A ballistic missile flies really high (as in, space high), and then just 'falls' to its target. In that way it travels a 'ballistic' trajectory, like a bullet would on the way down. (Though many can slightly angle on the way down to dodge defenses and better hit targets)
As a result they can be going crazy fast on their way down. Very hard to defend against. Easiest is to shoot them down on the way up, but they do that over friendly territory. If you have a good enough system, you can sometimes intercept them in space, but that still quite hard.
Hamas rockets are also ballistic missiles, just smaller and cruder ones.
That said, those appear to be missing, so would they even intercept, given the risk that intercepting a miss would result in debris which could easily hit something?
You've gotten some answers on what a ballistic missile is, but just in case anyone needs more clarification:
The missiles that Hamas has been sending into Israel for decades now are unguided and "homemade", essentially just model rockets on steroids. They weld together a rocket body with fins and then use a fuel made from fertilizer such as potassium/urea nitrate. For the warhead (explosive tip) they use high explosives that they scavenge from military targets or (rarely) make themselves.
Since they are unguided and fairly amateur, they cause a high degree of collateral damage since it's impossible to accurately aim them at military targets. Generally it seems that Hamas doesn't really care where they hit, they just want them to hit anywhere in Israel (including civilian housing).
These amateur missiles are the rockets that the Iron Dome is designed to defend against, and the system generally does a great job at stopping them.
The missiles in the OP are military-grade ballistic missiles, hence why the Iron Dome is effectively useless less effective against them.
Iron Dome being less effective isn't anything to do with them being guided. They're launched from further away, meaning they come in steeper and faster with less time to intercept. You need bigger, longer range interceptors to stop these compared the aircraft and short-range missiles Iron Dome is designed for.
Well Israhell has better technology with the missiles but they also don’t care where they hit, as long as they hit civilians but pretend it’s Hamas
The iron dome was doing it's job and intercepting a lot of them, but it wasn't able to get them all. I guess they defended against the ones that were most critical and left the others to hit parts of the city that weren't as important or devastating.
I just googled it. Apparently a ballistic missile is only powered during the beginning of it's flight. (Think of ICBM's being rocketed to space or a high altitude before falling back to earth at their target.)
Regular missiles apparently are powered throughout their flight.
What about an air-to-air missile? Those are powered through reaching the target and are definitely NOT cruise missiles nor are they ballistic. Like one jet shooting another.
While you're technically right that all missiles are "ballistic" in the same sense that all bullets are ballistic, there's a distinction you're missing here. A "ballistic" missile is one that follows a ballistic path intentionally as part of its design. They up go, and then down toward the target. A non-ballistic missile like an AA missile, although it is technically ballistic, does not deliberately follow a ballistic path even though some of them are unpowered for some portion of their flight. It flies as direct a course as possible. Gravity is only a small part of the forces affecting its flight path, compared to a medium or long range ballistic missile which intentionally gets as high as possible and falls back down.
Regular missiles apparently are powered throughout their flight.
This isn't true either, missiles are often powered only for part of the flight as well. However, a ballistic missile flies a ballistic trajectory, meaning it goes up in the air and then falls back down by gravity. A non-ballistic missile will boost directly toward (or in front of) the target and then coast toward it at high speed. For example, anti-air missiles will fly toward the target and coast into its path, then explode when they meet.
It’s highly likely a lot of these are their new medium range Fattah Hypersonic missiles.
They are 2 stage meaning they take off as one piece then the warhead top cone separates with its own rocket engine becoming even faster before impact. Think like the Gemini space rockets. These would be very fast and likely able to defeat the Dome when used as a cluster type attack.
These missiles along with what’s already been described here were unveiled in 2023 by Iran.
It's pretty well-documented that because of Israel's military blockade of Gaza, Hamas aren't able to import materials to build rockets, so the rockets they have are cobbled together from the remnants of Israeli rockets that have landed in Gaza. That's why so many of the rockets never even make it into Israel and often land in Gaza. That's also why Iron Dome has a high success rate of intercepting these rockets, because they're very slow and low-tech.
I don't know, the angle of attack on those warheads appears too low to be ballistic considering the distance to potential launch points, and Iranian TV is confirming use of the Fattah-2, which is a cruise missile.
Ballistic missiles can travel on a number of different trajectories with different impact angles, and cruise missiles travel at constant altitude at too slow a speed to cause sufficient heating to glow visibly.
Well not necessarily because of reentry, but because.of velocity. Some hypersonic missiles may not leave the atmosphere but can still travel at speeds fast enough to cause that glow.
But ballistic missiles tend to have a very high apogee and also a very predictable flight path. Easier to see, easier to meet. It's more of a defense system parity issue, IMO.
I’m by no means a missile expert but my understanding is that because they arc much higher, they’re harder to track and then also the speed of their descent makes them harder to intercept. I also think they have a different system entirely for these kinds of rockets called Arrow, which I don’t really know anything about.
No, the engine isn't burning during the terminal phase of a ballistic missile. The engine only burns during ascent. This is glowing due to compression heating due to re-entry, and they are absolutely traveling hypersonic or close to it.
And I have a master's degree in high speed aerodynamics, so I know more than you.
Edit: also, your link is also just a ballistic missile strike (again, likely hypersonic or close to it at impact), it's just closer to the camera which makes it look faster.
A lot of people don't understand how easy it is to calculate the trajectory and targets of ballistic missiles... all of these are being allowed to hit because there is no target there... either open ocean or Negev desert. There's no point in wasting an expensive anti-ballistic defense missile on something that is not going to impact anything of value, ESPECIALLY when defending a high-quantity barrage like this.
Unofficial estimates (and Iran themselves) have indicated this barrage to have been around 350 to 400.
Editing to add a clarification: when I say it's easy, I'm talking about the ease with which detection and defense systems can calculate the trajectory and targets. So they can very easily and quickly decide which incoming missiles to counter, and which ones to ignore as harmless.
Ballistic missiles are more accurate and I'm pretty sure they land close to where they are targeted. I doubt very highly the people's punching in coordinates aren't targeting the desert. But I was thinking the same. I'm sure they can detect the trajectory or approximate the area the missile will land. If nothing of value in the area why engage but there are just so many missiles it had to have overwhelmed the iron dome
Yeah I realized I wasn't clear in my comment, so I added a clarification:
Editing to add a clarification: when I say it's easy, I'm talking about the ease with which detection and defense systems can calculate the trajectory and targets. So they can very easily and quickly decide which incoming missiles to counter, and which ones to ignore as harmless.
Iranian rockets move a lot faster than the ones made by Hamas and the Iron Dome isn't intercepting them very well.
One of my best friends had to leave N. America for TA for business for the next 3-4 years (not military related) and since they arrived has spent a ton of time in bomb shelters - today was especially bad they said.
Civilians need to be left out of this stupid fight on all sides. And HMS, HZA, and PA need to stop hiding among civilians and fight it out with their military against the IDF - war isn't supposed to be fought amongst the countrymen and this whole thing is all around tragic.
These are fatah hypersonic missiles, they travel at speeds greater than mach 4, very few air defense systems can stop them. The other poster is responding to you are wrong, it's not a ballistic missile, ballistic missiles are more like icbms in how they work. The trajectory is perpendicular not vertical.
2.4k
u/204gaz00 Oct 01 '24
I wonder how many missiles were launched this time. There seems to be a lot more making contact with the ground unlike last time