How do Israel and the world deal with the scourge of ballistic missiles?
When I had a project at 3M many years ago, I heard some of the engineers there talking about the “problem of the last mile.” I asked them what they meant. This was in the days of AOl, well before AOC. They said that it did not matter how fast internet or telephone cables on the outside are; the slowest part of the system is that from the house wall to the phone and it determines the overall speed. This problem is true of many systems, where one component reduces the overall performance of the whole.
In 1937, Guernica, Spain, became the first town intentionally attacked with a massive aerial bombing raid. The Spanish Civil War was used by the various sides to hone their methods and skills that eventually were put to use a few years later in World War II. The Luftwaffe performed aerial saturation bombing of the Spanish city, marking the first time that a civilian population was bombed from the air. The Germans would continue with these methods over other European cities, and they added V1 buzz bombs and V2 ballistic missiles to add new means for murdering civilians. The V1 was the first cruise missile, while the V2 was the father of all ballistic missiles to follow.
In World War II, there was absolutely no way to protect against a V2 rocket. The most that the Allies could do was lie about its landing position, so that the Nazis would either shorten or lengthen the path and miss London or similar targets. We still live in the age of the ballistic missile against civilians. I have not heard the International Criminal Court threaten Iran over its intentional targeting of Israeli civilians. Maybe they hope that the Iranians will kill the Israeli leadership and save them from having to continue the prosecution/persecution of Bibi Netanyahu and his lieutenants.
The expression from World War II, “The bomber will always get through” can be adapted to the ballistic missile that will almost always get through. After a few days of Iranian salvos, Israel is facing around 20 dead, hundreds wounded and many buildings destroyed and damaged. Sure, the Iranians have received a massive hit from the Israeli Air Force, but that does not make one who lost his home necessarily feel much better. Is there anything that can be done to end the threat of death from above, first experienced in northern Spain nearly 90 years ago?
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Israel has been very aggressive in working to prevent ballistic missile carnage. They have been fairly successful with low-speed drones, which are being knocked down by Israel and other countries at nearly 100 percent before arriving in Israel proper. Planes, helicopters, ships, and other drones have been employed to down long-distance Iranian drones. As to the ballistic missile threat, Israel employs all of the following:
*Destroy missile production facilities
*Destroy missile storage facilities
*Destroy missiles prior to firing
*Destroy launchers that are key to firing
*Kill soldiers on their way to firing missiles
*Identify and track launches from the first seconds of flight
*Employ multiple anti-missile systems like Arrow and THAAD to destroy missiles in flight
*Warn the home front as early as possible with regard to incoming missiles
If an Iranian ballistic missile gets airborne and heads to Israel, then the relevant anti-missile systems will attempt to destroy the missile during flight. For the few missiles that get through the anti-missile interceptors, the final step is impact and explosion. I think that those directly involved in anti-missile defense would claim that their systems are 90 percent successful. In truth, most missiles are neutralized, but in every recent attack a handful of missiles have gotten through and caused massive damage as well as loss of life.
It has been noted that nobody who followed the instructions of Home Front Command has been killed or seriously injured. One always must be cautious about drawing conclusions from only a handful of data points. We’re talking 3-4 days of incoming missiles. But the bottom line is that some projectile apparently will likely get through. Their speeds are so high that a Phalanx-type Gatling gun would be too slow and too late in order to destroy the speeding warhead. Apparently, the only solution to the few explosive projectiles that get through is to protect the population as best as humanly possible. A recent video shows people filming an attack, until a missile explodes near them—and then there are screams and cries for help. Buildings can be rebuilt, and most infrastructure can be replaced. Look at Hiroshima today—it looks like a beautiful city. The dead are irreplaceable and the wounded may spend a lifetime with their injuries. It looks awful when one sees a ten-story apartment building completely mangled and unusable. But in three years, it will be new and look better than it ever did.
The one thing that Israel and other countries can do in the face of rockets and missiles and with the assumption that there is no 100 percent “Golden Dome” system today is to maximize protection for their citizens. Many of those killed on October 7, 2023, were murdered in their reinforced rooms. Hamas started with a massive rocket barrage, and those rooms were built to withstand their salvos. The terrorists entered the towns and kibbutzim and found the locals still in these rooms when they murdered them in cold blood.
It would be both technically and intellectually satisfying to find a cure to the “missile that gets through,” but I don’t know if it exists. Final warhead speed is in the low Mach numbers and the amount of time to respond after the efforts of Arrow, THAAD, David’s Sling, and Iron Dome is a second or two, max. When I was a youngin, I remember bomb shelters everywhere. It was assumed that the Soviets would try to destroy the U.S., so nuclear-proof bomb shelters were found all over. I would imagine that if you asked Americans on the street anywhere in the country today where their nearest bomb shelter was, they would laugh at you. They wouldn’t understand why they would need one, and they would also say they wouldn’t have a clue where it might be. Israelis currently do not have such a luxury. Since the Hamas and Houthi attacks, Israelis have had to know where to go when there is an attack. No system is perfect. Those who are driving are instructed to stop and lie on the road next to their cars. That arrangement cannot be as good as being in a metal-reinforced room two floors underground, but that’s what people have.
There is no question that the U.S.-Israel Arrow 2/3 and American THAAD and Patriot systems are amazing in dealing with fast-moving ballistic missiles. And while there will always be improvements, they will not be perfect. One of the explanations for the Iranians attacking almost exclusively at night is that they need open spaces to add liquid oxygen to their missiles prior to launch. Israel has been aggressive in attacking missiles on the ground, but still in every attack a few missiles get through. The solution in 2025 apparently is to get the population as protected as possible. Maybe it’s not high tech, but apparently it might work best.
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