Why Iron Dome Might Only Work For Israel

An anonymous reader writes "Many this week have declared Israel's American financed Iron Dome rocket defense system a success. Some have even gone so far to declare it a vindication of Ronald Reagan's 1980's Star Wars missile defense system. Pundits have even gone so far to assume the system could be sold to other nations. However, the Iron Dome may not be the game changer many are making it out to be. Taking out unsophisticated rockets is quite different than advanced missiles: '...the technical and strategic challenges of shooting down ballistic missiles differ considerably from those of shooting down unguided rockets. BMD shares with rocket defense some common technological ground; both require fast reaction time and impressive sensor capabilities, and the Iron Dome project has benefited from technical work on missile defense. However, ballistic missiles in flight behave differently from unguided, sub-atmospheric rockets.'"

Re:"some"?

[Nyder]

Some have even gone so far to declare it a vindication of Ronald Reagen's 1980's Star Wars missile defense system.

Some say that I'm the handsomest man in the world.

Moms don't count.

Re:one other place

[lucm]

200 m/s is about 7 times the speed of trap shooting. I guess it's a bit fast and it does not help that the sniper does not get to scream "pull" to control fire rate... but I'm sure a lot of people can do it, like Tom Berenger, or Ed Harris, or that guy from the last Rambo movie.

On a side note, I have no idea why you say I've been watching too many movies.

Coincidentally, Lindsey Graham refers to John . .

[wrencherd]

. McCain as "Iron Dome" when he writes about him in his diary at night.

True story.

Re:That word: ballistic

[LWATCDR]

I am still trying to deal with sub-atmospheric. Is this a mole missile or a torpedo?

Re:What's a ballistic missile?

[autocannon]

I've learned very quickly, that if you read anything about military systems posted on slashdot that you better not hope for valid answers in the comments. The posters here have a very good grasp on Command and Conquer, but not real military tactics. Plus they just love to point out how that same system won't be effective once the enemy "upgrades" their weapons to the even better version that flies faster or spins or gets evasive, or whatever else they come up with. Cause that happens instantaneously in real life for no cost too!! lol

I think, what the submitter is referring to is not necessarily the difference between ballistic missiles and "unguided rockets". Rather that short range missiles are still ballistic, but do behave differently. For instance they typically remain a single vehicle from launch to impact. Once you go to the medium that's usually not the case as there's a booster involved. Long range on the other hand can have multiple boosters as well as possibly separating payloads as well as going fast as all hell. In other words, there's a whole lot of shit to filter through to determine the real target and a very short window to do that in.