Sheer number of missiles also can overwhelm anti-missile missiles. The only way to defend against something like this is with energy weapons that don't have physical ammo to run out of.
Even then there'll be similar upper limits in terms of overwhelming the system, Israel has all the munitions it needs for the iron dome, you just simply can't be everywhere at once.
Probably they prefer to not intercept missiles that go to low populated areas because they are less likely to kill people and prefer to use them to intercept ones that go to the city . I don't think its a monetary issue... they get the money from US government
I mean hey you can't pick and choose every battle, right? Just reality if you're getting shot at all day every day like this. There will be some compromise
They ran out of missiles a decade or so ago during one of the flare ups, so they definitely have the stockpile. They've got about 500 missiles they can fire at a time across the entire system, and once the launcher is dry it takes an hour or two to reload the launch systems.
Even then you better hope your capacitor banks, batteries, and generators are able to keep up. And even THEN it's like any TD game - enough enemy targets can still overwhelm defenses.
You know we kid, but folks in position of power like her have information we don't. For all we know there was a proposal ect for such project that this beast caught a whiff of. Then used it for their fascist propaganda.
I watched live coverage from Tel Aviv. It was very clear that these missiles got through by sheer numbers. Dozens of interceptions were caught on one feed. Israel probably prioritized intercepting missiles with the most concerning trajectories.
We do. However we have convinced half the population that poor people don't deserve it. Single Payer would cost less than our current system but fuck the poor.
Haven't you thought about the ruling class, who are banking on idiots without critical thinking skills supporting them and the rest being enslaved to job health insurance, so they sit still and don't kick up a fuss?
Good news, you guys spend more per capita in public money on healthcare than pretty much every other country on earth, including all those western democracies with their communist "free" healthcare
This money already comes from the allocated military budget. It's meant for military spending regardless of use. Stopping military aid to Israel doesn't mean that money is suddenly freed up for nonmilitary spending.
Not directly, but if we didn't feel any obligation to funding Israel's defense we wouldnt have to dump that much more money into our defense budget. That would in theory free it up for better uses.
That said even if we weren't funding Israel our political environment ensures that money will almost certainly go to nothing the citizens would benefit from
It's a shame I'm being downvoted because there is a lot of nuance that goes into our national budget that people don't generally understand or care about.
Anyway, I completely understand the sentiment, but I think it's an important distinction that people should be aware of. If you want more nonmilitary spending, you have to advocate for a general decrease in the military budget. Stopping funding to Israel just means the military gets the money back to do other things with.
If we didn't provide support to Ukraine, the outcome would be disastrous for the rest of the region, and probably the world. If we stopped providing support to Israel, a guy goes to jail, and they have to learn diplomacy.
Alaska probably wouldn’t be contained considering the cost of bringing it out there and the lack of important military targets. It would likely be on a smaller scale protecting important government and infrastructure targets, as opposed to a country wide “dome”
Fun fact: if we had the same military policies as Israel, everyone would have free college. Aka the GI Bill. Serve your country = free college. But you want free college WITHOUT the mandatory service that you conveniently left out.
Oh. And you left out the fact that the ultra religious people don't have to serve either. It's almost as if reddit comments aren't all inclusive of every detail.
If you think the most discriminate and targeted strike in history against an army that's been firing rockets at you non stop for a year is escalating, then you just think nothing Israel does is ever justified.
Please stop. You can't arbitrarily draw a line a year back. Israel created Hamas by cultivating conditions in Gaza for decades. Yeah yeah Hamas is evil and all that - I don't disagree. But Israel brought it upon themselves, and they continue to.
And it also boosts the US economy and military prowess.
Everyone on here likes to post about the US tax payer money. Those same people don’t like to talk about 1) the technology in creating these systems Israel shares with the US in conjunction with US companies.
It’s also a defense system - if you think was Israel has shown so far is over the top, imagine what it would be if they didn’t have this system, and the thousands of rockets hezballah has been launching since October 8, before Israel even responded in Gaza, were all impacting.
Further- this money is given in grants. Grants whose funds MUST be used purchasing US military equipment and services.
It’s literally like Costco giving their shoppers Costco only coupons.
You're explaining this to a bunch of troglodytes who think their 20 minutes of tiktok is worth more than years of education and experience by generals, economists, foreign policy experts, etc etc.
Not to say American is perfect, or our handling of the Middle East. But the 'solutions' people purpose here are just laughably bad and uniformed.
They should pay for the missles they use. They can afford it and the main reason is that Israel has more influence than they should in the us government, so we guve them what they want.
Why can't they pay for the weapons we make and share intel since we are allies? Why do they also require us to fork over billions of dollars to them?
It's not like Ukraine where they are a clear underdog against our adversary.
They’re not the underdog because they have these specific systems.
You can ask the questions you asked the other way around- why should Israel give away their technology for “free” and not charge for it? You can also ask the same questions about the aid to places like Egypt too
Creating stipulations like these is what forms a successful partnership. It’s a stimulus to spark more spending. Check out what Israel does use their own money for domestically. It’s not like that doesn’t exist either
My main point though was you can take issue with the aid. I might disagree with it but I could understand the why. What that doesn’t change is that this aid. And foreign aid in general, is not the reason we ignore domestic issues like healthcare and education. We do that out of corporate greed
US aid is less than 15% of Israeli military spending so.... they do? The other 85+%?
We give them aid because they are the only reliable, stable, democratic ally in the region. We have a vested interest in their survival, despite how messy things are right now it is not unreasonable to think things in the Middle East would be 50x worse without Israel, and that Americans would be worse off because of said instability.
