike will destroy (10% the weapons of Russia or the USA can still do that), but the second strike (10% of attack from damaged systems) may not then you have a much more dangerous situation. If either side thinks the other may launch the logical approach is to launch first.
Re:OMFG Reagan was right? by hype7 · 2012-11-20 01:25 · Score: 2

no, he wasn't. because until one of these systems gets to 100% (and by 100%, I mean 100%) then any strategist would tell you the natural reaction would simply be to lob more nukes. it actually results in INCREASED proliferation of nuclear weapons, and makes the world a less safe place.
and if one of them does get to 100%, they'll do what the russians threatened to do over the most recent european missile defence shield — just build missiles that the systems can't get a fix on: http://rense.com/general69/tiddosdzdd27makes.htm
Re:OMFG Reagan was right? by jittles · 2012-11-20 01:42 · Score: 4, Interesting

Not to mention that destroying a nuke over a populated area still lets it do significant damage in the long term.
Maybe it does, and maybe it doesn't. These nukes have a lot of safety features packed into them. You certainly wouldn't want it to do a high atmosphere detonation because its EMP will have far reaching effects (satellites could be destroyed), and because it may cause a chain reaction with other missiles in the general vicinity. The worst case is that it may rain down some fissionable materials over who knows where. Its unlikely to cause a detonation, especially since these detonations have to be very controlled to create fission.
Re:OMFG Reagan was right? by mrchaotica · 2012-11-20 01:45 · Score: 2

That's well within the capabilities of the US and Russia and probably other first-world nuclear powers as well.
By definition, half the nuclear powers aren't "first-world." First-world is NATO, second-world is [former] Soviet, and third-world is everybody else.

--
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Re:OMFG Reagan was right? by ceoyoyo · 2012-11-20 02:27 · Score: 2

There's a wee bit of difference between a shitty Hamas rocket that occasionally actually traverses a few miles and hits something that might count as a target and an intercontinental ballistic missile. Speed, for one. Decoys, for another.
Re:OMFG Reagan was right? by Copperhamster · 2012-11-20 02:33 · Score: 5, Interesting

Actually, it's more complicated than that, and that's the reason that the defense system was considered 'provocative'. It's also the reason the US and USSR arsenals were so 'over the top'.
(I read a book by someone involved with the so called 'nuclear calculus' of MAD a few years ago and assuming he wasn't lying through his teeth, it's interesting)
Let's say you want to nuke, say, Perth in Australia and remove it from the map. Without using the really really big ones, which were never deployed much really, you are talking about 6-10 mid 80s grade warheads. Let's say 10.
Now if you want to land 10 warheads on Perth, in the mid 80s, you need to plan to launch 18-25 or so at it.
The book went into the details of why.
Now because of some of those details, let's say that Australia deployed an ABM system that can stop 33% of the warheads that complete their ascent stage and separate from their missiles. We're not talking about shooting down the missiles themselves, just the warheads after they separate. (Interesting note, as of 80s grade tech, boosted fission weapons were fully 'fail deadly' and could detonate at full yield when struck by an interceptor weapon, before that weapon could destroy the hardware. Full Fusion weapons would probably 'fizzle' producing a much lower yield explosion than they were rated for.)
Based on his math, which was complex but did follow, assuming the underlying assumptions were correct, in order to turn Perth into a crater you now need to launch 60-80 warheads at it.
To get a 'for sure' 10 warhead kill.
Now when MIRVs were in style that doesn't seem like so much with a dozen warheads on each missile except that an iron clad rule was that those warheads each had to come off a separate missile. Because a lot of the reason for needing so many warheads was the assumption that a good percentage of those missiles carrying them would never make it to separation stage.
Add to this the fratacide problem of warheads. Any warhead hitting Perth within 'a short time (which he couldn't give exacts of because it was classified, but indicated it was longer than 3-4 minutes)' of any particular detonation would be killed by it's own brother explosion before it detonated. (And nuclear detonation waves were one of the few things fast enough to kill, for example, a boosted fission weapon before it could set itself off). So if you launched 60 warheads at Perth, not only do they all have to come from different missiles, but you have to plan for them to land over a at least a 4 hour period. Which allows the ABM system to be more effective because you can't swamp it with everything you have in one big go and, assuming Australia has deployed it's own nuclear weapons, also allows them to strike back at your missile launching fields and command and control facilities. Which means you need to target even MORE warheads at Perth if you want to evaporate it.
The Big Deal here is not that 'oh heck we may only lose half our country in a nuclear war woopie!'
The Big Provocative Deal here is that once you have that 33% kill shield in place it requires a massive expenditure of warheads on the enemies part to really for sure kill you completely. Suddenly things are not MAD and now you have to worry about 33% shield country launching conventional ground invasions of parts of your territories or spheres of influence, feeling more sure that you won't escalate the conflict to the nuclear stage because suddenly you can't ensure the destruction of the other side, when they still have the ability to annihilate you.
Now you may ask who would be insane enough to risk that nuclear war that wipes out only half their own country, given the rest of the situation, and my answer would Godwin the thread. Also, the USSR thought Reagan was that far off the rails as well. Who's to say who else would have risked such a level of brinksmanship.
90% would be enough for a country to act pretty much with impunity against anyone except the really big nuclear players, without fear of major nuclear damage. The thought
Re:OMFG Reagan was right? by LordLimecat · 2012-11-20 02:39 · Score: 2

Unless Austraila has recently relocated, Im pretty sure that that first world nation is not in NATO.
Re:OMFG Reagan was right? by Tuoqui · 2012-11-20 03:15 · Score: 2

By firing them off at extinction level event asteroids where they do jack squat.

