Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Report: Israeli Spy Satellites Spot Iranian Ship Being Loaded With Rockets For Gaza
HAARETZ ^ | November 25, 2012

Posted on 11/25/2012 6:52:11 AM PST by Strategy

Israeli spy satellites have spotted an Iranian ship being loaded with missiles that analysts say may be headed for Gaza, The Sunday Times reported.

According to the report, the cargo may include Fajr-5 rockets, like those that were fired by Hamas toward Israel and the stockpiles of which the Israel Defense Forces depleted during the recent round of fighting across the Gaza border, in addition to Shahab-3 ballistic missiles, which could be stationed in Sudan to pose a direct threat to Israel.

"With a lot of effort, Iran has skillfully built a strategic arm pointing at Israel from the south," an Israeli source was quoted as saying.

The cargo would travel via the Red Sea, Sudan and Egypt, following a well-established route used by Iran to smuggle arms into Gaza, the Times reported.

"We believe that Iranian warships anchored in Eritrea will accompany the weapons ship as soon as it enters the Red Sea," an Israeli source told the Times.

(Excerpt) Read more at haaretz.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Israel
KEYWORDS: bombbombbombbombiran; evilislam; iran; islam; israel; middleeast; missiles; mullahcracy; notbreakingnews; obama; russia; sudan; suezcanal; turkey; wagnergroup
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-72 last
To: Carry_Okie

“There’s more to logistics in religious wars and geopolitics than running factories, or hand waving. “

We’ll see who’s right. You seem awfully sure of yourself versus decision makers in Israel.


61 posted on 11/25/2012 2:05:12 PM PST by BobL (You can live each day only once. You can waste a few, but don't waste too many.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 59 | View Replies]

To: Carry_Okie

By the way, I knew another clown that considered himself to be an ABSOLUTE EXPERT in anti-missile technology, probably worked at your place in MA (who knows, maybe you).

This person told me in the 1980s that there was NO WAY that the United States could design an effective anti-missile system. Just not possible. Absolutely impossible. Stupid to spend one dollar attempting it. Total waste of money. Would not do this country a bit of good.

Obviously that person was also CLUELESS as the point of the system was not to shoot down missiles but to provide a CREDIBLE case that we would not be pushed around by the Soviets - and it worked, and the Soviets folded - in large part because that particular person stayed up there in MA and wasn’t involved in policy making (thank God).

I simply have a problem with people that purport themselves to know everything simply because of their little niche in their career field. I have to work with people like that - they’re always second-guess management decisions, not because they have the same information as management, but because they DON’T.

Iron Dome, along with the rest of the Israeli defensive systems, may or may not prove itself capable of defeating the threat from their neighbors, but I REALLY, REALLY, doubt anyone in this country knows enough to make that call with certainty.


62 posted on 11/25/2012 2:15:18 PM PST by BobL (You can live each day only once. You can waste a few, but don't waste too many.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 59 | View Replies]

To: dervish; JRandomFreeper

Thanks from me too. Last night I read about Israel’s running out of ammo for the system, something like that, good to see the opposite.


63 posted on 11/25/2012 2:49:58 PM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: Strategy

Wagering that North Korea is also involved in some way with either production or transhipments. They are all allied in a deal with the devil.


64 posted on 11/25/2012 6:08:55 PM PST by AmericanInTokyo (*Too many* damned conservatives in the GOP primaries split the vote for Romney. We are SO retarded!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Bobalu
Japan, too, because of Obama, is relying less and less on American payloads for satellite imaging or communiation monitoring intelligence launches. This is all do to the increasing unreliability of their ally, the United States, sad to say. They are launching their own operational espionage satellites (with ELINT, SIGNIT and other capabilities) from Tanegashima Island so the intelligence goes straight from the Japanese satellite (about the appropriate Chinese or North Korean provocation) directly to the Japan Prime Minister's Emergency Council, thus bypassing the United States.

You all put two and two together.


65 posted on 11/25/2012 6:13:36 PM PST by AmericanInTokyo (*Too many* damned conservatives in the GOP primaries split the vote for Romney. We are SO retarded!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: BobL
I simply have a problem with people that purport themselves to know everything simply because of their little niche in their career field.

