Drone, Missile Warfare Tests Strapped Defense Systems

"The near-complete defeat of Iran's drone-and-missile barrage against Israel on Saturday marked a success for air-defense systems, but was also a sobering reminder that weapons capable of intercepting these sorts of attacks are in short supply.

Countries around the world have moved to bolster their air defenses in recent years, spurred by events in Ukraine, concerns about tensions in the Asia-Pacific region and renewed conflict in the Middle East. Yet the companies that produce air-defense systems are struggling to meet the surging demand, and countries ordering the technology are grappling with long waits and high costs.

After years of underinvestment, a global scramble for missiles has meant it now takes around two years or more to deliver some air-defense interceptors. A lack of some components, like rocket motors, contributes to that lag.

"I am concerned that we've taken a bit of a holiday and that we are playing some catch-up here," John Hill, deputy assistant secretary for space and missile defense, told lawmakers last week.

Air-defense systems -- and the missiles they fire -- typically take a long time to make and often cost far more than the targets they aim to shoot down, particularly in the case of drones. The potential for swarms of small autonomous drones pose further challenges to today's equipment, and new technologies to address these evolving threats are still under development.

Iran's attack on Israel over the weekend stood out for its sheer scale: more than 120 ballistic missiles, over 30 cruise missiles and approximately 170 drones. The Israelis intercepted most of the ballistic missiles using Arrow air --defense systems, senior U.S. officials said. Around four to six missiles were shot down by U.S. destroyers, and one was taken out by a U.S. Patriot air-defense battery.

U.S. fighters shot down most of the drones, though some were destroyed by British, French and Israeli aircraft.

The defeat of the Iranian barrage was possible because of Israel's sophisticated, multilayered air-defense system and assistance provided by the U.S. and other Western and Arab partners. But Israel would likely struggle if it was faced with many waves of attacks, such as Ukraine has experienced in more than two years of its conflict with Russia, defense analysts say.

"Israel seemed to do pretty well, but the downside is that a large number of interceptors were expended in the process," said Tom Karako, the director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a U.S. think tank. "It's certainly the case that strains on magazine inventory is going to be a problem, for everybody."

Over the past couple of years Ukraine has largely relied on Western-provided equipment to intercept more than 2,000 ballistic, cruise and other types of missiles, as well as around 5,500 Iranian-designed Shahed drones. However, Kyiv's interception rates have been falling as it runs out of missiles.

This week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told PBS that Russia was able to destroy a major power plant supplying with electricity the military production recently because Kyiv's military forces ran out of missiles to defend it. Russia fired 11 missiles, and Ukraine only had seven to counter them.

The West, though, doesn't have large quantities of missiles and defense systems left to give Ukraine. The systems also aren't cheap: Each Patriot battery, which can be armed with 32 missiles, costs around $1 billion.

The cost of Israel intercepting about half of the Iranian barrage this weekend was estimated at 2.1 billion Israeli shekels, or more than $550 million, according to Yehoshua Kalisky, a researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv-based think tank.

Western officials worry that costs will only rise. Pentagon officials have said they want the production of counterdrone defenses stepped up dramatically, a recognition that firing multimillion-dollar missiles to down something that costs just thousands of dollars is unsustainable." [1]

Illegal attacks on foreign diplomatic facilities cost a lot of shekels. Who would think...

There is enough propaganda on this topic in Lithuania. Every old village women in Lithuania knows that it is necessary to cover the sky. They cover it with pots. This covers the moon, but no more, the sky is too big. Beautiful sky, but not for you, Martynai...

 1.  World News: Drone, Missile Warfare Tests Strapped Defense Systems. MacDonald, Alistair;
Cameron, Doug; Somerville, Heather.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 18 Apr 2024: A.6.