 You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
^^ Lol, yes.
Â
All done with the power of asterisks?
My money's on Triffids.
I thought it would probably be more fungi than a large carnivorous flower that does many of us in.
Â
 'The Day of the Truffles'.
The other problem is that you have to fire six missiles at every long-range missile to destroy its six (or however many) multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRV). Like it says on the warhead; six segments, six different targets.
Well exactly. As far as I can remember protocol for nuclear war was based upon how quickly you can detect an attack and launch a counter offensive to take out as many of your enemies major cities as possible, if not the aggressor! Interception after launch was pretty much impossible. Hence why NATO forces were/are keen on closely tracking/shadowing the movements of Soviet/Russian and probably Chinese missile boats.
I haven't kept up with the latest missile tech but Starwars/Iron Dome/whatever used to be a fantasy/propaganda move. Intercepting and shooting down missiles over an entire country is a very difficult and horrendously expensive thing to do. As an example the famous and much vaunted Patriot missile batteries shot down the sum total of **** all when pitted against 60/70's soviet missile technology. Shipbourne anti missile systems have proved to be pretty ineffective against missile attack, other than taking out the launching platform before it's had chance to fire, keeping out of range or not being detected in the first place.
As an example the famous and much vaunted Patriot missile batteries shot down the sum total of **** all when pitted against 60/70's soviet missile technology.
Missile defence technology designed in the 70's wasn't very good shocker...PAC3 updates of the Patriot has improved it's record since the 90's when it was deployed in Desert Storm, in Ukraine for example it's shot down aircraft 100 miles away (In May 2023 the Ukrainians claimed four aircraft - possibly five shot down in one engagement) and detected and shot down ballistic missiles over 130 miles away. Patriot has it's faults - like any defence system, but otherwise it wouldn't have been purchased by armed forces all over the world. Greece, Japan, Netherlands, Poland and (unsurprisingly) most of the middle east for example. In think in popular media some weapons are seen as failures. Patriot, the F35 for instance, have gotten a rep for being not very good because 'reasons'
@nickc - Despite me using the word missile several times and specifying missile defense and attack, in typical STW style you have chosen to talk about aircraft! Which missiles have a much higher success rate at shooting down. Hence why they are sold as air defense systems, not solely missile defense. Success rates against missiles, in reality isn't as good as manufactures/governments would like you to believe.
We have just had demonstration of how effective missile attacks are at hitting multiple targets in Israel. A country bristling with American supplied air defense systems. Iran didn't seem to have any problems hitting the targets with their missiles. I reiterate what I was saying, defending an entire country from missile attack is very hard to do.
have gotten a rep for being not very good because 'reasons'
Not reasons. Because they are no where near as effective as claimed in reality. Don't believe me look it up. In the Gulf war most of the scuds missiles failed to reach there targets running out of fuel and/or the warhead not detonating. They weren't blasted out of the sky like shooting fish in a barrel.
in typical STW style you have chosen to talk about aircraft!
and shot down ballistic missiles over 130 miles away.
Apart from that bit where I talked about missiles...
In the Gulf war most of the scuds missiles failed to reach there targets running out of fuel and/or the warhead not detonating. They weren't blasted out of the sky like shooting fish in a barrel.
Re-read my post. Patriot was designed in the 70's, since the the Gulf War- it's first deployment, it has been constantly updated and upgraded. The Gulf War was 0ver 30 years ago. the thing called the Patriot back then which wasn't nearly as good as they expected it to be, is not the same thing that is called Patriot now.Â
Â
Not reasons. Because they are no where near as effective as claimed in reality. Don't believe me look it up. In the Gulf war most of the scuds missiles failed to reach there targets running out of fuel and/or the warhead not detonating. They weren't blasted out of the sky like shooting fish in a barrel.
is not the same thing that is called Patriot now.
I don't think that there's any doubt that Patriot is much better now having undergone umpteen upgrades in software, radar arrays, the missiles, etc
Yes, as I understand it, the lethality of all guided missiles has increased massively in the last 20 years because the processing power of modern hardware and software is so much better. They are much better at discriminating real targets from decoys and can identify the type of target and the optimum spot to hit aircraft, ships, armored vehicles, etc. The Sidewinder missile, for example, dates back 70 years but the modern ones are essentially a completely different thing than the original.