Little eh? I've done R&D, scale up, permitting, full construction project management, and manufacturing engineering in both military and medical markets. In the former, I've made control electronics for both radar systems and power systems for missile actuators (HARM, AMRAAM, and others). I've done both high-end customs and mass production. Simply because I think that the Iron Dome is unsustainable, you go berserk:

Israel will have NO PROBLEM shooting down as many as needed.

This is already shown to be false. The Palis have figured out that if they fire their missiles in salvos the Iron Dome cannot target them all simultaneously.

I don't claim to be an expert. I do know that these Iron Dome missiles are expensive. RAFAEL Advanced defense Systems, producer of the Tamir rocket used in the system estimates their current cost at $50,000 per unit and their steady state cost at $25,000 per unit. Nor is that the total cost of a deployed unit, for which one must add the radar systems, software people, the entire logistical support chain, transportation, and crew maintenance. When you're fighting rockets that cost $1,000 a copy to produce (with additional costs to deploy), and an "army" of thugs amid stratospheric unemployment, it looks like an expensive means of defense.

I also know why they are expensive, because to produce silicon with the properties needed for the frequencies necessary for sufficient target resolution reliably and repeatably is very difficult while gallium arsenide chips are prohibitively expensive because of the air bridges necessary (they're really fragile in assembly). Because of the frequencies, very fine wire (half mil) with very small target pads are used, making automated wire bonding difficult. It's just reality. Fast signal processors and precise actuators with which to respond to control signals are expensive. To reduce costs requires precision to enable open loop control. Precision is expensive. It takes time and money to get the process down because one needs to run sufficient samples to learn where the control variables are and what their acceptable ranges might be. It's just reality. All of that constitutes development costs (contrary to the wishful thinking of both R&D people and management). So while the "true R&D" is usually considered a sunk cost, so is scale up. Yet the life cycle of such products is so short, one seldom gets to the point that sunk costs become negligible. Nor do the cost analyses I see consider the cost of maintaining the batteries during "wait time" as part of the delivered cost per unit. No matter what, it won't be cheap. Nor am I the only engineer who has said so on this thread.

I offered what I know because I feel the responsibility to do so having had that experience, not because I am taking a position. It is a common practice on FR among the professionals here and one of its more valuable attributes. I think you have a problem with people you fear might know more about this than you do. I can't help that.

66 posted on 11/25/2012 6:55:56 PM PST by Carry_Okie (The Slave Party: advancing indenture since 1787.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 62 | View Replies]

To: baddog 219

It’s harder to control a drone underwater. It would have to be autonomous with real good programming. Don’t want it to attack a cruise ship loaded with fun tourists.


67 posted on 11/25/2012 7:24:35 PM PST by USAF80
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: baddog 219

It’s harder to control a drone underwater. It would have to be autonomous with real good programming. Don’t want it to attack a cruise ship loaded with tourists.


68 posted on 11/25/2012 7:25:22 PM PST by USAF80
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Carry_Okie
The defense system may be expensive but when they get low I am sure they will find another less expensive way to deal with the problem. It is good to get practice for other bigger Iranian missiles.
69 posted on 11/25/2012 8:33:08 PM PST by Dennis M.
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 66 | View Replies]

To: Dennis M.
The defense system may be expensive but when they get low I am sure they will find another less expensive way to deal with the problem. It is good to get practice for other bigger Iranian missiles.

I am not criticizing Israel for using the system. Yes, it is obvious that there are benefits to learning from the system vis a vis developing capabilities to be applied against theater missiles from Iran. Yet these things can be a diversion too as financial resources become strained. So I hope that one outcome is more precise projection of final landing points so that the decision re when to fire or not becomes more refined. I love it when the enemy wastes their ammo.

70 posted on 11/25/2012 8:54:42 PM PST by Carry_Okie (The Slave Party: advancing indenture since 1787.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 69 | View Replies]

To: FreeAtlanta
Israel needs to figure out how to detonate some of those rockets without leaving evidence they did it.

WHY?

They'd get blamed anyway!

71 posted on 11/26/2012 4:02:07 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Carry_Okie

Fire and forget is as simple as it gets and a lot cheaper than having to use ones that have to have all the tracking gear to chase and destroy. Too bad a system like a “phalanx” can’t be used to fill the airspace with depleted (OMG!) uranium. But probably lots of “innocent” casualties when the rounds come down. Pound per pound, the F&F are pennies on the dollar vs mucho dollars for the Iron Dome.


72 posted on 11/26/2012 7:48:02 AM PST by rktman
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-72 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson