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MIT's Ted Postol Presents More Evidence On Iron Dome Failures
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).
Here it comes, all the reactionary Jew hatred posts...
No one seems so interested in the fact that Hamas sites rocket launchers, military command and control, and military supplies in private homes, hosptials, datycares, and schools...
The so-called Hamas "Human Shield" gets almost no attention, using women, children, and old men as "shields"...
No mention of indescriminant non-targeting of rockets into both Muslim and Jewis areas of Isreal by Hamas.
Oh, but those "goose stepping" Jews , bent on exterminating every Muslim in Gaza...
Who is it that has the destruction of Isreal as their official main goal? These are the people that want PEACE?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
TFA is very interesting & I'm smarter for having read it...
I'm glad people are looking at this kind of thing...it is *one* way to get some unbiased information
So, "5% effective"...
As TFA description reads, the number of Israeli casualties is mostly due to a combination of factors, including bomb shelters and early warnings...
I think the "Iron Dome" people would respond to TFA thusly:
"Yes, but **the program** is effective. "Iron Dome" is our missile defense system, which is one part of our civil defense, which is an entire program of things to keep people safe...if you look at the program in its entirity it's a success"
Thank you Dave Raggett
Postol has a long history opposing any form of missile defense. While his assessment may well be correct, it should be viewed with considerable skepticism until data from opposing viewpoints is examined against his. Postol's view can be summaraized as: "No missile or rocket defense can work, therefore we should not try."
It's literally better than nothing.
[anecdote] An employee in an Israeli office of my company happened to be on a business call when the alarms went off and he had to pull over and lay flat on the ground. The callees then witnessed an incredible bang (which, understandably, made most of the listener's pants a bit heavier). Apparently the Iron Dome intercepted a missile in the skies directly above the employee's head. He's lucky to be alive. [/anecdote]. Of course, now he's been drafted into the fight, so he might end up spending his life anyways, but hey, at least he lived to see another day.
So yeah, it might not be the best thing ever, but it sure as hell beats nothing.
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.
A good summary can be found here:
... and yet nobody has anything to say about the "Happy Holocoust" one-eyed smiley faces getting painted on christian fences:
...or the wholesale massacre of christian communities (which like the Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian massacres, has been quite well-documented)
http://www.thereligionofpeace....
Neo-Nazis In Germany Compare Jews To NAZIS:
http://shoebat.com/.../neo-naz...
http://shoebat.com/.../antichr...
http://shoebat.com/.../muslims...
http://shoebat.com/2014/07/21/...
Spain is on the list:
http://shoebat.com/.../muslim-...
And so is Rome:
http://shoebat.com/.../muslims...
Meanwhile, in the land of the free, any intellectual discussion of this topic is prohibited (by shouty neo-commies), under threat of "hate speech" legislation, or being ostracised as a 'bigot', because left-wing viewpoints are by definition 'not up for discussion'.
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?
It seems that Ted Postol defines a successful intercept as one where the opposing warhead is completely destroyed in mid-air and doesn't count a rocket being damaged enough to be knocked down over an area where it can detonate harmlessly. He also relies on personal and public photos and reports to draw his conclusions. This would miss a good portion of the rockets fired as most are fired at night, when photographing rockets and interceptions are much more difficult.
I'm not going to argue that he is right or wrong. It just seems to me that his extrapolations are not based on enough factual evidence to draw a conclusion with any amount of confidence.
It would be cool to find out just what the real statistics are. I'm pretty sure, though, that Israel classifies this information as a state secret and we may never know in our lifetimes.
Why should anyone believe a person with a clear agenda, no access and no evidence?
Wake me up when you have actual data to collaborate your (conspiracy) theory Israel's estimates are lies.
Israeli's collect the rockets and rocket parts they are able to find. The answer is knowable and evidence obtainable. Have you even tried?
The casualties are on the Palestinian side.
My parents are both in Israel. I go there frequently. Since the start of the rocket attacks I have talked with them daily. I can tell you Iron Dome works. Otherwise there would be far more destruction to property. Yes there are bomb shelters. I can tell you in Tel Aviv many people don't bother to go to them when the sirens go off. My dad says more people get hurt running to the bomb shelters because they trip/fall/etc. than from bombs.
Iron Dome is highly effective. Without it there would be not only significant casualties but also significantly more property damage. In fact my dad reported seeing an actual missile intercept over our building in Bat Yam.