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Re:OMFG Reagan was right? by mbkennel · 2012-11-20 03:21 · Score: 2

"Speed is not actually all that relevant, it's just a number to the computer. It reduces reaction time, but since a computer would fire the missile anyways, that isn't much of an issue."
Yes, of course speed is the the issue and it is not just a number to a computer. An ICBM warhead comes in at extraordinary speeds. (~8-10 kilometers per second). And it is very very small compared to space. It has nearly all the energy that a large rocket provided during its boost phase. Your own interceptors have physical limitations on range as well. You need to be able to detect and distinguish which is real, which is very hard when the enemy's warheads are tiny things far away and they have launched many very cheap physical and electronic countermeasures like radar reflectors which in space have exactly the same ballistic trajectories as the warheads. You can only tell the difference when they hit the atmosphere going down (warheads are heavy), and by then it's too late. 2-3 seconds from stratosphere to boom.
Re:OMFG Reagan was right? by Baloroth · 2012-11-20 04:02 · Score: 2

Even at 10 km/s, stratosphere to detonation is still over 5 seconds, and you don't need to wait till then to launch the missile. The SM-3 (used in the Aegis ABM system) doesn't even start identifying the target until after the third-stage booster fires, for that exact reason. You see there is an incoming missile, you fire the interceptor in the general direction, then you make an assessment about which target to hit, which thanks to the very very expensive Aegis system is not terribly difficult at that stage, since you've had 5-10 seconds to assess which target is a threat.
All this is theorycrafting, though, the simple fact is the system works. You absolutely can hit an incoming ICBM, and I know, because people have done it before, with some consistency.

--
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Re:OMFG Reagan was right? by jollyreaper · 2012-11-20 06:44 · Score: 2

I'm intrigued as to why fratricide would be much of an issue - for most targets, if it has been hit by another nuke it doesn't really matter if another fails to go off.
It's not a problem with that target itself -- it's been pasted. But the fratricided warhead could have been used on another target. Every weapon expended on overkill is one that could have been used to adequately kill another target.

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Re:OMFG Reagan was right? by Rich0 · 2012-11-20 10:33 · Score: 2

Would be more interested in details, but I'm surprised that Fratricide is THAT big of a problem.
Consider how fast nuclear warheads are travelling at impact. You're talking about hypersonic velocities - something like mach 10-20. Those things cover HUGE distances in short periods of time. So, even if you just launch missiles a few seconds apart at the same target, I would think that when a warhead detonates the nearby ones would be miles away at least. Nuclear warheads have to be hardened against nuclear detonations, since that was the most obvious interceptor warhead technology of the era in which they were designed. No doubt they can't handle a direct hit, but a detonation miles away probably wouldn't bother them a bit - and their momentum is huge so they're not going to get pushed off course either.
But, if the physics say otherwise, I'm all ears.
Re:OMFG Reagan was right? by Gandalf_the_Beardy · 2012-11-21 12:34 · Score: 2

You need to keep the neutron count down in a fissile mass being compressed, to prevent premature detonation and a resulting fizzle. (which is why weapons grade Pu keeps the 240 percentage small, to keep teh background neutron flux down.)
Now imagine tossing that warhead into an evironment just after a nuke has gone off. There is a lot of background neutrons from the fission products and fallout. If you implode the next warhead too soon it'll fizzle from this external increase in the neutron flux. Hence the need to seperate them in time to give the active decay products chance to also decay and get the neutron flux down,

Re:Accuracy by SJHillman · 2012-11-20 01:12 · Score: 5, Insightful

Miscalculation? Mechanical error in the defense? I imagine the margin of error is relatively significant just because it does all of this on the fly, so the best way to get a quick enough response is to guess at a few things.

Given what it's doing, however, I'd say 90% is pretty damned good.

Maybe they do. Maybe they don't. by synir · 2012-11-20 01:12 · Score: 5, Interesting

I'm not saying Israel's defenses don't work (I've no reason to think that) but given the timing do you think we'd be told

a) If the defenses didn't work well at all
or
b) About all the instances the defenses failed to work?

Given the circumstances what we hear *especially* from official sources on either side of this conflict should be taken with quite a grain of salt.

Re:Too bad... by mjr167 · 2012-11-20 01:12 · Score: 2, Interesting

So the Palestinians launch missiles at Isreal and you are upset that Isreal is pissed off about it and launches counter attacks? If Canada started launching rockets at the US, I would expect us to invade and conquer them in short order. I'm surprised that Palestine has been allowed to exist as long as it has.

Re:Does it really take so much computing power? by SJHillman · 2012-11-20 01:16 · Score: 5, Interesting

You need to 1) detect the launch 2) determine the trajectory 3) determine the speed 4) determine a few other factors (mass? range? payload? whether it's capable of changing trajectory mid-flight?) 5) calculate where it's going 6) determine if that counts as a populated area 7) fill in any missing variables 8) make a decision 9) direct the defense

How fast could you do this? What if there's a hundred rockets coming in at once? It's not like a dumb bomb that's dropped straight down on a given point.

Re:Too bad... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-20 01:17 · Score: 4, Interesting

Yes, both parties are at fault for continuing this ridiculous feud. But is America blockading and occupying Canadian land to begin with? No.

And yes, I'm surprised that Palestine has been allowed to exist as long as it has considering the United States really doesn't give a damn about the fact that Israel continues to bulldoze their homes down for their own settlements.

Let's make it clear, I condone the actions of Hamas but Israel's actions are very heavy-handed in proportion to Hamas' attacks/

Re:Does it really take so much computing power? by Chrisq · 2012-11-20 01:18 · Score: 2

Does it really take so much computing power to calculate trajectory of a falling object? I know there's a lot of uncertainty coming from measurements but I don't really think you need anything more than an equivalent of pentium 100 to effectively decide wheter the missile is heading toward a populated area or not.

It depends when in the trajectory it plots the intercept path. If it is during the rocket-propelled phase then calculating the possible trajectories of something that will accelerate for a while then descend is probably a lot. Also the protected areas are likely to be a number of irregularly shaped patches on a three-dimensional terrain, not just one circle.

Then of course you have to calculate your intercept trajectory, again not simple

Re:Too bad... by Haxagon · 2012-11-20 01:19 · Score: 3, Informative

You seem to have left out the US and Israel funding Fatah to wage a proxy war against Hamas (democratically elected, by the corrupt system that the US and Israel pushed), the IDF killed a thirteen year old boy last month, then a twenty-three year old mentally disabled man who walked too near Gaza. Then, when the PFLP wounded four in a rocket launch near the border, Israel ASSASSINATED one of the leaders of Hamas and the strip.
Just thought you could use that background info.

Missile Command by tepples · 2012-11-20 01:19 · Score: 4, Funny

I wonder what it is about the other 10% that lets them through?

How far do you manage to get in Missile Command? Do you 100% every level up to the 810,000 point, or do you rely on bonus cities?

