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MIT's Ted Postol Presents More Evidence On Iron Dome Failures

Posted by Unknown on from the makes-for-good-tv dept.

Lasrick (2629253) writes In a controversial article last week, MIT physicist Ted Postol again questioned whether Israel's vaunted Iron Dome rocket defense system actually works. This week, he comes back with evidence in the form of diagrams, photos of Iron Dome intercepts and contrails, and evidence on the ground to show that Iron Dome in fact is effective only about 5% of the time. Postol believes the real reason there are so few Israeli casualties is that Hamas rockets have very small warheads (only 10 to 20 pounds), and also Israel's outstanding civil defense system, which includes a vast system of shelters and an incredibly sophisticated rocket attack warning system (delivered through smart phones, among other ways).

8 of 454 comments (clear)

  1. The UN by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    story
    20 rockets were found in a UN owned school in the Gaza strip. The UN is caliming they were not using the building and did not know the rockets were in the building. What happened to the rockets once the UN discovered they were hiding munitions for Hamas in a school? The UN did the only responsible thing possible and handed those rockets over to Hamas.

    1. Re:The UN by quantaman · · Score: 5, Informative

      story
      20 rockets were found in a UN owned school in the Gaza strip. The UN is caliming they were not using the building and did not know the rockets were in the building. What happened to the rockets once the UN discovered they were hiding munitions for Hamas in a school? The UN did the only responsible thing possible and handed those rockets over to Hamas.

      Interesting, lets read the link then:

      So where did the rockets go? Well, according to Israel, they went right back to Hamas. As an official told The Times of Israel:

      The rockets were passed on to the government authorities in Gaza, which is Hamas. In other words, UNRWA handed to Hamas rockets that could well be shot at Israel.”

      Ok, that sounds damning, but lets read till the end for the buried lede:

      On Monday afternoon, Chris Gunness, the spokesman for U.N.R.W.A., denied that the rockets went back to Hamas.

      UNRWA did not give the rockets to Hamas. The rockets were taken away by bomb disposal experts that were answerable to the newly formed government of national consensus, which Hamas has left."

      So the rockets went to people most likely hostile to Hamas. Now maybe the UN could have done better disposing of the bombs themselves, but a UN bomb disposal mission in Gaza sounds like something that could also go really wrong. Remember the role of the UN isn't to fight for Israel, in that case they're just trying to provide humanitarian aid.

      --
      I stole this Sig
  2. If you require the system to act NOT as designed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    His perspective is that success requires in-air destruction of the warhead. That is not what the system is designed to do. No system has successfully hit warheads in the air with any frequency. Second, Postol (and Lloyd and others) assert that the falling warheads aren't large enough to do damage. But mortar shells do substantial damage and then contain, even using Postol's numbers, perhaps 1/20th the TNT. That's enough to blow big holes and kill a lot of people. Where are the holes? Where is the structural damage to buildings? Where are the casualties?

  3. Iron Dome is clearly a conspiracy! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Don't tell anyone, but Iron Dome causes autism because it contains gluten! It's all part of a secret Illuminati plot, of course...

    (Seeing as I live in Rishon Le Ziyyon, and watch interceptions every single day, and hear the distinctive sound of an interception (as opposed to a rocket hitting a building) several times a day, I reckon that the esteemed Mr. Postol would do well to loosen up his foil hat a bit)

  4. Picture manipulation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    First evidence from the article is shown in figures 4 and 4a
    "Figure 4 and figure 4A show the consequences of a failure in the fuse timing ... As can be seen by inspecting the photograph in figure 4, there is significant damage in the area where the rocket fell. This damage was almost certainly due to the detonation of the rocket’s small warhead."

    However, the figure is a cropped version of an image taken from Ynet article
    http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4541542,00.html
    and the picture title is "The shrapnel that hit the Tel Aviv synagogue.".

    As clearly seen in the full picture, there is very little damage that is easily explained by a steel tube falling through the roof. The picture clearly shows that there were no explosion. This was the only direct evidence of Iron Dome failure that is provided by the article. This "evidence" is malicious manipulation of an image that is easily available online.

    The images and more facts can be found in
    http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?239702-An-Explanation-of-the-Evidence-of-Weaknesses-in-the-Iron-Dome-Defense-System
    Since slashdot is not very graphics friendly ...

  5. Re:Here we go... by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 5, Informative
    Really? Let's consult Hamas' founding document and see what it says. Remember, this is where Hamas writes out why it exists in the first place. I encourage you to read the whole thing, but it's kind of a slog so I've taken a few good parts out:

    Israel will rise and will remain erect until Islam eliminates it as it had eliminated its predecessors.

    Israel, by virtue of its being Jewish and of having a Jewish population, defies Islam and the Muslims.

    Leaving the circle of conflict with Israel is a major act of treason and it will bring curse on its perpetrators.

    The Slogan of the Hamas
    Allah is its goal, the Prophet its model, the Qur'an its Constitution, Jihad its path and death for the case of Allah its most sublime belief.

    So, we can see that Hamas is just following what it was organized to do. It's not difficult to understand.

    --
    Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  6. Re:Yes, but... by Rei · · Score: 3, Informative

    Given how incredibly lame this missile's fuse is, you could literally defeat it by sticking a broomstick on the front end of your missile and rebalancing. That is, if the system even worked in the first place.

    I had no idea that's how they triggered the Iron Dome warheads. Just a broken, angled light field triggering a central explosive a short time later on the premise that it'll be near the warhead at that point? That's so incredibly stupid. I don't know whether this guy's data about how effective the system is or not is accurate, but I can clearly see the glaring theoretical problems with such a system.

    And this is ignoring the fact that they're using $50k missiles launched from $55 million systems to shoot down $800 rockets launched from pieces of drainage pipe. Even as poor as Palestinians are compared to Israelis, those are some pretty awful ratios. The Palestinians might as well save money and skip the warheads altogether, just shoot off as many empty rockets as they can to waste Israel's money.

    --
    People said I was dumb, but I proved them.
  7. Re: Here we go... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...