I'm sure Iron Dome has it's flaws but the fact of the matter is the system has been saving lives almost daily for years. One other thing I am not sure if Slashdot readers are familiar with: The rocket attacks aren't a thing that happen every year or so. They are in Tel Aviv. In cities like Ashdod or Ashkelon they are a daily or weekly occurrence. You don't hear about it on the news but they have been going on for years. Iron Dome is continually operating and defending against these threats.
Despite all of this the problem remains: Rockets are being fired into a sovereign country. I don't think the US would build and use such a defensive system is say, for example, Mexico launched rockets into the US for years. I don't think there would be a Mexico after around one month. To that end the (hypothetical) US solution here is far more effective than Iron Dome. Sadly I think the only long term solution here is for Israel to use its full military might against the attackers.
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)
The way he defines success and failure is framed to say all missile defense fails.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
There. Fixed that for you.
There. Fixed that for you.
Fixed that for you.
You're tokld. It's
an Israeli from Tel Aviv estimates the success rate at 90%, which is thus high that some civilians actually go out and see the interceptions, instead of going into the shelters. Of course, Tel Aviv is farther away from Gaza and possibly has less rockets fired at them, but the difference in ground reports and what is reported here is staggering. Maybe these scientists need to dial back and first get some more data, instead of just looking at a couple of videos and/or photos.
The professor is saying that if the warhead is no destroyed the intercept fails. That's nonsense. If you knock it off course or cause it to fall off target then it succeeded.
Furthermore, the statistics seem to suggest that SOMETHING is stopping the missiles because we have fairly reliable figures on the number of missiles fired and the number of missiles that landed in populated areas. We also have stats from previous bombardments... comparing the two we can see a huge difference. So why is that? Is the suggestion that the israelis are lying? Its possible. But there's no evidence of that to hang an argument upon. And even if they were doing it for the sake of argument there is no data to define the extent of that deceit. Its all theoretical.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
You know, those videos where rockets are hit, are those the 5%?
... it works for about 100%
and my point is: without clear evidence, both this and Postol's statements are equally Ill-founded.
Ted, shall we compromise on (100+5)/2?
I did RTFA, and he makes two real claims. His primary claim is that the iron dome system must be failing, because when the interceptor approaches the target from anything other than head on, the interceptor will fire its warhead at the wrong time. He implies that this failure is an inevitable consequence of geometry, but I don't see it. If you actually look at the diagrams, the interceptor has just a good a shot when approaching (say) from behind as from in front. In fact the odds look better to me from behind or the side, as the crossing speeds are lower and the shrapnel fan might actually run down the length of the target. The interceptor just needs to fire its warhead at a different moment. But his diagrams all show the warhead firing at the wrong time, for reasons that are not made clear.
Is the iron dome system smart enough to account for basic geometry? I would think so, since the problem is pretty simple, and the approach angle will be known by the radar even before launch. But I don't really know. And I don't think he does either.
His second claim might be more credible. He says that in hundreds of pictures of intercepts, only one clearly shows detonation of the incoming rocket. I don't know if this is true, and I don't trust his claim. But if it is true then it cries out for explanation.
He has no access to the system. He has no access to radar logs. He has no access to destroyed rockets, etc. He has some pics and a PowerPoint presentation.
I see.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
There. Fixed that for you.
Fixed that for you.
Fixed it again. Sherpa Sherpa Bak-Allah. Mohammed Jihad!
Those opposed to Israel's right to exist and who are also shelling Israel and supplying weaponry for the attacks against Israel, STOP. Cease Fire or Cease to Exist. You hide behind children and attack Israel and blame Israel for responding to those attacks while {{You Blow Up Your Own Children Blaming Israel for their right to defend themselves.]] STOP THIS WAR NOW
The problem is it is not sustainable. Each intercept missile cost $60,000, a rocket launched by hamas costs $800. Hamas can DDoS the hell of out Israel. All they need is decently trained soldiers and decent supply of rockets.
Yea, the important thing isn't if it works or not. The important thing is that the US taxpayers keep paying millions for every rocket that might knock down a Hamas missal. That way Israel can comfortably keep practicing genocide in Gaza and building more "settlements".
