Israel invests in missile defense

Jerusalem Post:

The security cabinet on Sunday authorized an investment of NIS 811 million in the Iron Dome defense system, which will protect Israel from short range rockets.

Meanwhile, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the new system could be operational within two and a half years. It was previously stated that two years would be needed to develop the system.

The Iron Dome system was chosen in February by then-defense minister Amir Peretz as Israel's anti-Katyusha and Kassam rocket defense system. The system is designed to intercept Kassam and Katyusha rockets with a small kinetic rocket interceptor.

The Jerusalem Post reported last week that the initial $40 million given to Rafael for the system's development had run out, and an additional $80 million were needed by the end of the month for development to continue.

That system will become the base layer of a four-tier overlapping system. The second tier is comprised of Patriot missile batteries, which are already in place, while the third tier is the vaunted Arrow system. The fourth tier, the Arrow 2, is currently under development. The goal of the developers is to design a system which could target cruise missiles even farther out than the Arrow system does now.

Together these would provide Israel with a shield that Barak said would protect it from about 90 percent of short to long range rockets.

...


The system is not effective against short range mortar attacks, but the Israelis are working with the Pentagon on using a version of the Phalanx system used with the Aegis land based system that uses a 20 mm M61A1 Gatling gun firing 3,000 or 4,500 M-246 or M-940 self-destruct rounds per minute.

This should be bad news for Hezballah and Iran as well as Hamas. Iran has already suffered a strategic defeat when Hezballah's rocket attacks proved ineffective last year. They will be able to do even less ddamage when this system is in place.

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