A Skeptical View of Israel's Iron Dome Rocket Defense System

Lasrick (2629253) writes It isn't as if real analysis of Israel's "Iron Dome" isn't available, but invariably, whenever Israel has a skirmish the media is filled with glowing reports of how well the system works, and we always find out months later that the numbers were exaggerated. John Mecklin at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists looks at the coverage of Iron Dome in the recent exchanges between Israel and Hamas and finds the pattern is repeating itself. However, 'Ted Postol, an MIT-based missile defense expert and frequent Bulletin contributor, provided a dose of context to the Iron Dome coverage in a National Public Radio interview Wednesday. "We can tell, for sure, from video images and even photographs that the Iron Dome system is not working very well at all,"' Includes a good explanation of the differences between Iron Dome (a 'rocket defense system') and missile defense systems pushed by the U.S.

Comments

Subject bait

[vivaoporto]

This post (like the one with the Brazuca for the World Cup) is certainly subject bait. It works because it attracts lots of tangentially on topic comments but that doesn't have anything to do with the subject matter of the article.

So please, don't fall for it. Don't spend the whole comment section arguing about causes and consequences of the conflict, who started it, who deserves is, etc.

Stay on topic and discuss the technical aspects of the missile system, at least that is what should be discussed here.

On bizarro world Slashdot, maybe ...

Re:Subject bait

[dotancohen]

Why the hell are you still living there?

It's my home.

Re:Subject bait

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

In the case of SDI the PR might actually be worse than useless (playing mutually-assured-destruction isn't much fun to begin with; but if one or both sides come to believe the hype about a missile defense system things could really go downhill). In the case of 'iron dome', though, it might actually be helpful. Barring fairly substantial increases in rocket construction expertise, or acquisition of something particularly nasty to fill them with, the attacks it is supposed to defeat are only modestly dangerous; but extremely inflammatory.

Given how lousy the alternatives for appearing to be taking action against the rocket menace are (grovelling through every last hidy-hole in Gaza is militarily doable but a PR debacle and unlikely to turn up more than a few bits and pieces of impoverished machine tools, because low-end rockets just aren't that hard to build. Paying Hezbollah a visit might turn up somewhat more interesting stuff; but that hasn't turned out well in the past) a system that postpones or prevents somebody taking the bait and trying them might be quite helpful.

Re:Subject bait

[Blaskowicz]

Forget Star Wars the movie anyway. Vader royally fucked up on planet Hoth, seemed to have an overwhelming position but for some reason he decides to go on foot to capture Luke & Leia personnally. But everyone manages to escape and the scary star destroyers in orbit don't manage to destroy or stop any ship. The star destroyers are managed by grossly incompetent captains.. But even with such idiots at the bar, victory would have been certain would all the ships and stuff have burnt the rebel place to the ground with a giant laser/blaster/plasma massacre.

As for the first movie, it has manually aimed WW2-style air defences ;). "The rebel fighters are too small for our turbolasers", or something like that.
Star Wars is about resistance/terrorists defeating an evil military industrial empire that suffers from royal fuck ups and ineffective pork barrel weapon projects.

Re:Subject bait

[dotancohen]

The ancestral land of your people is whoever you were pissing off last. The Jews have roamed the entire fertile crescent and have been told to get the fuck out, or got used by those already there in each and every land. Maybe if you didn't think the world is supposed to cater to you, you could spend less time putting up "Tolerance Museums" and more time actually being tolerated.

Actually, that is true of every civilization that had roamed the fertile crescent at the beginning of recorded history. As you can see, we're the only ones left!

Re:Subject bait

[Rei]

No, in the case of Iron Dome, that's only PR too. They're shooting $50k+ missiles at $800 rockets. Even after factoring in that Israel's per-capita GDP is 20 times that of Palestine's, that's still a losing proposition, even *if* they had a 100% hit rate (which this article is suggesting it's anything-but) and assuming that you get the launcher, radar, etc for free instead of the actual $55 million per unit. It's in Palestine's best interests that Israel deploy as many of them as possible and try to shoot down every last rocket, because every shekel they spend on Iron Domes and missiles is a shekel they don't spend on jets, tanks, and bombs.

Re:Subject bait

[Snotnose]

So a bunch of insane asshats decide to shoot rockets at you, and you're supposed to pull up stakes and move elsewhere? In this example, from Israel to the US?
I have to admit, I must be missing something. If a bunch of nutjobs in Tijuana decided to shoot rockets into my hometown of San Diego I would certainly hope the government would respond.

how about an objective view?

[Gravis Zero]

seriously, this is just bullshit on par with fox news.

"We can tell, for sure, from video images and even photographs that the Iron Dome system is not working very well at all," Postol said. "It—my guess is maybe [it hits a targeted missile] 5 percent of the time—could be even lower. ... And when you look—what you can do in the daytime—you can see the smoky contrail of each Iron Dome interceptor, and you can see the Iron Domes trying to intercept the artillery rockets side on and from behind. In those geometries, the Iron Dome has no chance, for all practical purposes, of destroying the artillery rocket."

"for sure," really? how about some actual numbers instead of speculation?

Re:I've always thought that the best way for Israe

[ultranova]

We value life, they value heaven.

According to yourself, you value an personal ancestral connection to the land. And you also said you think it's the same for Hamas. So please don't try to twist things into a "good vs. evil" or even "sane vs. insane" narrative. It's not.

Re:Ted Postol very bias opinion.

[Rei]

Actually, the key thing for them is "cheap". They need to keep costing sub-$1k missiles in the ballpark of these Iron dome systems - the more, the better. They might as well just omit the warheads to save money and increase range. Every $50k shot Israel fires with those systems costs 25 Israelis' annual tax contribution to the IDF. Every $55m system they deploy costs 27.500 Israelis' IDF tax contributions.

Palestinians are poor, but they're not *that* poor that they can't leverage those kind of lopsided financial ratios.

Re:I've always thought that the best way for Israe

[Uberbah]

Remember Israel is not allowed to defend itself.

On some other planet where the IDF isn't wiping out 100 Palestinians for every dead Israeli? Where the United States doesn't praise every cluster bomb dropped on Gaza as Israel "defending itself"? Where the Palestinians are on of the world's top military powers and the Zionists are a bunch of unarmed refugees?

Just another day in this alternate reality built on bald-faced lies you guys have constructed for yourselves....