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
he first assumes that only a head-on engagement can be successful, and all other engagements are failures. then, he counts how many engagements are head-on, and how many are otherwise, and finally comes up with a failure rate. if his initial assumption is wrong, then his calculation at the end is wrong. i'm not at all confident of his initial assumption, and he spends so little time on it.
why doesn't he instead gather pictures of engagements, gather more pictures of rocket impacts, then calculate a failure rate from there? this would be a more straight-forward approach, and he wouldn't have to rely on assumptions that are difficult to confirm. israel won't share iron dome missile specs with him, will they?
Iron dome designed to protect an area. If the artilery rocket is prevented from hitting that area it is a success.
Redefining success is a nice trick but it misses the point.
If a single shrapnel hit the rocket in mid flight it will rotate the rocket enough to change its ballistic flight and go into a stall.
True that in this scenario the warhead is still armed but it is not essential to success if it didnt reach its intended target area.
The problem is it is not sustainable. Each intercept missile cost $60,000, a rocket launched by hamas costs $800.
Israel's GDP is the equivalent of about US$250 billion. They can easily afford tens of thousands of intercept missiles if it keeps the population safe.
Hamas can DDoS the hell of out Israel.
DDoS attacks generally rely on multiplier effects, getting someone else to do most of the work for you. Botnets, service vulnerabilities like the NTP reflection attack, that sort of thing. Hamas don't appear to have any such advantage.
All they need is decently trained soldiers and decent supply of rockets.
And if they had three fully-equipped tank divisions and a carrier group, that would help too.
Postol says that the Hamas rockets are small and can't do much harm. But that's proven false by past Israeli experience.
In the 2006 Israel-Hizbullah war, about 40 Israeli civilians were killed by rockets from Lebanon. In the last couple weeks, exactly one Israeli civilian has been been killed by rockets from Gaza. What's changed between 2006 and now? Iron Dome has been developed.
Also, that Israeli civilian was a Bedouin. Bedouin are nomads who live in the countryside. Iron Dome does not attempt to intercept rockets heading for the countryside, because interceptors are too expensive. Is it just coincidence that the only Israeli to be killed by rockets was part of the minority who live in areas not protected by Iron Dome?
Or look at another incident. A single Hamas rocket hit an Israeli ranch and killed 30 cows. I don't care too much about the cows. But a cow is bigger than a person, one would expect more than 30 people to die if that rocket hit a collection of people. Nothing like that has happened. Why not?
Israelis see with their eyes that this conflict is different from past conflicts in terms of the damage done by rockets. Is it so strange to attribute that change to the new technology that has been developed?
property damage is compensated by the zionist government. All claims are matter of public record.
It is easy to verify the ammount of rocket hits based on the claims and their sum.
Controversial is putting it controversially kindly. I may not be a physicist from MIT, but as an Israeli being shot at daily and many times before this conflict started, I can assure you that I see Iron Dome actually works. I guess all the pieces of metal I've seen fall from the sky several times in front of mine are just my imagination as well, and the various times I've seen rockets intercepted literally over my head. I suppose when I've personally seen rocket cases shredded to pieces, it was because they blew up by themselves in the sky. I also suppose the ones that did hit were just another variety that don't magically blow up in the sky. Clearly, I'll have to go enroll in MIT and study harder to understand what is happening right in front of me.
I can assure you that without Iron Dome, there would be a lot more damage in Israel. In Israel, it's like a God right now and is the most immediate form of protection we have from a very real and current existential threat. It's important to note we also have other missile interception systems, including the old Patriot missiles which have shot down a few drones this past week.
Really, such idiocy is dangerous.
Actual Israeli again.
I think it's important to also point out that just because Iron Dome hits a rocket doesn't mean we're safe. Everyone here knows the difference between a hit and an Iron Dome interception. In both cases there are very audible, but different booms. In both cases, danger. Many times after an interception, there are many other loud thuds and booms from falling pieces of metal, and many people have been injured or nearly injured by shrapnel.
Iron Dome keeps us safer, but you still have to go to a shelter even if the hit rate was 100% because there's a very real danger you can still be killed by the aftermath of an interception.
Well, as a Raytheon shareholder, I approve!
A buys oil from B.
B uses oil money to buy missiles it gives to C.
C fires missiles at D.
D buys interceptors from A to intercept C's missiles.
A bills US taxpayers for cost of interceptors.
(Since D does not have to pay for the interceptors, and C doesn't have to pay for missiles, they have no incentive really to pursue any other course of action than violence).
