Iron Dome Springs A Serious Leak

The Strategy Page ^ | 12/21/2010 | The Strategy Page

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

The Israeli military revealed that its new Iron Dome anti-rocket system was not meant for defending towns and villages, but military bases. For years, politicians touted Iron Dome as a means of defending civilians living close to rockets fired from Gaza in the south and Lebanon in the north. But it turns out that it takes about 15 seconds for Iron Dome to detect, identify and fire its missiles. But most of the civilian targets currently under fire from Gaza are so close to the border (within 13 kilometers) that the rockets are fired and land in less than 15 seconds. This explains why, after Iron Dome was declared ready for action six months ago, it was surprisingly placed in storage. The air force said they would prefer to save money and put the Iron Dome batteries in storage, to be deployed only for regular tests (and for training) and for an actual emergency (an expected large scale attack on southern or northern Israel.) Politicians demanded that at least one battery be deployed along the Gaza border. But the military sees Hamas and Hezbollah stockpiling larger numbers of longer range rockets. This would enable large numbers of rockets to be fired at military bases. The generals believe it's more important to protect the military forces, who ultimately defend Israel, and that's what Iron Dome will now be used for. Since the military bases are far from the borders, longer range rockets, with longer (than 15 seconds) flight times, would be used. Iron Dome would knock down many of these rockets, as it has already done in tests

[hamboy]

The same text.... I posted this earlier...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2642865/posts

[Jumper]

Someone in my family served as the in-country military office liasion for this project for a year while I was stationed in Tel Aviv. Germany, Japan, the US and Israel all work on their own versions of this system and each independent nation shares data - four different countries making a system better, each doing it thier own way.

If Israel were to lose a military base, by broad definition, Israel would then lose the ability to protect civilians. If it is the objective of the Iranian backed military and para-military to strike at the civilian population, Israel with have at her disposat around 400 nuclear weapons delivered from missiles, subs, artillery and airbore delivery systems. God help the regions form which a civilian strike is launched on Israel, for at that point only God can.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Israel needs to change its rules of engagement. Fight these animals the way the Russians fought the Nazis or the way the Nazis fought civilization. Annihilate them and anyone who stands between them and annihilation.

[SampleMan]

Firing very expensive, guided missiles at relatively small unguided rockets is a loser from the gitgo, unless you are witholding fire on 95% of the incoming rockets.

[EQAndyBuzz]

” Annihilate them and anyone who stands between them and annihilation.”

That’s how liberals feel about us.