Saturday - April 09, 2011

Your Foreign Aid Dollars At Work

Hey, this is actually good news for once! And at the core, we have Ronald Reagan to thank for it. It took 20 years of R&D, but it looks like the system works just fine even in small scale.

What’s with the picture? It’s a photograph taken of Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system at work, intercepting a hamas launched Grad missile. Star Wars SDI, on the battlefield scale. It’s similar technology to the now combat proven tank defense system I wrote about a couple weeks ago. About half the funding for the Israeli R&D came from the USA, along with close working relationships with Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.  Iron Dome is a C-RAM system, an acronym that stands for Counter Rocket Artillery and Mortar. What it does is shoot down incoming threats, but it does it intelligently - high speed computers analyze the flight path of the threat, and only respond if it’s going to hit something important. Naturally, the Iron Dome system is also hooked into a counter battery network, which can accurately shoot back at the source long before their shells or missiles have hit. Pretty damn good. And not insanely expensive for once either.

Iron Dome does it again; Gaza rocket intercepted

Assault on southern Israel continues; anti-rocket system intercepts missile fired at Ashkelon

Tova Dadon Published: 04.09.11, 18:20 / Israel News

South under relentless fire: The Iron Dome anti-rocket system intercepted yet another incoming missile Saturday afternoon, this one targeting Ashkelon, as Palestinian terrorist in Gaza continued to target southern Israel.

Iron Dome’s latest successful interception, at around 5:40 pm Saturday, marks the eighth time the highly advanced system shoots down an incoming rocket over the weekend. Another rocket exploded near a kibbutz in the Shaar Hanegev regional council. The council’s security chief, Yoav Peled, told Ynet Saturday that terror groups have been directing barrages into the same areas in recent days.

Yesterday:

Iron Dome intercepts first rocket

Residents in Ashkelon reported Thursday seeing Israel’s new Iron Dome defense system intercept a Grad rocket fired towards the southern city from the Gaza Strip. IDF officials called the interception a “historical moment”, saying it was the first of its kind in the world. Two intercepting missiles were fired at the rocket, but the first succeeded in hitting it, an army official said.

Eyewitnesses told Ynet they saw the rocket explode in midair and realized that the system had intercepted its first rocket. Moshe Ben Hemo, a resident of Ashkelon, said, “I was in the street and I heard a strange sound, like someone pushing the gas pedal of a car. Then I saw the rocket fly through the air and explode. Immediately I realized that it was Iron Dome, that’s what has been said here.” He added that the rocket alert had not been set off. “The rocket was apparently supposed to explode in Ashkelon. In any case I’m glad the system works,” he said.

After hitting a student bus traveling through Shaar Hanegev Regional Council Thursday, critically wounding a 16-year old boy and lightly injuring the driver, terrorists in Gaza fired some 45 rockets and mortar shells at Israel. No further injuries were reported.

The Multi Mission Radar (MMR) operating in the area detected the launch of rockets fired from Gaza toward Ashkelon and triggered ‘code Red’ alert sending the city to the shelters. Simultaneously, ‘Iron Dome’ went into action, Assessing the projected impact point of some of the rockets to be within the protected area, the battery launched its interceptors to defeat the specific rockets posing a potential risk, scoring direct hits. Identifying the Palestinian rockets’ launch point, the IAF conducted an air attack targeting the location. The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has escalated in recent weeks, as Palestinians fired rockets at the city of Beer Sheva.

Earlier this week Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak requested the Israeli Government to allocate funding for the acquisition of five additional Iron Dome batteries. Funding for seven batteries was apporved last year by the U.S. Congress but the actual funding was not allocated yet.

Today, the Palestinians further increased the level of fishes, firing an AT-15 Kornet anti-tank missile at an Israeli school bus transporting children back from school, wounding the driver and one passenger on board, a 15 year schoolboy. The attack was followed by intensive Qasam (improvised rockets) and mortar fire throughout the region. By introducing such precision weapon against a civilian target, the attack triggering an escalated Israeli response by firing artillery and direct fire by helicopter gunships.

My favorite feature on the Iron Dome system is also shared with the IDF’s Trophy vehicle defense system, and that’s the ability to analyze the incoming threat. Read the speed and the trajectory, plot the impact point, hit the map database and see if anything in that spot is valuable, and if so, defend against it. Why waste money intercepting Kassam rockets that are only going to blow up in a farm field? Why shoot at the RPG fired against your tank if it’s going to miss? And this is all done in real time, which means they’ve got some really good computers running these things.

Now I wonder if Iron Dome is good enough to stop guided missiles that change course? And whether the interceptor missiles can take a booster stage for some extended range? Because if they can, it looks like this thing will make a dandy defense against cruise missiles AND be a decent SAM system against enemy jets. Let’s hope they have a waterproof version too, that can be ship mounted to defend against those super high speed Iranian and Chinese anti-ship missiles we keep hearing about.

More info on EAPS and C-RAM
Source for the “how it works” graphic, with small article
Meanwhile, given the situation in the rest of the Middle East and across North Africa, Time wonders if this “escalation” isn’t two steps forward on another March To War.

And of course, over in Jew hating England, the Telegraph runs the story that only emphasizes the collateral damage done by the IDF’s counter battery, where the pali’s known use of human shields is merely reported as an “Israeli accusation”. D-bags. Yeah, and Glen Beck is the anti-Semite. Right.

Posted by Drew458     on 04/09/2011 at 10:36 AM   
Filed Under: • Israel • Military • War On Terror •  
• Comments (3) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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