Only losers here are the US taxpayers, and the poor schmucks being targeted by missiles and retaliatory strikes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeBQty_YaxY .. thats enough for me.
Remember Patriot Missiles from the 1st Iraq war?
Saddam was lobbing SCUDS at Israel & the US lent IDF a bunch of our trailer mounted ABM interceptors
We've got to assume the Israelis have the state of the art now...is this as good as it gets? Seems like it should be better, given what we had in 1991...I know Hamas isn't launching big fat slow SCUDS, but even so, technology has just gotten so much more precise & fast. I wonder if the intercept rate would be higher if Hamas didn't use DIY rockets among others.
Thank you Dave Raggett
First evidence from the article is shown in figures 4 and 4a ... 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."
"Figure 4 and figure 4A show the consequences of a failure in the fuse timing
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
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/where-have-all-the-gaza-rockets-gone.premium-1.510341
And even less this time around.
when I said this:
i was obviously referring to the "Iron Dome" system, not what is being launched at it
Thank you Dave Raggett
claims during the First Gulf War. George H. Bush early in the conflict claimed that the missile was 41 of 42 against scuds. Later analysis showed that the success rate may have been less that 10%.
The USA is only 4X older than me...perspective
The Iron Dome is designed to stop Iranian ballistic missiles tipped with Chemical, biological and in the future nuclear weapons. The fact that it has trouble hitting Hamas's glorified model rockets doesn't make it any less effective in its true mission. And eve if it really was only 5% effective, I'd take 5% less ballistic missiles headed at my town thank you.
There. Fixed that for you.
You are correct, the Israeli terrorists are still alive.
They don't shoot down every rocket. They only shoot down the ones that look like they will hit population centers.
And many of the Hamas rockets don't even make it to the border. Many of them have actually killed Palestinians (which, predictably, Hamas blames on Israel).
Each intercept missile cost $60,000
How much does it cost Israel each time they don't intercept a rocket and it lands in a populated area?
Why should anyone believe a person with a clear agenda
Are you talking about Isreal and its military complex?
You sound like a white person living in America.
You know... A hypocrite.
(The following is purely about logistics, not a statement of support)
Hamas should start reducing the size of the warhead (or simply forgo explosives) on some of the missiles, to save on cost and construction-time.
Israel will still have to intercept, and the lower weight would likely result in more missiles getting into the actually-defended areas of Israel.
Alternatively, stop lopping missiles around for a year, then go to the world and explain how nice you've been, and how evil and cruel Israel is; bring it to the attention of the Russians and similarly interested parties, that Israel is support by the Americans, and the Palestinians should soon find themselves having new friends.
The Israelis suck at genocide then. Targeting one of the most densely populated places on earth and only managing to kill several hundred.
Worst. Genocide. Ever.
Also there are no Israeli settlements in Gaza, they pulled them all out and it resolved..... nothing!
You really think he would know if they actually took out the warhead? The warhead is going to land a dozen kilometers downrange. Of course there was an explosion in the sky - they're shooting a missile up at it, you're pretty much guaranteed an explosion. The question is whether it worked.
People said I was dumb, but I proved them.
And Palestine's is 4B GDP. Yes, they're poor, but not *that* poor. They can afford to spot weld fins onto a piece of drainage pipe, drill holes into a bit of steel plate and spot weld it on, fill it with sugar and fertilizer, and attach onto the front end a hollow shell containing several kilos of smuggled or homemade explosives triggered by a bullet casing connected to a nail and a spring. That's literally all a Qassam rocket is.
People said I was dumb, but I proved them.
Hamas is already supported by Iran and Saudi Arabia, interesting bedfellows, honestly.
Range and accuracy don't really interest Hamas. If you read up on their rocket design it wouldn't take a college engineering student or rocketry hobbyist more than 10 minutes to improve their design. They're interested in keeping them simple and fast to build, as little skilled machining as possible. I'm sure reducing weight would get it a little further but it's still not going to hit the broad side of a city, and it was never intended to.
Read what I wrote again - iron dome doesn't have to be good enough to stop SCUDs to stop these things. Clear enough yet?
...rather than the hate riddled Jewish/Palestinian arguments and comments that started with post 1?
Contrary to the reports in the media that Iron Dome has shot down 370 or so of the 2000 rockets, the system is significantly less effective - or so it would seem.
