Marines look to adopt the Israeli Iron Dome missile defense system

Marine Corps Times:
As the Marine Corps faces down advancing military capabilities from Russia and China and contends with the proliferation of drone tech among small terror groups the force is rapidly on the hunt for air defense systems.

To build its air defense arsenal the Corps is eyeing a number of technologies, including Israel’s Iron Dome system, known as SkyHunter in the U.S., according to Marine Corps briefing slides prepared for the Senate Armed Services Committee and obtained by Marine Corps Times via a Freedom of Information Act request.

Israel’s Iron Dome system is produced by both Raytheon and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. It has been in service in Israel since 2011, and since its fielding has a nearly 90 percent success rate, blasting more than 1500 targets, according to Raytheon.

According to the Senate briefing, the Marine Corps sought limited funding in fiscal year 2019 to begin testing and integration of the SkyHunter system with the Corps’ Ground/Air Task-Oriented Radar, or G/ATOR.
...
The Marines have suggested a number of available vehicles to mount the anti-missile system.  It makes sense for Marines to use this weapon to defend troops engaged in an assault on enemy positions.  It might also be of use in protecting an amphibious assault.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t
Read more

Bin Laden's concern about Zarqawi's remains

James Robbins: ... Bin Laden suggests that President Bush should allow Zarqawi’s body to be returned to his family in Jordan, but this is a matter that is up to the Jordanian government, which so far has not shown much interest in facilitating a homecoming. Bin Laden mocks King Abdullah II, calling him a Coalition minion, and asking “w hat scares you about Abu Musab after he’s dead? You know that his funeral, if allowed to happen, would be a huge funeral showing the extent of sympathy with the mujahedin.” A large crowd would definitely turn out, though most people would be on hand to demonstrate their anger and disgust. Last November’s hotel bombings in Amman , masterminded by Zarqawi, are still fresh in people’s memory, and mentioning them to Jordanians has the same visceral impact as memory of the 9/11 attacks does here. Jordan has adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards those who choose to mourn the country’s least favorite son, and four opposition members of parliament who paid con
Read more