Re:Missile Command by somersault · 2012-11-20 01:25 · Score: 2

Well, it would be a lot easier to write a program that plays perfectly than it is to play perfectly as a human. Though missing command is only 2D and you don't have to account for rockets travelling at hundreds of miles an hour and your own counter-measures being affected by wind and things like that.
Now the other side needs to start using guided missiles that pretend like they're going to miss, but switch targets at the last second. Though those would obviously be a lot more expensive than simple unguided rockets.

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which is totally what she said
Re:Missile Command by ericloewe · 2012-11-20 01:37 · Score: 4, Insightful

The moment they start using guided missiles, you can bet Iran and co. will be moved to the top of the list of bombing targets. It's hard to prove that a crummy hand-made rocket was made with help from someone else, but it's easy to prove that a large rocket came from somewhere else. Not to mention that it's hard to smuggle something of the size into Gaza.
Re:Missile Command by dywolf · 2012-11-20 04:50 · Score: 4, Informative

Um...these aren't crummy hand made rockets...they aren't some plucky underdog using baling wire and household chemicals.
And they ARE Iranian made. It's right in the news articles about the Hamas rocket attacks:
"Today, Hamas is armed with relatively sophisticated Iranian Fajr-5 rockets, firing them at Israel’s largest city, and tweeting that the rockets are causing havoc in Tel Aviv." - http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/11/gaza-social-media-war/
The rocket: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fajr-5

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The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.

Re:Too bad... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-20 01:20 · Score: 2, Insightful

Wow...you should REALLY read even a tiny bit of Middle Eastern history before making comments like that...also, rely on at least one non-US feed for your news...you do yourself a disservice otherwise.

Re:Too bad... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-20 01:22 · Score: 5, Interesting

So the Palestinians launch missiles at Isreal and you are upset that Isreal is pissed off about it and launches counter attacks? If Canada started launching rockets at the US, I would expect us to invade and conquer them in short order.

Well, if the US sent their military into Vancouver for "security" reasons, throwing out all the Canadians who lived there and allowed US citizens to build homes and "settle" the area and considering the US's superior military, I wouldn't blame Canada in the least for shooting rockets over the border.

I'm surprised that Palestine has been allowed to exist as long as it has.

You are either an excellent and crafty anti-Israel troll or an incredibly ill-informed person.

Best Missile Defense Shield by anti-pop-frustration · 2012-11-20 01:22 · Score: 5, Insightful

Best missile defense shield : peace treaty.

Re:Best Missile Defense Shield by Attila+Dimedici · 2012-11-20 01:37 · Score: 2

You are correct, when do you think the Palestinians will begin to show any interest in a peace treaty with Israel?

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The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Re:Best Missile Defense Shield by ceoyoyo · 2012-11-20 02:31 · Score: 2

They tried that. A few times. It's missile stop rate was much less than 90%.
Re:Best Missile Defense Shield by Charliemopps · 2012-11-20 02:32 · Score: 2, Interesting

I think the Palestinians would readily agree to one, it's their leadership that's the problem. Bill Clinton had a deal worked out between the 2 sides back in the 90s... Israel would declare Palestine was a state, in return Palestine would recognize Israel as a state. At the last minute Arafat backed out of the deal claiming Israel was not a legitimate state, and they'd drive them into the sea. It's kind of like your drunk friend that declares he's not going down without a fight and charges the cops that raided your party. He just ends up hog tied and in the back of a van... along with everyone else at the party. Every time you talk the police into removing your cuffs your frined freaks out and starts spitting at the cops again. Doesn't matter if the cops are right or wrong... Some times you just need to suck up your pride.
Re:Best Missile Defense Shield by Paladeen · 2012-11-20 03:38 · Score: 4, Insightful

Wow, real intelligent contribution you just made there.
Obviously these crazy "islamists" are much more unreasonable than the kind-hearted Israelis, who are all good liberals, devoid of any fanaticism, religious bigotry and nationalism.
Re:Best Missile Defense Shield by Attila+Dimedici · 2012-11-20 04:23 · Score: 2

The Hamas has stated when: when Israel removes their blockade.
You mean the same Hamas that has as a part of its founding charter that the destruction of Israel is one of its goals? That has not changed that charter to reflect any change in that position?

--
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison

Am I the only one? by Zibodiz · 2012-11-20 01:23 · Score: 5, Interesting

Reading the comments, it seems I'm the only one here who thinks this is awesome. When it comes to weapons development, this is exactly the sort of weapon we should be cheering for. Whether you agree with the ones using it or not, this is a wonderful thing. A weapon which only works as a shield to block incoming attacks; that is what the weapons used by enlightened countries should have evolved into.

Re:Am I the only one? by OzPeter · 2012-11-20 01:35 · Score: 4, Insightful

Reading the comments, it seems I'm the only one here who thinks this is awesome.

I think that the difference is that other people are taking the line of thought that something more awesome than a weapons system like Iron Dome is not needing it in the first place, and that the increase of hostilities in the middle could have scary consequences.

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Re:Am I the only one? by happy_place · 2012-11-20 01:42 · Score: 5, Insightful

It really is a triumph of human intelligence and there's a LOT of combined science and technology employed in this solution. It demonstrates the sort of ingenuity that happens in a highly cooperative intellectual landscape, when one puts aside their malicious intent, and thinks more on the need to protect rather than to kill. Combined, great minds can do great things. It's a shame too often great minds are wasted on revenge and retaliation, egos and avarice. Ethical intelligence is true intelligence.

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Re:Too bad... by Formalin · 2012-11-20 01:23 · Score: 5, Insightful

A better example would be if American Indians, subjugated and embargoed on their reservation, started rocket attacks on the US.

Re:Does it really take so much computing power? by rmstar · 2012-11-20 01:26 · Score: 5, Insightful

Does it really take so much computing power to calculate trajectory of a falling object?

It's not a falling object, it has a rocket engine.

You have to estimate acceleration, correct for mistakes, compute a plausible trajectory for it, compute a plausible trajectory for the interceptor, and since it involves objects moving at high speeds, it all has to be very accurate. You probably have a lot of crappy data sources to aggregate (radar, optical, etc) and things like wind and coriolis effects to take care of.

The optimal control problems involving launching and controlling the interceptor are already hard to write down on paper, and solving them numerically is far from trivial. And it all has to be done in real time.

In sum, it wouldn't surprise me if they had a 500-core, state-of-the-art supercomputer crunching the numbers.

