Tuesday, November 20, 2012

The Iron Dome works but has had failures.

Yesterday three of four of the Gaza missiles were stopped but one did get through. That is a success rate of 75%. That is exceptional.

If I remember correctly, this is what the USA calls The Patriot Missile System. 

This is not a cheap defense of Israel. It is not a long term capacity which can be sustained financially.
..."No way I'd be sitting out here in the open if it weren't for Iron Dome," said Binyamin, 32, a truck driver. (click here)

He was referring to the Israeli air defense system. Iron Dome has shown about an 85% success rate in stopping rockets deemed to pose a threat to life or property during the last six days, Israeli officials say. The system is widely credited in Israel with having minimized casualties....

There has been a capacity of The Patriot Missile System never developed by the USA. Of should I say it was never purchased by the USA. It was the 'seek and destroy' aspect of this very sophisticated system. Basically, Raytheon had developed the capacity for Patriot to formulate the trajectory of the intercepted missile which it does anyway, but, retaliate on its own. In other words, it could find the launch site (launch vehicle is another question), and fire a missile back to destroy that site. A launch vehicle whereby it could be moved immediately after launching was the reason the USA didn't see any benefit to it.

The capacity of Hamas is often linked with mobile capacity, so it probably won't help.

The bottom line is the Iron Dome/Patriot System is a highly sophisticated system. It can probably be operated remotely and of course, it carries its own defense to destroy 'incoming.'

Being as sophisticated as it is, it is very expensive. This is not something Israel or the International Community should consider an answer to this problem.

By Glen Carey - Oct 31, 2010 9:12 AM ET
Raytheon Co., the world’s largest missile maker, plans to expand its Patriot air-defense system in the Persian Gulf as the world’s biggest oil-producing region strengthens its missile-defense, naval and air forces.
In Saudi Arabia, “we got an upgrade to the Patriot system that is in process,” Thomas Culligan, chief executive officer of Raytheon International Inc., told reporters late yesterday in Riyadh. “Hopefully, we will get a contract signed on that.”
Kuwait is upgrading and buying additional units, and Qatar “is looking at” the system, Culligan said. The United Arab Emirates bought a missile-defense system at a value not exceeding $3.3 billion at the end of 2008, according to a Raytheon statement on the company’s website....