If Costco gave you a $10 coupon or shit even a free item, people are going to spend a lot more in addition to it and provide Costco with critical help that is invaluable in terms of $.
In 2022 us exports to Israel were as follows:
Iof $14.2 billion in U.S. exports to Israel, the top commodity sectors were Stone, Glass, Metals, Pearls (28.0% of the total exports to the country), Machinery and Mechanical Appliances (27.1% of such total), and Chemicals, Plastics, Rubber, Leather Goods (12.7% of such total).
The point also wasn’t that it doesn’t cost us $. It of course does lol. Just pointing out the benefits and that it’s simply
Not as simple as “we just give them money. Nothing else to see here “
Yeah, the air defense missiles are like a free appetizer at a Michelin starred restaurant charging $300 per plate, given what they're paying companies like Lockheed to acquire the F-35.
There is a fundamental difference between understanding something and defending it. I feel like Reddit in general either doesn't get that or dismisses the idea as unfun because Redditors like to argue.
Yeah I'm not happy with the genocide in Gaza but these are missiles hitting residential areas, I'm happy they are being shot down. Bombing Israeli families is as bad as bombing Palestinian families
You are acting as if America is generously giving the money to Israel. They are donating the money by funding their defense companies which manufacture arms and missiles which they give to Israel, hence enriching shady companies/people
... while also employing Americans who pay income tax, and preventing large numbers of civilian casualties that would likely trigger a far more costly ground war that America would be dragged into.
Just keep in mind this is mostly a ballistic missile attack - Iron Dome is designed to counter rockets. The iron dome might intercept one or two ballistic missiles on re-entry, but it's going to be Israel's "David's sling" and "arrow" systems that would largely be countering this.
This won't have been Iron Dome. ID is for the cheap pipe rocket shit they throw over from Gaza. Slow, predictable flight paths, 15km range. This will be Sling or the Arrow defence system, probably the latter as it's the only ground based defence that's got half a chance of keeping up with a ballistic missile.
I suspect the interceptions that have happened have been coordinated from the air (either tracked by aircraft radar and relayed to launchers or actively engaged by aircraft), probably over Jordan.
No, Iron Dome has just reached the public imagination more and become a catch all term more because it's much more obvious when it's doing things (the fireworks displays you get at night).
But ID and arrow have two very different, distinct roles and use entirely different systems to operate. ID is the name for a distinct system dealing with short ranged threats, Aegis is actually much closer to what Arrow is - pure anti ballistic missile defence.
I don't want to be "that" guy but Iron Dome has little relevance here. Iron Dome is a system designed to shoot down slow little short range rockets and stuff like that. It's mostly used to shoot down portable rockets fired from near the border. What we saw today was a barrage of ballistic missiles. Iron Dome isn't capable or designed to deal with ballistic missiles like these ones. Israel has a handful of other system, David's Sling and one other I can't remember the name of, that are used for missile defense.
Long range ballistic missile interception is a whole new ball game compared to the kind of stuff iron dome can intercept. The math stops working very quickly if you want to reliably shoot down long range missiles at the scale Iran is capable of.
Yeah, they already have a system for long-range ballistic missiles, the Arrow system. Israel employ a multi-layered system for short, medium and long-range missiles.
Iron Dome is not intended for long-range ballistic missiles, they're solely for short range.
It has long been reported that the fear is that if Iran and Hezbollah go all out then they will overwhelm the dome. Iran's last attack was communicated ahead of time to more or less guarantee that it was symbolic because Israel et al had a good chance at shooting them all down. Things have become much more spicy since then. Tehran presumably aren't telegraphing and limiting their attacks now.
Thanks, not entirely AI, I'm a defense nerd so I already knew the iron dome wasn't meant for ballistic missiles. I did use chat gpt to help me grab some good sources to make sure I verified before I posted, though.
Building on what the other person said, didn't the earlier strike from Iran take 1 or more hours to arrive after launch, vs these ballistic missiles that arrived in minutes. Very different systems indeed
They're expensive enough as is though. And it's not like Lebanon has a wealth of secure launch sites to host big decoy batteries. If they have a secure place to store and launch missiles, they're going to use it to store and launch missiles.
I mean honestly that's not all that impressive. These missiles are capable of targetting city blocks with CEP's above 50m, most major powers were capable of doing that with intercontinental shots before 1970, so SRBM's capable of it aren't exactly groundbreaking air and space evolutions.
I am not sure if the videos on X are from this event but if its from this event Israël is obviously not capable of shooting them.
You can literally see dozens of them hitting targets.
After years of successful interceptions against ballistic threats, including a very large attack earlier this year. Ballistic missiles are really not a special problem for modern Western air defense like Arrow and PATRIOT, but the issue of too many targets and not enough interceptors is universal for any weapon that comes in big numbers.
Iran is one of the more capable states in the region for this sort of thing. With Israel's aggression they've significantly upgraded their capabilities in recent years.
Not likely to defeat the tracking unless Iran can field some sort of hypersonic cruise missile (which they don't have the capacity to build or deploy). Which is why their strategy is analog, simply overwhelm the system by sheer volume. The next question becomes who can replenish faster. So far, none of Israel's adversaries have shown the combination of sophistication and capacity to do so. And, American missile cruisers can support Israel's defense (I don't think we're likely to see American offensive participation for the time being, unless something happens that significantly undermines Israel's capacity to defend itself).
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u/Rizmo26 Oct 01 '24
I thought Israel missile defense shot everything down?