Apples and Oranges by necro81 · 2012-11-20 01:27 · Score: 5, Informative

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.

Re:Apples and Oranges by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-20 02:06 · Score: 5, Informative

Hamas isn't using improvised rockets. It's using Iranian Fajr-3 and Fajr-5 rockets, and Chinese-built BM-21 Grad rockets.

Patriot Failures by OzPeter · 2012-11-20 01:27 · Score: 5, Informative

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

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Re:Patriot Failures by joelsherrill · 2012-11-20 04:34 · Score: 2

No. Simple computer math error due to imprecise representation and rounding. See http://autarkaw.wordpress.com/2008/06/02/round-off-errors-and-the-patriot-missile/ and http://www.ima.umn.edu/~arnold/disasters/patriot.html for details. Interesting problem solved by rebooting the system periodically until a real correction was implemented.

Re:Too bad... by Gordonjcp · 2012-11-20 01:30 · Score: 2, Flamebait

I'm surprised Palestine has survived as long as it has. Bit by bit, Palestinians are being forced from their homes as Israel expands its lebensraum.

The Palestinians are defending themselves against an invading army. What would you do if the Canadians surrounded your town, marched you out of your home at gunpoint, bulldozed it flat, and told you to get the hell out of Canada?

Missile command meets photon torpedoes! by IceNinjaNine · 2012-11-20 01:30 · Score: 5, Informative

Holy crap, check this thing out!

Color me impressed...

Re:Too bad... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-20 01:32 · Score: 4, Interesting

This same hamas threw fatah members from high floors of buildings when the won their fair elections. I'm not sure elections are supposed to end that way

Re:Too bad... by Kagetsuki · 2012-11-20 01:35 · Score: 2

Dr. Freud just slipped, he may take a moment to answer your page.

Everyone is Forgetting MIRV Technology by eldavojohn · 2012-11-20 01:35 · Score: 4, Interesting

I think MIRV technology makes this impossible. I remember reading this from a book by McNamara but Wikipedia sums it up nicely:

Thus, in both a military and an economic sense, MIRVs render ABM systems less effective, as the costs of maintaining a workable defense against MIRVs would greatly increase, requiring multiple defensive missiles for each offensive one. Decoy reentry vehicles can be used alongside actual warheads to minimize the chances of the actual warheads being intercepted before they reach their targets. A system that destroys the missile earlier in its trajectory (before MIRV separation) is not affected by this but is more difficult, and thus more expensive to implement.

Even if you made an iron dome for ballistic nuclear warheads, who ever is firing them at you is just going to make them split right before they hit your interceptor kill zone. And then you'll have less time to act or deploy your interceptors and a random number at each entry point. Could you take out some of them? Sure but it's a clam shell game.

I'm pretty sure Hamas isn't using MIRV technology and the Israelis have developed this Iron Dome tech to stop this specific kind of attack. Not ICBMs with complex nuclear payloads.

--
My work here is dung.

Re:Does it really take so much computing power? by allcoolnameswheretak · 2012-11-20 01:35 · Score: 3, Insightful

It's not just calculating a trajectory. I'm not an expert, but I assume it involves at least:

1. Detection - multiple layers of detection systems such as
- radar
- IR
- computer vision / pattern recognition AI
all of these have to work in unison to produce a high detection ratio and eliminate false positives
2. Tracking
- tracking the object during its flight path using the aforementioned systems
3. Projection
- thinking ahead of where the object is likely to strike, a small part of this is the "trajectory calculation"
4. Threat assessment
- use projection data to assess the strategic value of impact location
5. Fire control
- make decision to intercept, if positive
- allocate the most appropriate platform
- check airspace / final safety assessments
- send warnings / signals / fire confirmation

All of this has to happen within seconds.

Re:Too bad... by Attila+Dimedici · 2012-11-20 01:36 · Score: 2

The fact that those missiles strike crowded residential areas probably has something to do with various Arab organizations launching missiles at Israel from those very same residential areas. When you place military targets in residential areas, those residential areas become military targets.

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The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison

Re:Too bad... by ericloewe · 2012-11-20 01:38 · Score: 3, Insightful

Heavy-handed? Try showing restraint when your backyard is being targeted by rockets.

Re:Too bad... by mrchaotica · 2012-11-20 01:39 · Score: 4, Interesting

That analogy works if and only if you consider Palestinians to be more indigenous than Israelis.

--

"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

Re:Murder by Chrisq · 2012-11-20 01:42 · Score: 2, Interesting

Palestinians are Christian too.

Are we now separating them into good Palestinians and bad ones?

Kill all the Muslims and let the Christians live? Or just kill them all.

I'll wager the ones firing missiles at Israel are all Muslims. The 0.3% left after their victimisation by the Muslims are keeping well out of it. Of course every effort should be made to minimise casualties of all non-combatants, but you cannot just let someone keep firing rockets at you because they set up in a populated area. That would just reward the Muslims for their disregard of international law and human rights

Re:Too bad... by MrNaz · 2012-11-20 01:42 · Score: 2

In those days, rockets were made of thin pieces of wood and launched from a device resembling a stringed musical instrument. As a result of their brazen unprovoked attacks, their civilisations were wiped off the face of the Earth by the technologicall superior interlopers a few decades after arrival. Kind of like the Palestinians. Isolated by the lines that the British drew all over the Middle East, impoverished by a long standing blockade and confined to the largest concentration camp in human history, all the while being bombed, starved and shot into annihilation.

How dare some of them get angry enough to attempt to fight back?

--
I hate printers.

Re:Does it really take so much computing power? by ericloewe · 2012-11-20 01:43 · Score: 4, Interesting

It's trickier than it sounds. For one, you need good radar to pick those things up and accurately track them. You need to track it long enough to know its trajectory, but not so long that you are left with no time to respond. Then, you have to get your missile to the rocket, correcting for Wind and a possible new trajectory (we are talking about crude rockets, so they can't be too stable).

Re:Accuracy by mapkinase · 2012-11-20 01:43 · Score: 5, Informative

I have heard about 2/3 rate, not 90% rate. There is little room to independently separate propaganda exaggeration from actual facts.

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You disgust me. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-20 01:46 · Score: 4, Insightful

Heavy-handed? Try showing restraint when your backyard is being targeted by rockets.