The article cites the relatively small size of the rockets, the small payload (10-20 pounds), lack of guidance control, and sparse population are the likely factor in the limited civilian deaths rather than the effectiveness of Iron Dome. Throw in the fact that these aren't exactly large targets to hit either, is it any wonder it misses?
Of possible factor is that Iron Dome, like CIWS onboard US ships, can determine which rockets actually pose a threat to civilians and not engage those rockets.
Sadly, people can be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
So many self hating Jews here joining up with the anti-Semites. Just what the Arabs and their English friends/terrorist sympathizers are aiming for. Going to be sad if we have to fight WWII again because nobody seems to read and understand history any longer.
Bottom line it works. More than a thousand rockets, almost no deaths and injuries. Personally, I think israel is right not to publish details of how the system works, as doing so only gives technical information to Iran (and hence Hamas and Hezbollah and Syria and ISIS) and guidance on how to defeat the system - I mean would the US have published technical information about how successful sonar was at defeating submarines during WW II and how it worked, during the war? Of course not. Mr. Postol will just have to wait.
One define criteria for success however one wants to that something works or doesn't, but ijn this case the test seems pretty clear - number of dead and injured. And on this criteria, the system is a success.
It seems to work just fine. It successfully transfers US funds to several Israeli contractors for a product that they hope to market to other nations.
clear you're a troll who likes to start arguments over nothing
respond again and I will actually take the time to email the moderators and report you
Thank you Dave Raggett
how did this happen?
http://abcnews.go.com/Internat...
Which has more power: the hammer, or the anvil?
Yes, I wondered about the cost disparity in the recent drone shoot down.
Limiting the supply of rockets and shooting at those that remain coupled with civil defense seems to be working.
An alternative strategy might be to send return fire to the launch site within seconds.
If it was a near certainty that the launch site would blow up soon after a launch,
it seems like the folks doing the launch would become fairly unpopular.
What performance characteristics make a rocket defense effective? To successfully intercept an artillery rocket of the type Hamas has been firing, an Iron Dome interceptor must destroy the warhead on the front end of the rocket. If the Iron Dome interceptor instead hits the back end of the target rocket, it will merely damage the expended rocket motor tube, basically an empty pipe, and have essentially no effect on the outcome of the engagement. The pieces of the rocket will still fall in the defended area; the warhead will almost certainly go on to the ground and explode."
tl;dr: Terminal intercept is hard. This is something we already know. For boost-phase or midcourse intercepts, however, destroying the rocket booster is more than enough to screw up the warhead's ballistic trajectory, bringing it down well short of the mark (entire cities) where they explode harmlessly in the wilderness. Unfortunately, after a half-hour of searching Google, I was unable to find any concrete data or information on the common intercept profiles of Iron Dome launches, the interceptor missiles capabilities, or likewise. One of the best civilian sources (i.e. people who sell technical information on military weapons to journalists, like Janes,) globalsecurity.org, has a sparse article long on general information and completely lacking hard data or numbers. This indicates to me that the data is simply highly classified and not being published, which makes perfect sense for a new defense system currently being employed against attackers who are actively adapting to it.
This means that, in addition to the ratio of boost-phase/midcourse/terminal intercepts Postol is making very free assumptions about the interceptor's warhead weight, their blast profile, the composition, density and thickness of their fragmentation jackets, density of the resulting fragmentation cloud, the exact range, detonation parameters and capabilities of the proximity fusing systems and the position of the Iron Dome batteries vis-a-vis the launch sites. If interceptors are indeed making frequent "tail chases," this would imply the rockets are flying over the batteries on their way to their targets, and the rockets are in fact performing mid-course intercepts - if they were located near the target area, intercepts would much more frequently be coming in from the front quarter. The latter is highly undesirable because (as Postel notes) its much harder to guarantee a "hard kill" of a warhead as opposed to simply shooting down the entire vehicle, but also because the combined closing speed of front-quarter intercepts drastically reduces the interception window, and thus accurate intercepts. The more time the interceptor has to track the target, compute solutions and make course-corrections, the better its chances of getting as close to the mark as possible.
Finally - and this should go without saying - Postel's entire argument is predicated on (apparently) a handful of contrail pictures with no context, frame-of-reference, or further data, this appears to constitute his "proof." If he has, in truth, analyzed gazillions of contrail images, then he should be presenting his portfolio of images, each one with as much contextual data as is available, along with his analysis. This is what actual, paid military analysts who know what they're doing would do, and indeed what most scientists know to do - document, document, document. If Postel wishes to idly theorize, then by all means, let him theorize: but to post such drivel as an actual argument is an insult to anybody with half a fucking brain.
