The Israeli occupation authorities have adopted a consistent claim, about ten years ago, stating that the Iron Dome is the most powerful missile defense system in the world, with an ability to block 90% of the missiles it receives. We tried in "Maidan" to trace it from a technical and research point of view, we found that it lacked accuracy, and in a previous report entitled "Because the Iron Dome is not with the force issued by the occupying Power", we presented counter-arguments for these allegations that you do not usually read about.
For this report, and to further support our arguments, the editor of Maidan turns to the most famous domain specialist for examining Iron Dome performance, Dr. Theodore Postol, professor of engineering, technology, and national security policy in the prestigious MIT Science, Technology and Society Program. Postol did his undergraduate work in physics, graduating with a major in nuclear engineering, and after graduating he joined the Argonne National Laboratory team. He then worked in the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, to study methods for establishing the LGM 118 Biscuit intercontinental ballistic missile base, and later worked as a scientific advisor to the Chief of Naval Operations.
After leaving the Pentagon, Dr. Postol helped build a program at Stanford University to train mid-career scientists to study developments in weapon technology relevant to defense policy and gun control.
In 1990, Dr. Postol received the Leo Szilard Prize from the American Physical Society, in 1995 he received the Hilliard Roderick Prize from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and in 2001 he received the Norbert Wiener Award for Social and Professional Responsibility for uncovering many erroneous and important claims about missile defenses.
Dr. Theodore Postol, Professor of Engineering, Technology, and National Security Policy in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Science, Technology, and Society Program
Dr. Postol, let's start by asking about the current state of Iron Dome, do you think it got stronger in 2021 or advanced compared to it during the war on Gaza in 2012?
In terms of Iron Dome performance, it appears to be quite low, which is consistent with what my colleague Dick Lloyd and I found in 2013-2014.
There is nothing new, and the truth is that the system behaves exactly the same as it did 8 years ago.
This is a surprise to me, because I had guessed when I first identified performance issues with Iron Dome that there would be significant system improvements over the 7-8 years since I first analyzed the system’s performance and found it flawed.
This strongly indicates that there is a fundamental flaw in the design of the system that does not allow its development.
I simply believe that the system was not up to the job from the very first moment, and because of that there were no technical solutions to improve its performance.
Unfortunately, I cannot tell you why it is performing poorly, although I can describe why it is difficult to achieve what you are trying to do.
In any case, the evidence shows unequivocally that Iron Dome is not operating well.
Evidence has already been presented to the weakness of the Iron Dome, in contrast to the claims of the Israeli authorities that it operates with an interception capacity of 90%. Can you explain to us why the accuracy of the Iron Dome reached less than 10% only?
Let me first clarify that the matter is not only related to intercepting a war missile, but rather you must meet it head-to-head, because in order to be able to destroy a missile, it is necessary to destroy the explosive warhead of the missile, which is in the front of it, but if you hit it by a side strike, you are You may drop it, but it will still explode once it reaches the ground.
(Postol presented this view in The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists in July 2014.)
The explanations I provide are mostly derived from observations of the moments of the meeting of the intercepted and intercepted missiles, and pictures of the missiles that fell to the ground, with the clarification that this is far from being the only evidence of the weakness of the system.
The vast majority of photos of rocket remnants falling on the ground show no evidence of head-to-head confrontations with Iron Dome missile interceptors.
There are a number of missile remnants with perforations in the rocket motor casing located behind the warhead.
This is exactly what one would expect when it fails to hit the warhead and instead penetrates the empty missile engine behind the warhead. In all cases where this occurs, the missile will continue to fall to the ground and explode.
In very rare cases (we may have seen one of them), the Iron Dome Interceptor appears to have detonated an artillery rocket warhead.
We think that certainly has happened, but it is a very small possibility, as the missile launched from Iron Dome has already collided with the front end of the interceptor.
This could lead to an explosion of the warhead, but it is also a very rare event that it can be considered - practically - not to happen!
So the data coming from the ground, the data taken from the sky, are completely consistent with what I'm referring to, the system has a very low interception rate, maybe even close to zero.
At that point we asked Dr. Postol to explain to the reader in more detail, so he kindly sent a group of photos that he attached to his study and explained that it confirms beyond a reasonable doubt that the Iron Dome is not working:
In the ideal case, the two missiles should meet head-on, and as soon as the interceptor missile passes to the side of the interceptor, a laser fuse (represented by the dashed blue lines) is activated and the interceptor missile disperses its fragments to detonate the interceptor, in which case only the attack missile's warhead can be detonated. Otherwise, the missile will actually fall, but it will still be explosive on the ground inside the Iron Dome space.
Due to the extreme uncertainty in the velocity and geometry control of two high-speed missiles passing next to each other, there is a high probability that the Iron Dome fuse will fail to hit deadly shrapnel towards the warhead of the missile it is targeting.
