Inexpensive fiber-optic drones are challenging Israel’s high-tech defenses, shifting the military balance in the Middle East.
A recent video showing an explosive-laden drone striking an Israeli Iron Dome battery couldn’t have been more symbolic: Israel’s famous air-defense system, which cost billions of euros, looked powerless against a small aircraft that cost a few hundred euros.
While the video’s authenticity has not yet been verified, experts believe it is genuine.
The footage was published about a week ago by Hezbollah, a Lebanon-based pro-Iranian militia, which Germany, the US and several Sunni Arab states have classified as a terrorist organization.
The drone strike, if genuine, would mark propaganda victory for Hezbollah and reveal a significant vulnerability in Israel’s military capabilities.
There is one very cost-effective way to combat cheap drones. Laser systems being developed and deployed now are the logical counter to cheap drone swarms. Those systems have per-shot costs far below even the cheapest of mass produced drones.
DEW weapons are always ‘just about to be deployed’ to change the situation.
It’s never as simple as generating a directed pulse (regardless of the wavelength) if you don’t acquire the target at range, and, environmental conditions are compatible with your weapon system.
I think it’ll get there, but would discourage anyone from believing it’s around the corner until we see shaheeds melting in the video feeds.
ooooor how about small arms strapped to the back of some trucks and a very basic radar to tell them all where about the drones are? It seems to work for Ukraine, small cheap drones call for cheap mobile units. No need to bring freakin lazers into this, rifle caliber rounds work just fine and are even cheaper then a lazer system. As an added bonus small arms on the back of trucks are super mobile and can go to the place the drones are attacking, unlike a lazer that is not very portable and oh yeah needs a lot of power to run it. For ships? Sure, makes some sense. For basic civilian infrastructure defense? Ehhhhhh seems really silly.
The iron dome being made for the last war is correct, however as in the “final” war not “previous” war. The reason they don’t work is here is that they (like patriot, etc.) are built to stop very big very pricey ordnance up to and including world changing strategic missiles. We have seen these systems do great work in places like Ukraine and in small attacks in the past (think of the propane bottle rocket attacks). The issue is that the design clearly did not anticipate the current style of warfare, where it is drastically higher volume and intensity then those small nuisance attacks in the past but also using the cheapest devices to wage a war of attrition. In some places you see a hybrid defense using small cheap arms (insert Vietnam’s solution) and these “final” war style air defense missile systems. These places are at least thinking about the current reality, unlike what we see in that video where it is likely that iron dome battery simply had 1 less interceptor then there were drones and had zero backup to the system.
Iron dome is designed for cheaper rockets like Qassams from Hezbollah. They are effective agaimst cheap rockets and loitering/flying drones. Iron Domebwas always designed to be more expensive than what it takes out so that citizens would stay aligned.
True, but not at the scale we are seeing. They don’t have enough interceptors to defend, and likely their opponents knew that this would play out this way. They simply can not out produce drones with those pricey interceptors.
People can count the number of launchers in a battery, and number of interceptors in a launcher. They can then take this information and send more cheap easy to produce drones vs the air defense systems. Once those systems are compromised they can strike with little opposition any target in the area that system covered, with little chance of the defenders being able to regain “missile/drone superiority” in that area. Its a wild thing to see but the iron dome concept on its own has a major flaw once the attacks come in cheap and heavy.
Very much agree. I think that volume in asymmetry will beat any defense, even the lazers.
I am no expert though.
Lazers are neat and could work well for ships or static facilities where the power systems can be defended and the area to defend is small. They don’t really have the same hard limits to overwhelm as more traditional systems, but who knows if other limits will be present like say number of targets they can engage at a time. Lets say its the case of 3 targets can be engaged at the same time and the time before impact gives the lazers 3 chances to eliminate (as they do need time on target for effect, its not quite starwars blasters), giving the system a limit of 9 per incoming volley. That would be easy to over come, but what if its not 3 but 300 and time allows 40 attempts? The systems could be fantastic, or a small speed bump.
But I love lasers! 🥰
Doesn’t a reflective paint job counter your laser though?
No.
Nothing that chaff can’t defeat. Can’t shoot what you can’t see.
Depending on the wavelengths used for targeting, there are also other countermeasures.
In the Middle East, perhaps. In Ukraine or Russia you simply don’t have laser weather most of the time.
No. Just think about it. If these were only good for sunny weather, they wouldn’t be putting in the resources to develop them. Such a weapon would be useless if your enemy just has to wait for a cloudy day. You just use a wavelength that isn’t scattered by water molecules.
There is no such wavelength available to my knowledge, although I would appreciate if someone pointed out a suitable window.
They are indeed throwing a lot of resources at a solution that will need a (kinetic) backup solution on a rainy, foggy or snowy day.
Water droplets absorb and scatter visible light, thermal radiation and short-wavelength radio waves. To the point of military radars being less capable during rain. Ice crystals are easier on radar, but mess up light even more severely.
The “resources to develop” are tax dollars. “They” will happily go along with whatever bullshit effectively transfers tax dollars into their bank accounts.