LOL. Gotta love all these self proclaimed "Experts":
Physicist Theodore (Ted) Postol, Professor of Science, Technology and National Security Policy at MIT, said that Iron Dome is flawed and "has a success rate of less than 5 percent", and that "the primary reasons for fewer casualties in Israel are the abundance of shelters nearby and the early warning system."
But if anything is flawed, it's his logic and fact checking. For example, very few HAMAS missiles hit buildings or shelters. Most missiles that were not intercepted hit open spaces. Also, Israelis have a fraction of the warning time Palestinians have. Israelis only get a 15 second warning from the siren system while Israel has been giving Palestinians 5 minute warning "knocks" to evacuate the target buildings.
The Israeli Institute of National Security Studies published a detailed reply to MIT Professor Ted Postol's claim about the "ineffectiveness of the Iron Dome", labeling it "dubious research without access to credible data."
The New York Times reported July 9 that Israel "has said that the [Iron Dome] system has a success rate of nearly 90 percent in intercepting the missiles it is meant to thwart."
An interception makes a much bigger bang due to a direct line of sight. Tel Aviv has many buildings and a rocket that actually lands would dampen that noise considerably. In a a couple of cases I even saw the smoke in the sky from the interceptions.It works rather well for those specific type of amateurish rockets. Maybe its a placebo but Tel Aviv is a very dense city, if they fired that many rockets (and I heard a lot of explosions) they should have killed quite a few people or at least demolished some cars. I heard of only one incident (in Tel Aviv) where a car was damaged and that was when a rocket hit a gas station.
So the author should probably fly over here and inspect the data in person, field work. Its not as risky as it sounds.
Agreed.
How dare the Israelis not die when we try to kill them!
stop trying to occupy Israel, stop trying to steal Jewish land, stop trying to expell the Jews "into the sea" etc.
The Arab and Muslim polulations of the world have 99% of the land in the middle east but they cannot have peaceful and successful societies without that little sliver of land that holds the one Holy site of the Jewish faith. The whole world proved only 60 years ago that they Jews will only ever be truly safe in their own nation, and they have that nation now on the land that was their land centuries before Islam even existed - but SOMEHOW that little bit of soil is the only place where a subset of the Arab/Lebanese/Jordanian/Egyptian/Muslim population can live and they need it ALL (the Palestinans and nearly every neigboring nation went to war against the Jews rather than share the land in a "two-state solution" decades ago).
I will develop some smattering of sympathy for the Palestinan civilians when they disassociate themselves from Hamas and Hezbollah and their stated goals to destroy Israel and kill all the Jews. I will develop more sympathy for them when they allow at least as much freedom for people in their society to freely practice any religion of their choice as the state of Israel permits within its borders, and as much freedom for women as Israel provides to women. Until that time, Palestinians get EXACTLY as much sympathy from me as NAZI civilians in WWII germany - they've been raining rockets on the civilian population of Israel so they deserve the same carpetting of their cities by firebombs that Dresden got from Britain and ANYTHING less than that by Israel is downright merciful.
First, drop the "World Zionist Organization" crap - you just outed yourself as [1] a rabid muslim fanatic the civilzed world should keep an eye on, or [2] a nutjob Klansman/"White Supremacist" who is such an ignorant fool he thinks it makes sense to pretend to be defending a Christian society (which, not being actually personally religious, he thinks means a "white society") while hating Jews (not noticing that Jesus was a Jew), or [3] wear tin foil hats and spends his time worrying about the Queen of England, the Freemasons, the Rothschilds and the Bilderbergs.
Second, Who gave the British the right to promise ANYTHING in the middle east to ANYBODY???? Most of the lines the Brits drew in the sands of the middle east had disasterous results as they (a civilized NATION) tried to draw national boundaries and give national identities to backward primitive tribal barbarians.
Third, There WAS no promise that the whole region would go to the "Palestinians" as they are called today; partly because the Jews were also promised lands there and partly also because it was common at the time to also refer to Jews living in the British-controlled areas as residents of "Palestine" just as the non-Jews there.
