Posted on 08/10/2006 8:33:13 AM PDT by neverdem
Are you under the impression the Hezzies will listen?
I would also point out this technique has been tried before. By the Nazis.
it hits it targets... but to few. You can't kill a swarm the salvos are far to slow and can't be optimized with the particular system to generate the high energy laser pulse.
a bit harsh but accurate.
The real reason this particular defense hasn't been fielded against them is that it is very difficult to kill a short-range unguided rocket with a laser. You compromise the hull of a ballistic missile and the thing breaks up. One of these guys just flies a little more raggedy and still hits the ground and detonates - it wasn't guided in the first place so accuracy isn't an issue.
Maybe when Ehud Olmert gets the ax.. that might happen..
IIRC, the THEL is a chemical laser, and it takes time in between "shots" to re-charge. So even if it could do the job, you'd be deploying a multi-billion dollar weapon to shoot down one or two rockets in a barrage of twelve or more. Doesn't make much sense to me.
First, there are four Geneva Conventions, not one.
Yes, the way Hizbollah is using the Katyusahas against civilian targets to terrorize the population of Israel is a war crime, you can be certain that the U(seless) N(ations) will not have Hassan Nazrallah tried as a war criminal. Let's hope Isreal captures him, tries him as a war criminal, places a 8 foot rope around his neck with the other end firmly attached to a 16 foot yard arm over a platform with a trap door that will drop him into a pen with wild boars. (That by the way, is not a war crime.)
It's a corollary to the rationalization that we use in holding other terrorists at Club Gitmo. These "people" will use that in their defense so long as it justifies their mission and as long as they don't get caught.
While this is true, you also need a reason to have hezbolla stop. This requires taking action to force the sponsors into abandoning their agenda.
So far Israel hasn't done that.
Not to mention the ball bearing packed anti-person warheads. Oh, that's right, the MSM does not mention...
The Soviet designation for the weapon was the BM-22. I've seen WW2 film of them in action and used them in war games (Korsun Pocket, etc.).
The way it works is that you line the launchers up hubcap to hubcap and hose down a grid square at a time with HE, repeat as necessary.
Among other things I was an FDC computer (slip sticks and field phones) for 8" howitzers. .
While the M110A2 8' SP was truly impressive I thought the US should have fielded a weapon similar to the Katyusha ("Little Kate" btw) for use on the battlefields we expected to operate on during the Cold War, ie., Korea or the Central Front in Europe. They're cheap and reliable and with enough of them you can really bring smoke on the target.
The Hezbollah, being terrorists are employing them as terror weapons, having zero military utility. Don't know the solution other than what the Israelis are already doing.
Carpet bomb the launch sights wholesale and/or go in and dig them out retail and leave a sea of heads on sticks?
aarrgh, that was 8", NOT 8'!
High volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel. also
2006israelwar or WOT
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And here I thought Israel could easily defend against them, but was allowing them to fall so she could continue to murder Lebanese civilians. Guess I can't believe what I read in the papers.
As opposed to the pro-person warheads....
;-)
(Just kidding!!!!)
I couldn't agree more, and I've been perplexed and ticked off that Olmert hasn't ordered the IDF to do this already. This could - and should - have been done with about 50,000 men and several hundred tanks, along with air- and sea-borne assaults in about a week or two at the very beginning of this mess. We should be talking now about the aftermath of the Israeli-Hezbollah war, not its status as an ongoing thing.
But I appreciate the cost info - have you seen a dollar figure?
I've got no firm numbers, but I suspect something in the range of several hundred million to a couple of billion from concept to the fielding of several batteries.
Small, volley launched rockets with a very short Time of Flight are very hard to defend against. The only real tactic would be to locate and target them during setup.
Think of the milimeter wave radar on the AH-64D Longbow Apache. If it could detect, classify and target these things in relatively short order, they could be engaged as they're loaded and emplaced. The problem is that the Longbow's range would put it in harms way. Something like a JSTARS radar platform might do the job.
Don't for get MLRS, in both the HEAVY SPL and the lighter HIMARS versions.
Six or twelve rockets with hundreds of bomblets EACH.
One 12-rocket volley can take out an entire grid square.
Not as cheap as our Eastern counterpart systems, but much more accurate and deadly.
Correct.
The real solution is to destroy the attackers and the civilian populations until they quiver at the sound of a jet engine.
A "civil" war does not work with an "uncivil" enemy.
Ask the Brits about the Colonial irregulars.
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