@nickc - At this point you are arguing with yourself and inferring things which haven't been said.
It goes without saying technology advances. At no point have I stated missile development is static.
How would you rate the efficacy of the Iron Dome on a scale of 1-10? 10 being perfect no missiles destroyed/damaged there targets and 1 being every target was destroyed.
Should be called the Tin Colander. To quote myself again
Intercepting and shooting down missiles over an entire country is a very difficult and horrendously expensive thing to do
Iron dome is meant for shooting down low teach cheap drones only. Â
Trying stopping any hypersonic missiles that can easily go beyond mach 5.Â
How would you rate the efficacy of the Iron Dome on a scale of 1-10? 10 being perfect no missiles destroyed/damaged there targets and 1 being every target was destroyed.
It's estimated more than 500 missiles were fired at Israel. The number I've seen that actually hit is 36. That's an interception rate of over 90%, so I'd go with 9+/10 efficacy (for the entire missile defence thing, not just Iron Dome - as chewkw says that's really just for small rockets a la Hamas.)
For an idea of how fast some of them were moving, I found this video that claims to be from Tel Aviv:
I watched some of the exoatmospheric interceptions from my vantage point in the Mediterranean and they were a) technologically very impressive and b) oddly beautiful, almost like those deep sea luminous jellyfish.
Â
Â
That's an interception rate of over 90%, so I'd go with 9+/10 efficacy
That's a bit of a misleading number unless you know how many missiles were fired by Israel:
1 Israel :1 Iran, that's a good performance and maintains missile stocks
3:1 less so
Hopefully a less mangled link from above too (apologies)
Patriot reports-early days
This site is so frustrating, I now can't get at the post to edit the still not working link
@TheFlyingOx - Yeah I've seen the footage and it's a spirted defense from the most heavily defended airspace in the world.
That's great and all, but if all the targets were hit (we might never know the answer to this) and hit by missiles that are some way behind the best offensive systems available. In a short period of time for a war i.e. 12 days, so we haven't got into any of the problems of attrition. Not only would I not be so hasty to give it a 9, it doesn't bode well for defending an entire country (not just a capital city) with a headline grabbing tech nerd spaffing Golden Dome. I can see it going the same way as Reagan's Starwars when it butts up against reality and maintaining some kind efficacy to justify the cost. I'm sure there will be some impressive technical demonstrations that come from it, but colour me sceptical if it ever gets scaled up and delivered. Even by one of the richest counties on earth! If it's anything to do with that bullshitter Trump it will no doubt be delivered on time, under budget and will be greatest!
Â
Try stopping any hypersonic missiles
Well there is that and whatever developments come in the future.
Â
Trying stopping any hypersonic missiles that can easily go beyond mach 5.Â
the Iranian system; Fattah-1 has dubious hypersonic capability, and the Chinese DF-ZF and KF-21 are both anti shipping weapons, and have their own accuracy issues anyway fall outside the scope and capability of a land based "dome" protection systemÂ
but if all targets were hit
From what I saw Iran didn't really have any real targetting capability beyond "we'll aim at this point and if anything hits within a 2 mile radius we'll call that a success".
And regarding attrition, it's OK pouring all your money into missile production and having 10,000 ready to go at a moment's notice but if you have effectively zero air defense, don't control your own airspace and your launch capacity is absolutely crippled to the point you can only manage to fire off less than 5 at a time, then I don't really think attrition comes into it.
Â
And yet they scored direct hits to specific things like the Mossad HQ. As neither of us have any contacts in the Iranian government we will never know what was targeted.
They also scored direct hits apartment blocks, schools, a hospital and other non-military targets. I'm giving Iran the benefit of the doubt that these things weren't deliberately targetted, hence my comment above. Mossad HQ and potentially the refinery in Haifa were legitimate targets, but I think the fact they were hit was a result of luck rather than ability.