Anybody who tries to declare Israel to be in some way illegitimate because of its recent historical roots (being re-established by westerners, primarily Britain, drawing lines on a map) must ALSO agree that Jordan, Iraq, Turkey, Lebanon, Iran, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabai are also all illegitimate since all of these nations were similarly carved-out by British cartographers and diplomats.
Israel has, for decades, been willing to recognize a "Palestinan state" and has made that commitment in writing many times. They were willing to right from the start of the modern state on Israel in 1948 and they have been as part of EVERY negotiation of the past 60+ years. The Palestinans have NEVER recognized the right of Israle to exist as a Jewish state IN WRITING. The problem you so cleverly mask with your dishonest rhetoric is that the Palestinains of Hamas and Hezbollah define "Palestine" as ALL the land currently in Gaza, the West Bank, AND ISRAEL (which is why the entire region is marked on their maps and flags as "Palestine"). By THAT dishonest definition, the Jew-haters lie to ignorant westerners compaining that Israel refuses to accept "Palestine" (in other words: "the Jews refuse to all die or move to Germany and Poland"). The second deceitful tactic the Palestinains use (but which you did not use) is to say they MIGHT accept a future state of Israel (while refusing to accept that it would be a Jewish state) as long as there is a "right of return" .... by which they mean "you can draw lines on a map and call the area Israel, but we retain the right to flood it with Arab Muslim immigrants and replace the Jewish population with a Muslim one (so that it becomes as illusory as Hobbiton)
There's a simple set of facts here: Israel pulled out of the Gaza, uprooting their citizens from their homes and leaving lots of infrastructure behind. After they left, the Palestinians COULD have used the area to build a new thriving modern society with freedom for all its residents thereby proving that a future Palestinain nation would be a trusted and peaceful place (they could similarly have been productive in the West Bank). The Palestinians, however, chose to elect the terrorists of Hamas to run their Gaza affairs and THEY in-turn used money and construction resources to buy weapons and build bunkers and tunnels for waging war against the Jews. Now, after watching Gaza used as a launchpad for THOUSANDS of rockets AIMED AT CIVILIANS, Israel has had to send troops back into the Gaza. Hamas and the Palestinans of Gaza built nothing of value, and Hamas curried favor with its Iranian pay-masters by preparing the Gaza to be the expendable forward weapons site that would (along with its "human shield" civilians) be sacrificed as a suicidal "second front" in any future war between Israel and Iran.
Every rocket Hamas fires and every tunnel it built was a re-direction of resources that could instead have been money for food, medicine, housing, schools, etc for Palestinians in the Gaza. If the Palestinians preferred to use their resources poking a tiger in the eye, then they deserve the inevitable mauling they get.
the land of Israel which they had been squatting on for a few generations?
That land was Israel for CENTURIES before Christianity arose, and THAT was about seven centuries before Mohammed was born and then brought Islam into existence... there is NO rational way that Islam can have a claim to that land that supercedes the Christian claim to various sites there AND there is no way for the Chrisitian sites there to have a claim that supercedes the Jewish claim. Jerusalem is the "City of [king] David" and the "Temple Mount" which is currently the site of Al Aqsa Mosque is the remains of the foundation of two ancient, successive Jewish Temples. Many of the ancient Jewish cities in the area, like Bethlahem (Bet Lahem), the birthplace of Jesus (a Jew) are currently occupied by Palestinians. The Palestinians did not even get it by taking it in war from the Jews (as so many nations in history have been created). The Jews were driven off the land by the Romans and the various wandering tribes of nomadic arabs in the region simply squatted on that land - without ever even trying to create a country of their own.
The Palestinians are the Gypsies of the middle east... this is a cultural and political thing NOT a racial thing (the Palestinians are NOT a truly homogenous group, they're a mix of Lebonese, Jordanians, Egyptians, etc). They live where they live becasue their great grand parents liked to camp there, but they never tried to create anything; they had no flag (insert Eddie Izzard clip here). Generations of Palestinians camped-out there without building a nation, without creating any lasting institutions, without establishing any identity. It was not until the 1970's when Yasser Arafat (an Egyptian, NOT a Palestinian) and his buddies started pushing the idea as a political tactic in their fight to get rid of the Jews (which he admitted in an interview) that people started referring to a "Palestinain Nation" or a "Palestinain People" (as an identity for a people rather than as a generic reference to people living in a geographic area)
If you look at the program in its entirety, terrorist rockets, missiles, and bombs have killed about 600 Israeli citizens in the last few weeks. 2 of those citizens were Jews killed by Hamas rockets. The rest of the Israeli citizens were Palestinians, primarily civilians in Gaza, and Iron Dome did nothing to stop them. It may have stopped some of Hamas's incompetent rocket attacks, but it didn't protect Israeli civilians from the militant Army's better equipment.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
when Christians can build churches and Jews can build Synagogues in Mecca and Medina, and other Muslim "Holy" cities and can serve in the elected legislatures of islamic countries and have their testimony held to be equal to that of a Muslim in any court in any Muslim country.
