Why Do Katyushas Have Free Rides? - The stifling of a promising defense.

National Review Online ^ | August 10, 2006 | Angelo M. Codevilla

[neverdem]

August 10, 2006, 3:16 a.m.

Why Do Katyushas Have Free Rides?
The stifling of a promising defense.

By Angelo M. Codevilla

As thousands of artillery rockets fall on Israel, all too few people know that an excellent device for intercepting them has been available for about seven years, but that Israeli and American officials, who should have known better, decided not to deploy it.

Katyusha rockets from Lebanon have been falling on Kyriat Shemona and in the neighboring vicinity for more than two decades. They are Soviet-army surplus from World War II, when they were known as the “Stalin Organ” because their organ-like launchers used to disgorge them by the thousands. Though not terribly effective against armies, they can make normalcy impossible for civilians. Serious military people have long recognized that protecting northern Israel against them is essential to the country’s survival.

The technical problem in defending against them is simply that their flight time — and especially the time from their appearance over the horizon to their impact — is too short for any normal interceptor to get to them. Moreover, the Katyushas are so cheap and numerous, and individually so ineffective, that even if it were possible to build an interceptor, it wouldn’t be worth deploying it for each rocket. The only force that could destroy the Katyushas in flight would be multi shot, directed energy weapons.

In the 1990s, the makings of such weapons were very much in hand. By 1998, the prototype THEL (Theater High Energy Laser) was blowing up Katyushas in flight at White Sands Proving Grounds, New Mexico, by exploding their warheads with heat. By the following year it was ready to go to Israel.

How that weapon was developed and why it was not deployed is pregnant with lessons as relevant to America as to any other part of the world. THEL was put together with elements that had been developed in the 1980s as parts of the U.S. Space Laser program. Making them into a ground-based weapon actually involved more technical complications than did the space version. For example, the space version of the device’s pointing and tracking system needed to move only a few degrees, because space targets would have been far away. But to track nearby Katyushas, its detectors and software had to move much more, and fast too. The space version relied on the vacuum of space to produce the negative pressures essential to turning chemical combustion into light. But the ground version had to produce vacuum exhausts for each shot. Nevertheless, within about two years, the THEL was …. where it is today, in New Mexico.

The lessons are twofold. First, Israeli and American officials decided not to deploy a workable defense against an obvious, deadly threat because, following the flawed McNamara logic of almost a half century ago, that defense was not “cost effective.” True — it would cost more to defend against Katyushas than to buy and shoot them. But consider the cost of not defending against them: the enemy was able to make a big chunk of the country uninhabitable. This retail wisdom and wholesale stupidity continues to convince U.S. military officials to divert resources from defending the U.S. population against missiles. The various rationales — we can rely on more potent deterrent forces, on “diplomacy,” on new research — have the same result: no missile defense.

Second, the fact that a ground-based version of a space-based laser became a deployable weapon quickly, despite being a bigger technical challenge than the space version, makes clear to all who know the field just how feasible is a defense against those longer range missiles that pose dangers much greater than Katyushas. A few officials of the Bush administration know the facts, and they (privately) regret that George W. Bush and his principal advisers have decided that building space lasers would needlessly upset the Russians and Chinese. Most military officials, who would prefer to spend money on armored Humvees, helicopters, ships, and planes, are not about to argue with their bosses.

And yet it should escape no one that Iran, Syria, and North Korea — not to mention China and Russia — have learned from what has been happening in Israel that a Western country can be hit by ballistic missiles, parts of it can be made uninhabitable, and the West’s retaliation will not aim at undoing those who are responsible for launching the missiles. In short, they have learned that American (never mind European) officials who refuse to build missile defenses are also likely to respond ineffectively to missile attacks.

How different would the Middle East look today if several THEL units were in Israel? How different would the world look if, when Iran has its nuclear-tipped Shahab -4 missiles, the U.S. also had a fleet of space lasers?

—Angelo M Codevilla is professor of international relations at Boston University and the author of While Others Build and Missiles, Defense, and Israel.

[Uncle Miltie]

Katyushas as employed by Hezb'allah constitute War Crimes according to the Geneva Convention.

First, they are not really aimable. They fail the test of a military weapon because you can't really hit any military target reliably. They are only useful against a general area, which happens to be just fine if you are targeting civilians. So, the weapon itself is just about a perfect description of a War Criminal's tool.

Second, Hezb'Allah targets civilian populations, insofar as the darned thing is targetable. That's a War Crime.

Third, Hezb'Allah fires Katyushas from Mosques, apartment buildings, U.N. outposts, etc. Using the civilian poulations as Human Shields is a War Crime.

When will the U.N. hold the War Criminal Nasrallah accountable?