Israel stole land from the Palestinians. They then allowed their people to build "settlements" on other people's land.

And you're condemning those people for fighting back?!? And obsolving Israel of any blame and condoning their complete over reaction?!?

Israel has lost all sympathy from me.

And people like you are going to keep this shit going on and on and on.

Israel is just living with their own karma. Oh, well. Too fucking bad!

Re:You disgust me. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-20 01:56 · Score: 5, Informative

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.
Re:You disgust me. by superwiz · 2012-11-20 02:18 · Score: 2, Informative

Israel stole land from the Palestinians. They then allowed their people to build "settlements" on other people's land.
Israel completely withdrew from Gaza. But your argument would be wrong even if they didn't.

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Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Re:You disgust me. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-20 02:20 · Score: 3, Interesting

Palestine is a name given to a piece of land, where modern Israel now exists.
The name was given to it by the Romans, and it was named after the Philistines, who are a people of Aegean decent (Modern Greece).
Find more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philistines
There were never Arab people called Palestinians before the deceleration of the state of Israel in 1948.
Re:You disgust me. by LordLimecat · 2012-11-20 03:30 · Score: 3, Interesting

At some point you have to stop living with the past and deal with the people living in the middle east right NOW. I can hardly justify rocket attacks on communities of Israelis who had no part in taking the land in the first place half a century ago.
Re:You disgust me. by phozz+bare · 2012-11-20 03:41 · Score: 2

The UN partition plan was rejected by the Arabs. Why should Israel respect it?
Re:You disgust me. by phozz+bare · 2012-11-20 04:02 · Score: 2

What Israel? This was November 1947.

How much do missles cost anyway? by guises · 2012-11-20 01:50 · Score: 5, Interesting

Here's a random question for some knowledgeable person: how much of that $100,000 cost per interceptor is overhead? I realize that missiles aren't simple things, but that strikes me as way out of line with what it would actually cost to build one of these.

That goes for other missiles as well - you always hear about Tomahawks, etc., costing $1 million+, how much do they actually cost to build?

Re:How much do missles cost anyway? by Xest · 2012-11-20 03:51 · Score: 2

The thing to bear in mind though is relative cost in practice. I'd wager it's quite possible that it requires the Palestinians to sacrifice more to smuggle/produce their rockets than it does the Israelis to produce their interceptors.
To smuggle a Fajr-5 into Gaza may cost a Palestinian his life time's savings, but to build a Tamir interceptor is just a negligible dent in the military aid the US gives Israel.
Re:How much do missles cost anyway? by I.+M.+Bur · 2012-11-20 03:53 · Score: 5, Insightful

Actually you should look at the value of the target to be hit by the missile, not at the value of the missile to be intercepted. You can destroy infrastracture and equipment worth of millions of dollars with a single missile, not to mention that most of the stuff that is destroyed can't be replaced instantly. The $100,000 cost of the interceptor is small compared to that.

Re:Too bad... by sycodon · 2012-11-20 01:52 · Score: 5, Funny

Well, they were just thrown out of office.

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When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.

Re:Too bad... by lexman098 · 2012-11-20 01:54 · Score: 4, Insightful

I really don't understand the argument against Isreal on this one. They've done a lot of wrong towards Palestinians, especially on the west bank side, but hundreds of rockets are being fired from Gaza targeting civilians. Isreal's assassination was a military target. Maybe they've killed some civilians in Gaza too, which is horrible, but at least accidental. They seem to avoid that when they can. Hamas is firing rockets directly at civilians. You have to see the difference.

Re:Too bad... by robthebloke · 2012-11-20 01:55 · Score: 5, Informative

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.

Re:Too bad... by fustakrakich · 2012-11-20 01:57 · Score: 2

...we put effort into our own defense...

"You didn't build that..." You had to spy on the Americans and get... how many billions in aid? Let's reduce you both to sticks and stones, and see how well you hold up.

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“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”

Re:Too bad... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-20 02:01 · Score: 3, Insightful

Only Jews would be dumb enough to try and live somewhere where everyone else fucking hates them, then act in a way to ensure that everyone continues to fucking hate them.

Because they were treated SO WELL in Europe over the years?

Re:Too bad... by dkleinsc · 2012-11-20 02:05 · Score: 4, Informative

Israel assassinated one of the leaders of Hamas

The man who was killed, Ahmed al-Jabari, wasn't just "one of the leaders of Hamas". According to Gershon Baskin, who was involved in Israeli-Hamas negotiations:
"Passing messages between the two sides, I was able to learn firsthand that Mr. Jabari wasn’t just interested in a long-term cease-fire; he was also the person responsible for enforcing previous cease-fire understandings brokered by the Egyptian intelligence agency. Mr. Jabari enforced those cease-fires only after confirming that Israel was prepared to stop its attacks on Gaza. On the morning that he was killed, Mr. Jabari received a draft proposal for an extended cease-fire with Israel, including mechanisms that would verify intentions and ensure compliance. This draft was agreed upon by me and Hamas’s deputy foreign minister, Mr. Hamad, when we met last week in Egypt."

In other words, if Israel had really wanted a cease-fire agreement, they would have just waited for Jabari to sign the deal. Instead, they killed him.

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I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/

Patriot by Dr.+Evil · 2012-11-20 02:06 · Score: 3, Insightful

The Patriot missiles were known to occassionally follow their target to *its* target.

Aside from just missing, another issue is that even if you hit the target, you need to make sure that your missile detonates when it makes contact with any part of the target.

Finally, detection isn't perfect, trajectories are approximations at the time of launch. The missile needs to adjust using information collected in-flight.

Re:Patriot by tibit · 2012-11-20 03:05 · Score: 2

I don't think that any countermissile systems detonate on impact. They universally have various proximity detonators, with various failsafes so that unexploded ordnance doesn't reach the ground.

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A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.

Re:Too bad... by skribble · 2012-11-20 02:08 · Score: 2

You do realize this is because the missiles being fired into Israel are being fired from civilian areas.

This is but one thing that separates terrorists from soldiers... terrorists hide among the civilians using them as shields and propaganda.

There is little honor to go around on either side of this, but hiding among the civilians is an act of supreme cowardice and Evil.