Israel allows Arabs to be elected into their legislature, and allows all religions to be freely practiced in their country - even tolerating Muslim control of the Jewish Temple Mount. The Al Aqsa Mosque on the Jewish Temple Mount, with Muslims preventing Jews from praying there is the exact equivalent of a Jewish Temple being build over the Kabba in Mecca and a bunch of orthodox Jews preventing Muslims from making the Hajj. Any time a Jew attempts to pray on the Temple Mount, the Palestinians riot and kill people and threaten to start a war. Just imagine if every time a Muslim tried to go to Mecca a bunch of radical Jews went crazy and killed poeple and threatened to start a war...
The truly idiotic thing is that the Muslim faith has no claim to Jerusalem. Their presence there is just a passive-aggressive style affront to their enemies, "the Jews". Like wandering tomcats who piss on stuff to mark it as their property, the Muslims erected a mosque atop the only Holy site of the Jews.... Mohammed never even went to Jerusalem ... the muslim tradition is that Mohammed went to "a far city" in a dream. There's no more legitimacy to the idea that this "far city" was Jerusalem than that it was Sao Palo, or Berlin, or Tokyo.
How is any of the above a troll? How is it even critical of you?
Just because you disagreed with me about the usefulness of X some time back enough to mark me "foe" should not be a reason why I can not discuss other unrelated issues where it even appears we agree, but I just have a bit more to add (look at Rei's post for detail, that poster has much more again to add on the subject and shows what I was attempting to convey).
And what's with the threat? If you feel you really are being trolled then just do it instead of threatening to do so.
That minute was over 40 years ago, and they're still using them.
Most of the newer high-powered SAMs built in Russia are capable of missile intercept (of shorter-ranged ballistic missiles), and they've still got a huge ABM system around Moscow.
I see /. is going Postol again.
I don't think 'spot welding' means what you think it does.
What I saw on TV was someone incompetently using a stick welder.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
How much does a F-16 sortee and a 2000lb dumb bomb cost? Cause that can get a dozen missiles, the crew and the human shields in one go.
A bargain and completely understandable, just based on your cost argument.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I never said what Palestine is doing understandable based on the cost argument.
I dont have a side in this war, I find both of them equally deplorable. However the economics of a tool used, and how the other side can react to a tool, can be discussed freely, without taking a side. My point was the iron shield which was specifically build to stop rockets from Palestinian territory. The flaw is it is too expensive compared to rocket is takes down. Building rocket or purchasing good rockets is not that expensive. A few weeks of bootcamp is all is required to train soldiers on rockets (with iran and saudi backing, it costs peanuts to train them, and get better rocket tech)
i love that someone just downmodded **only my responses** on this deepthread between me and dblll (whom i still suspect may have multiple accounts, regardless of UID)
i protest these downmods...either downmod us both or not at all...
Thank you Dave Raggett
Those are good arguments for not letting a launch site get off a second shot.
You realize that Israel has computer controlled counter batteries and isn't using them (yet). A 155mm shell is cheaper then a rocket. Much less a dozen rockets, a launch crew of 4 and their whole extended families.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
DDoS attacks generally rely on multiplier effects, getting someone else to do most of the work for you. Botnets, service vulnerabilities like the NTP reflection attack, that sort of thing. Hamas don't appear to have any such advantage.
Hamas is the "someone else" in this case.
That makes Postol stupid.
By international law, a country under occupation has the right (and obligation) to protect it's citizens to the aggressive occupation force. Israel illegally (against many UN resolutions) occupy 95% of Palestina since 1967. In this case, Israel is the aggressor, breaking international law.
By the Geneve convention, an occupying army is not allowed to move it's own citizens into occupied territory and build houses. This is to forbid an occupying army to take over the land. Israel is breaking the Geneve convention too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Geneva_Convention#Section_III._Occupied_territories