[JamesP81]

I've idly wondered about this. I know that firefinder radar and counter battery artillery fire is the first response to these kinds of attacks, but that method only kills off the jihadists after they've fired the rockets. That's a worthy goal to achieve no doubt, but a katyusha is such a primitive weapon and the US has air defense missiles that are designed to knock down cruise missiles. It seems a laser type weapon would the thing here. I've heard that Britain actually has an air defense weapon based on a laser in service already.

The advantage to a laser instead of a missile for air defense are several. You don't have to run trucks with replacement missiles to it as you use it. The laser beam can't be jammed mid-flight like a missile can. Targeting would be simple too. If you can see it, you can shoot it, and since it's lightspeed you don't even have to worry about leading your target.

[gondramB]

A hundred billion dollar beam based system to defend against cheap disposable short range rockets is a poor substitute for simply not having somebody nearby with the will and ability to shoot them at cities.

[Ancesthntr]

A hundred billion dollar beam based system....

Don't confuse THEL with a system intended to defend against 3,000 Soviet ICBMs. They are 2 different things completely, and the cost of the THEL system is orders of magnitude lower. Besides, as the article pointed out, there are other costs of NOT having THEL - namely, having the economy of northern Israel bascially shut down. Also, there's a cost in the lack of deterrence suffered by Israel, though it is nearly impossible to calculate it.

[gondramB]

I stand corrected on the cost.

My point was that terrorists should not be allowed to camp across the border and lob anything over - Hezbollah needs to be removed from that area.

But I appreciate the cost info - have you seen a dollar figure?

[fso301]

What if a cloud gets in the way?

[ChadGore]

ReL My point was that terrorists should not be allowed to camp across the border and lob anything over

After seeing how bad it can be, I'll never complain about our border again.

[jonrick46]

Bravo! Your post is spot on!

[jonrick46]

The Air Born Laser (ABL) built by Boeing, is not ready for deployment. Once this anti missile system is in the air, any low altitude payload will be vaporized from a high altitude platform. Such a platform will be above any cloud layer which would shield missiles from land based lasers.

We are in slow the clock mode when we can pull out our ace card, the ABL. Patience folks.

[michigander]

Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser

[Rummenigge]

The THEL project has been put asleep because the guys failed to target a multi missile threat.

The extreme costs, the necessary handling of poisonous substances operating it and the size of that thing have toppled the project.

Next direct energy weapon projekt please !

[GarySpFc]

They are Soviet-army surplus from World War II, when they were known as the “Stalin Organ” because their organ-like launchers used to disgorge them by the thousands.

WRONG! The Soviets were the first to use Kaytusha's as a response to German artillery in WWII. However, the rockets hitting Israel are not Russian. Kaytushas are low tech, and produced in over 20 countries including the US, Syria and Iran. The Kaytushas hitting Israel are Syrian.

[EQAndyBuzz]

The solution is not in an anti-rocket system. The solution is in deterrence an is, you lob a rocket at our city, we will destroy a city block.

The fact that the Israeli's aren't following a deterrence principle is the reason the rockets are still firing.

If Israel decided to pick a block in Beirut and level it and for each rocket level a block, the Lebanese will very quickly tell the Hezzies to stop.

[Rummenigge]

hmmm sorry but ... no.

You don't kill hizbullys with a firefinder and counter artillery. you just kill the empty casing of the katyushas. They can be operated very quick, with a long wire and by one person.

And fireing patriots worth multiple millions on katyushas is certainly loosing the war.

THEL against katyushas is completely out of the question. Fielding ONE THEL cost millions. It can take out one missile or artillery grenade in a swarm, the others will go to the target. Fielding some THELS but still not enough of them would meen to invest billions to keep missiles away for lets say some 10000 of dollars ans still not all of them.

You have to go there and slap these guys with 9mm rounds from 2 feet away. No better way in the near future (famous words of persons overtaken by technology I know)

Build a terminator.

[webboy45]

Chemical lasers are slow to reload. They could be defeated by sending several rockets at the same time. One gets fried, but the others get through.

[Rummenigge]

Naive too. Hizbollah get's all the help it needs from syria.

It was equally effective to bomb the moon one bit after the other - you need to bomb hizbollah to fight hizbollah.

[SJSAMPLE]

Can the ABL detect and engage rockets that don't acheive any signigicant altitude? I doubt it. Picking a single Katusha from ground clutter would be problematic, at best.

The ABL is designed to engage ballistic missiles in the boost phase, and I've seen demonstrations of a precursor system against cruise and anti-ship missiles, but I doubt it would have the time to detect, track and engage Katusha rockets in flight. Especially when launched in volley.

[michigander]

More info here: Tracking the MTHEL Laser