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--- Nothing To See Here ---

Well they would claim that wouldn't they? by uchian · 2012-11-20 02:11 · Score: 3, Interesting

I remember how during the gulf war the patriot system was being lauded on news sites as being fantastically accurate, taking out most missiles before they landed, etc.

Only turned out later that it wasn't so accurate.

I'll give it a couple of years before I conclude whether the accuracy reported in the new system is just propaganda or not.

NY Times Article by dcollins · 2012-11-20 02:12 · Score: 2, Insightful

NY Times article has more information than the top link, e.g.: "Iron Dome has successfully intercepted more than 300 rockets fired at densely populated areas, with a success rate of 80 to 90 percent, top officials said."

So a bit lower percentage. Yet I'm skeptical of even that, because we have no independent verification, and officials are incented to cheerlead/bluff for things like this. Also note that it was about half paid for by the U.S. to the tune of about $900 million.

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We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes

Re:NY Times Article by Arker · 2012-11-20 03:31 · Score: 2

The interesting thing is that apparently at least some of these longer range missiles are the same old short range ones, lightened up for longer range by the simple expedient of removing the warhead leaving nothing but a tube and motor. This appears to be a low-tech strategy against Iron Dome, considering the costs of the interceptors versus the cost of said dumb tube+motor. A rocket like that can do some property damage and might kill someone who got unlucky but it is nowhere near as destructive as one with a warhead. I bet it's a LOT cheaper than a single shot from the Iron Dome launcher as well...

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To stop the flow of rockets... by Dr.+Evil · 2012-11-20 02:14 · Score: 2

...to Isreal, I think Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan should cut off all land, sea and air crossings, build walls, install tunnel detectors and disable all Israeli power and water plants.

Occasionally storming with ground troops couldn't hurt. You need to find those radicals who oppose the seige.

When Isreal stops opposing the seige, then the seige will be lifted. But we have to be sure they don't stop temporarily, so the seige should probably end if Isreal stops opposing for a couple decades or so.

Re:To stop the flow of rockets... by robinsonne · 2012-11-20 02:37 · Score: 2

You think that Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan are going to gang up on Israel and force them to do anything? What dream world do you live in? Never heard of the Six-Day War?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War

Re:Too bad... by superwiz · 2012-11-20 02:15 · Score: 2

Yes, both parties are at fault for continuing this ridiculous feud. But is America blockading and occupying Canadian land to begin with? No.

No, but America did blockade Cuba. Was it at fault that Soviets were trying to place missiles in Cuba? No. The Soviets were at fault. Just as the Arabs are at fault for electing Hamas to lead Gaza. If Hamas wasn't smuggling weapons in order to commit terrorist acts against Israel, Israelis would do what they with everyone else who doesn't shoot at them -- trade and cooperate.

I condone the actions of Hamas but Israel's actions are very heavy-handed in proportion to Hamas' attacks/

You misspoke, but your misstatement is actually the truth. You DO condone the attacks by Hamas simply because you call Israel's actions heavy-handed. Saying that Israel overreacts in self-defense gives too much deference to the attackers.

Go ahead and spew something about propaganda. That's what everyone else who hates Israel seems to do when hear plainly stated facts.

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Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.

Re:Too bad... by ceoyoyo · 2012-11-20 02:23 · Score: 3, Informative

Strangely, it's more complicated than that. Isreal was attacked more than once by it's neighbours before 1967. It's not really unreasonable for them to want a buffer zone they control access to around their main populated region.

Re:Too bad... by jemenake · 2012-11-20 02:30 · Score: 3, Insightful

Well, if the US sent their military into Vancouver for "security" reasons, throwing out all the Canadians who lived there and allowed US citizens to build homes and "settle" the area and considering the US's superior military, I wouldn't blame Canada in the least for shooting rockets over the border.

Exactly. At first, when you learn about a few Arab-instigated wars Israel has had to fight off, you have a little sympathy for their argument that they need Gaza, Golan, and the West Bank as buffer zones as well as a little punishment upon their aggressors, with the notion being that "You'll get this back when you've learned your lesson".

But then you find out that they're displacing the people living in those areas and then just gifting that land to Israeli settlers and you're like "WTF?!?! How are they ever going to undo that? You can't just go to the settlers and say 'Okay. Time to come back home, we are giving that land back to the Palestinians...'".

So, yeah... when Israeli's call those areas "buffer zones" or anything implying that they're temporary for as long as their neighbors are hostile toward them, I don't believe them for a second.

Re:Proportional response? by ilsaloving · 2012-11-20 02:35 · Score: 2

Israel is practically carpet bombing Gaza every time Hamas launches an attack. They're killing at LEAST 10 times as many civilians as the terrorists are. I wouldn't be surprised if Israel was secretly hoping Hamas continued being stupid, just so they'd have an excuse to slowly wipe Palestine and all it's people off the map.

Re:Accuracy by zig007 · 2012-11-20 02:44 · Score: 5, Insightful

Which is why it's so hard for the rest of the world to not buy into the deluge of photos of dead children, supposedly from Palestine. I mean seriously, I've seen more photos of dead children than the official numbers stated. It seems anti-semitic propaganda is alive and well in 2012.

Hm. I sure haven't.
Then on the other hand, I treat ALL information in situations like this as propaganda, which means I do not trust the "semitic" information one iota more than the "antisemitic" kind.
Additionally, the "semitic" information gatherers only has the information of the weapon systems and their operators, which, to put it mildly, usually leads to quite crappy and low estimates of the civilian casualties involved. So it is not only "anti-semitic" propaganda that is alive and well in 2012.

The correct number is usually somewhere in between.
Humanitary organisations are usually pretty close. And their numbers are horrendous enough.

To not "believe" either side of a conflict at all, is a very dangerous path.
Completely innocent people, including children, going about their normal life, are ALWAYS terribly hurt in conflict.
Especially so when they have nowhere to run, which is the common case here.
That is just a fact. Try go to a war torn area sometime and see for yourself.

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Baboons are cute.

Re:Too bad... by alexgieg · 2012-11-20 02:52 · Score: 2

When are the Palestinians going to explicitly recognize Israel's right to exist?

Well, technically, when Israel officially starts defining itself as an Islamic country intended (although not necessarily for real) into adopting Sharia law, coupled with a sizable portion of the currently non-Islamic population following suit and converting. Then it wouldn't be possible, from an Islamic perspective at least, to call its government an external power who came to desecrate land that had already been Islamized.