Moreover, unless the distance between the Iron Dome warhead and the ICE warhead is small (approximately a meter or so), there is a greatly diminished chance of hitting the head.
The incoming missiles, as you can see, are hit by shrapnel from the interceptor missile in empty areas at its rear, thus the missile falls to the ground, within the scope of the Iron Dome, and its warhead is still capable of exploding.
In this picture, the jets exiting from the Iron Dome missiles are taking paths that are physically impossible at all to be appropriate to intercept incoming missiles (from Gaza).
This image shows the moment when an Iron Dome missile is launched (far left) while a second Iron Dome missile falls and detonates before it reaches the ground (the explosion in the middle), this - again - a scenario that should never happen, it simply indicates that the interceptor He lost control for one reason or another and began diving into the ground.
The jet emerging from another missile can be seen passing from the right to the left of the image.There is no way to determine if this was another improperly directed interceptor or not, but phenomena of this type are not very rare regarding the irregular behavior of Iron Dome missiles after some time. Short of its launch.
These photos confirm that the enemy missiles (coming from Gaza, represented by the design in green) were struck by the Iron Dome in their background while the missile warhead passed safely.
This is not an exclusive case, but most of the images were.
What are the other reasons that limit the effectiveness of Iron Dome?
First of all, it can be said that the missile attacks make it possible for Hamas and Hezbollah to continue to put pressure on Israel, especially since their rockets are relatively cheap, the launch sites are extremely difficult to find and suppress, and it is extremely difficult to intercept their rockets after successful launch.
The missiles for these parties (meaning the Palestinian resistance) may cost less than a few hundred dollars, but the cheapest interceptors may cost more than 70,000 dollars, and on average the cost of two interceptors, i.e. one interception attempt, reaches more than 100,000 dollars.
We are talking here about an almost perfect interception attempt, because in these circumstances the probability of intercepting one shot may be 50%, or even 75%, which means that you need two missiles to intercept one missile.
Israel claims an interception rate of 90%, but it is not clear what the Israelis mean by interception, the only reasonable definition of interception in these circumstances is the destruction of the warhead.
Additional clarification: On that point let us state that Postol made it clear in a document that he sent to the editor of "Maidan" that the Palestinian resistance missiles, although primitive, are effective and can be manufactured - whether the materials forming the body of the missile or explosives - in large quantities and loaded onto artillery vehicles. Inexpensive and primitive, it is easily portable and portable, and there is a great degree of versatility in its capabilities.
Consequently, it - on the misalignment of the scales - is putting heavy pressure on the Israeli side.
If Iron Dome is not performing well, then why are Israeli losses from missile attacks so low?
There are reasons for this that have nothing to do with Iron Dome. Israel has a large system of shelters, arranged so that citizens can easily find protection within tens of seconds or less of a warning. The Israeli warning system against missile attacks is well developed, and the attached figure shows the warning times that the Israelis have deployed for artillery rockets of varying range.
In addition, there is a mobile warning system for citizens that issues an audible alert for every impending missile strike. This mobile app is called "Red Alert", and the app's message indicates the general area in which an artillery missile is expected to land. Depending on the location of the individuals receiving the warning message, they receive information that clarifies whether or not they are going to a shelter. During the bombing of London in World War II with the German "V-1-" and "V-2" missiles, seconds of early warning resulted in a doubling or more of the number of casualties and deaths.
Even when the people under attack do nothing more than take appropriate measures such as falling to the ground before a missile collides, this greatly reduces the size of the loss of life. In the bombings of World War II in London, the warheads were much larger than those used by Hamas. It carried about 2,000 pounds of explosives, compared to a figure between 10-20 pounds for Hamas rockets (during the 2012 offensive).
These small warhead sizes make early warning and protective housing more effective, as smaller warheads are less likely to penetrate or destroy a shelter.
These two factors - the small size of the warheads and the warning and shelter system - explain the drastically reduced death toll from rockets and mortars.
If the Iron Dome is so ineffective, then why is the United States of America funding it?
In the absence of Israeli data to support claims of the effectiveness of Iron Dome (specifically intended to hit the warheads), and based on unambiguous evidence, the conclusion is clear: the Israeli government is not telling the truth about Iron Dome to its residents, or to the United States, which provided the part to the Israeli government. The largest amount of funding needed to design and build, and I am deeply concerned that the United States, which provided full funding to develop such a complex system, did not request any of the performance data needed to evaluate the system by independent US agencies.
In my opinion, this is simply irresponsible behavior on the part of the US government agencies that funded the Israeli project.
We thank you, Dr. Postol, for your valuable time and this valuable detailed information, which is simplified.
Pardon, my position on the press is that it is my duty to make everything that matters to you intelligible.