Not that this would be a good thing, mind you, but that it'd achieve this specific goal, it would.

Although I wonder if that wouldn't end with "New Muslim" Jews being persecuted in a similar way their "New Christian" counterparts were in pre-19th century Europe.

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Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.

Re:Too bad... by countach74 · 2012-11-20 02:53 · Score: 2

Also, a quick glance at the death tolls of each nation can be quite handy in identifying who the aggressor is.

Countermeasure: by circletimessquare · 2012-11-20 03:01 · Score: 2

"goofy" rocket fuel

rather than a nice straight acceleration curve, "poison" the rocket fuel so it sputters and weakens in flight on purpose. Yes, the rocket won't be accurate, but I don't think accuracy is the point. Meanwhile, the goofy microaccelerations and microdecelerations would make the rocket impossible to target accurately.

--
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it

Re:Accuracy by BigBunion · 2012-11-20 03:13 · Score: 2

No, actually the summary says "the shield is destroying 90 percent of missiles and rockets IT AIMS AT." The system is not aiming at rockets headed toward unpopulated areas. I think what they are claming is that 90% of the interceptors hit their intended target. If true, this is quite impressive.

US Taxpayers by Graham+J+-+XVI · 2012-11-20 03:18 · Score: 2, Insightful

...must be overjoyed at helping fund this.

Re:Accuracy by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-20 03:30 · Score: 3, Insightful

Israel IS a war-torn are, which you armchair commentators don't seem to be able to understand.

Sure, people get hurt on both sides. But if we're the stronger party, it's not our fault. If they can't build hospitals fast enough, it's not our fault. If they can't organize a proper military or government, it's not our fault. It's THEIR fault for spending all their effort acquiring and firing rockets instead of working hard to bulid their own state. Israel was built by hard-working Jews, and if the Palestinians aren't civilized enough to do the same, it's NOT OUR FAULT.

If they don't want their civilians to be killed in battle, then all they have to do is not start battles. When these unprovoked rockets enter our country, are we supposed to ignore them just because our military is bigger? That's an absurd proposition. They fire, we respond. It's as simple as that, anyone saying otherwise has anti-semitic agendas. Jews have a right to live, and retaliate when faced with aggression. Why can't the Palestinians go live in some other part of the Muslim world? 1.2 billion of them and they can't find homes? Jews want a homeland too, and Israel is ours. They have enough fucking countries of their own. It's not our fault if none of them can put together a decent economy or political structure. Saudi Arabia has plenty of space, and the government there gets just as much support from the US as we do.

Muslims just want the Palestinians to suffer so they have someone to claim they are fighting for when they blow up towers in New York.

Re:Accuracy by tnk1 · 2012-11-20 03:49 · Score: 3, Insightful

Well, in this case, Iron Dome doesn't have any effect on Palestinian dead, only Israeli dead and damage to Israeli neighborhoods. Presumably, Israel has facts and figures on it's own dead and destroyed property.

Are they misreporting to make their own population feel safer? That is possible, although of a somewhat different quality than lying about killing Palestinians.

I don't want Palestinians dead, but what do you do when people start shooting off rockets at your country? To some extent, the Palestinians need to control their own people or at least keep them from launching rockets at people somehow. Otherwise, it's a bunch of artillery strikes and rocket launches at inhabited areas on both sides.

Re:Too bad... by Xest · 2012-11-20 04:04 · Score: 2

Agreed, it has to be a two way street. He can't take responsibility for being able to broker ceasefires as and when he wants and then not also blame him when firing starts again. Either he has the power to prevent rocket fire from Gaza or he doesn't, which is it?

An alternative and equally valid reading of the situation to the GPs is hence, if Israel really wanted a long lasting ceasefire, it was clear this guy wasn't going to be the one to give it to them having allowed rocket fire to commence once again against Israel time and time again.

But meh, I don't know why I bother with discussions like this, they're far too partisan to include this kind of rational balancing of alternative theories. Taking a quote from someone on one side of a conflict, and using it as damning evidence against the other side without considering both sides of the argument, is about as stupid, partisan, and ignorant as it gets.

Re:Accuracy by bjourne · 2012-11-20 04:18 · Score: 2, Insightful

There is something called "proportionality" too. Rocket attacks have taken exactly 28 lives since 2001. Compared to only the Christmas offensive in 2008 that killed over 1200 Palestinians. The planned attack is not because of rocket attacks, it is because there is an election coming up in Israel in about a month. Nothing improves the chances of an incumbent to be reelected as much as a fresh war to show he is tough on the "terrorists."

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Football Odds

Re:Does it really take so much computing power? by j.+andrew+rogers · 2012-11-20 04:42 · Score: 2

Actually, it is a relatively cheap computation on modern computing hardware. The specification for many modern tactical intercept systems is that the complete decision cycle has an upper bound of 20-50 milliseconds. You can do an amazing amount of computation on sensor data in that amount of time.

Remember, sophisticated multi-target tracking and engagement systems were built in the 1970s and 1980s with much less processing power than your cell phone has today.

And in fact, if you look at the chipsets used in state-of-the-art terminal guidance packages for hypersonic kinetic intercept of agile targets, they are embedded systems chips that would have been obsolete as desktop CPUs even a decade ago. Think MIPS R3000 or R4000 class CPUs and a modest DSP.

Basically, CPUs can drive computation at a much higher rate than material physics allows targets to change their behavior. We passed the threshold where computation is the bottleneck decades ago.

Re:Too bad... by mr.mctibbs · 2012-11-20 04:56 · Score: 2, Interesting

Buffer zone? That's good. For any German readers out there: that translates to Lebensraum.

Re:Too bad... by AnalogDiehard · 2012-11-20 04:58 · Score: 2

Let's make it clear, I condone the actions of Hamas but Israel's actions are very heavy-handed in proportion to Hamas' attack

And let's not forget that during past conflicts:

Hamas have conspired to lend themselves a false legitimacy by claiming high civilian losses, when in fact they used human shields during ground offenses by deploying armed soldiers dressed as civilians in violation of the Geneva Convention rules of engagement. Hamas leadership has sought shelter underneath hospitals, putting the population least able to defend themselves at great risk. They even used a captured Red Cross vehicle to launch attacks, a flagrant violation of the Geneva Convention. Hamas have used mosques, schools, and civilian homes as hideouts and to store weapons and rocket launch sites or have placed their storage and/or sites adjacent to those dwellings.

The collateral damage was stragetically planned and such tactics had been previously used by Saddam Hussein during Operation Desert Storm of the 1991 Iraq-Kuwait conflict. They have attempted to deceive and manipulate international press and public opinion by staging rocket damaged areas in civilian areas and exploiting image manipulation, and the international press now carefully scrutinizes photographs and sources of information from those war zones.

Hamas has been planning a campaign of deceit from the beginning. While neither side are angels in this conflict, the greater sin is upon Hamas for their deceit.

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Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10

Re:Does it really take so much computing power? by dywolf · 2012-11-20 05:01 · Score: 2

One caveat:
Artillery rockets are so called because they essentially act just like artillery: straight (as in nominally, not linearly straight) ballistic arc. They reason they aren't called "ballistic" is because that word is typically applied to larger, more preciesely targeted, strategic level weapons rather than smaller, tactical scale, primarily untargeted/unguided rocket warheads.

and "ballistic missile" trajectories, even unsophisticated barely targeted ones like the scud, tend to have more vertiacl than artillery rockets; artillery rockets tend to have a more "artillery" like, ie, flatter, less vertical, trajectory. it's still ballistic (scientific term) in nature, but not "ballistic" (military term).

So still using a ballistic trajectory simplifies the math. Big difference from a scud is, being a shorter range, more tactical scale munition, there's less time for the intercept computation.

(scud was considered a tactical scale ballistic missle, but its considerably larger than the ones used in the past week, using .
scud: http://notesfromamedinah.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/scud3a.jpg
fajr-5: http://varifrank.com/images/mrl-iran-thumb.jpg)

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The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.

Re:Does it really take so much computing power? by dywolf · 2012-11-20 05:03 · Score: 2

rocket engine != guided.

the rocket engine simply replaces the gun barrel and powder charge of a normal artillery shell.
otherwise there's little difference beyond potentially (not always) longer range.

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The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.

Re:Accuracy by N1AK · 2012-11-20 05:04 · Score: 2

The only thing thing anti-Semitic that is alive and well is the ignorant people who try and equate any criticism of a nation or of a person to anti-Semitism as if it is impossible that the criticism might be based on a valid concern rather than racist motive.

Re:Accuracy by tnk1 · 2012-11-20 06:15 · Score: 5, Insightful

You see, this is what I don't understand about people looking at this. This isn't a numbers game. Yes, the Palestinians will eat the brunt of any casualties. Not only are they not represented by a military with a systematic defensive capability, their "military" doesn't even really care much for civilian casualties.

Israel is going to have fewer casualties because they're going to be significantly better at preventing attacks on their people. That doesn't mean the threat is not real, nor does it mean that Israel should have to stand for random rocket barrages on their territory. Would there be a ground assault on Gaza if there were no rockets being launched? Of course not. So how is this about the Israeli election, other than the fact that the Israelis are being targeted at a time where everyone knows that they would want to respond strongly to any attack.

I keep hearing about "proportional" response, but honestly, what does that do other than maintain the status quo? And how do you have a "proportional" response to weapons fired from civilian areas? Even the most surgical of strikes is going to hit civilians.

I would like nothing better than for the Palestinians to have a normal economy and have peace, but honestly, it always seems like they have to keep poking Israel with rockets or attacks. And while many Palestinians do not support terrorists like Hamas, many do. I was just struck by reports of "spies" being dragged through the streets, while wondering if perhaps by giving good information for targeting, those same spies may have made it possible to save Palestinian lives by ensuring Israeli strikes are placed as accurately on rocket installations as possible.

In the end, the Palestinians are pawns. They are not served by their so-called defenders, who are basically proxies for Iran and other regional troublemakers who want nothing more than to keep them a distraction so that the world does not turn its attention to their activities. It may be that the only way for them to save their lives is to realize that they exist only to garner sympathy for an otherwise unsympathetic Arab world.

Re:Accuracy by xevioso · 2012-11-20 06:28 · Score: 2

This is unlikely.

Quoth wikipedia:

"Most people with ALS die from respiratory failure, usually within three to five years from the onset of symptoms. The median survival time from onset to death is around 39 months, and only 4% survive longer than 10 years."

So maybe you meant 39 months or somewhat less when you said you wanted him to die of it soon, but this is unlikely; no one really contracts that ailment and passes away quickly. Probably you should have picked another ailment.

Re:Murder by Mashiki · 2012-11-20 06:47 · Score: 3, Insightful

What concentration camp? You mean the one with million dollar homes, and a 5-star hotel? Packed with full markets, and Iphone 5's, where the average person gets $60-80k USD in aid every year? Yeah...what a concentration camp. Imagine that, they even have their own and full sovereignty. And could import things as they saw fit, until they turned around and started shooting at Israel. Then both Israel AND Egypt closed the borders and imposed a blockade.

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Om, nomnomnom...

Re:Accuracy by dentin · 2012-11-20 07:36 · Score: 5, Insightful

As a followup, I think those calling for a "proportional" response neglect the fact that ideology seriously skews what proportional means. How does one have a "proportional" response to a suicide bomber? How does one have a "proportional" response to rockets fired anonymously from densely populated civilian areas?

Quite frankly, the only reasonable definition of "proportional" in these situations is "hurts the other side enough that they will think twice about doing it again". People condemn the Israelis for bulldozing the homes and towns of suicide bombers, for invading by ground, and for carpet bombing areas where rockets are shot from - but the simple fact of the matter is that it takes at least that level of force to get the attention of the extremists on the Palestinian side. Yes, it sucks, and yes, innocent people die, and yes, it's unfair. But "proportional" is in the mind of the attacker, not the mind of the defender, and lobbing rockets tit-for-tat back into Palestine just isn't going to cut it.

That said, I think Israel has a serious problem with its religious nutjob haredim population. They are the primary driver of the idiotic Israeli settlements on Palestinian land, and their extremism and growth as a political power is going to cause nothing but problems going forward. It's not impossible that they will get a political ruling majority in coming years, at which point any prospect of peace or a two state solution will be completely off the table.

My preferred mechanism for dealing with the Israeli haredim extremists in the outer settlements is to finish building the wall on the 67 borders and cut them off from all support. Let them defend the land if they think they can. No government assistance.

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