After more than a month of war, missiles continue to be fired by Iran against Israel. Although the vast majority of them are reportedly intercepted by the country’s powerful anti-aircraft defense system, questions are becoming increasingly pressing, particularly whether the capabilities and ammunition stockpiles are sufficient in the long term.
Recently, the Israeli military categorically denied that its stockpile of interceptor missiles, critical to countering Lebanon’s Hezbollah’s Iranian missile and rocket homologations, was beginning to run out.
But the war, which entered its fifth week yesterday (Saturday), is bound to dwindle available ammunition supplies, especially long-range interceptor missiles, analysts say.
Israel’s comprehensive air defense system, touted as highly sophisticated and effective, is organized in layers and allows it to counter threats at any altitude.
The Arrow 2 and 3 missiles allow missiles outside the Earth’s atmosphere to be intercepted.
The US THAAD systems, one or two, complement the Israeli systems.
“There is no place in Israel that is not protected by multi-layered (anti-aircraft) defense,” assures Brig. Gen. Pini Yugman, president of TSG, a company specializing in security systems.
But “in defence nothing ever reaches 100%” effectiveness and the interception rate of enemy missiles – 92%, according to official data – is “extremely” high, he tells the French News Agency.
According to Israel’s military, which understandably releases only scant data on its anti-aircraft defenses, more than 400 ballistic missiles have been fired at the country by Iran since the war began on February 28the 28th with the US-Israeli bombing of the Islamic Republic.
The interception rate “exceeded expectations,” Israeli army spokesman Nadav Shosani recently asserted with apparent satisfaction.
But of the 19 civilians who have been killed in Israel since the outbreak of war, more than half perished when Iranian missiles penetrated the anti-aircraft shield.
Supplies are running out
About two weeks after the war began, the US news website Semafor reported, citing US sources, that Israel is facing a “dangerous shortage of ballistic missile interceptors”.
The report was denied by an Israeli military source, who assured that no shortage exists “so far” and that the armed forces are “ready for a long battle.”
But, according to an analysis by the British think tank RUSI published a few days ago, the US, Israel and their allies spent huge amounts of ammunition – defensive and offensive – in the first sixteen days of the war alone: 11.294 in all, regardless of type, at an estimated cost of roughly $26 billion.
“This means that if the war continues, (US and Israeli) aircraft will have to enter deeper and deeper into Iranian airspace and, from a defensive point of view, that they will have to be absorbed (p.(i.e., strikes by) more Iranian missiles and drones,” one of the authors, retired U.S. Rear Admiral General (retired), told Agence France-Presse. Jahara Mattisek.
The timelines and costs of producing advanced weapons are long, especially for interceptor missiles like the Israeli Arrow.
“It’s not just a question of money,” the problem lies in realities of industrial production: “long lead times for components, limited testing capacity, fragile subcontracting, and production chains that can’t compare to an iPhone production plant,” explains the retired Rear Adm. Mattisek.
According to the RUSI report, 81.33% of the Arrow interceptor missiles that Israel had before the war began have been depleted and will only be in short supply; the stockpile “will be completely depleted by the end of March.”
Failures
Brigadier General (Ret. Eugman, however, believes that Israel is capable of producing interceptor missiles faster than Iran can produce ballistic missiles.
However, the Israeli air defense system is not free of glitches either. The military has admitted that there was a problem with the David’s Sling anti-missile system, resulting in two Iranian missiles hitting as many southern Israeli cities last Saturday, particularly Dimona, home to a strategic nuclear research center.
According to the Israeli financial daily Calcalist, the army chose to use the shorter-range David’s Sling to avoid running out of Arrow missile supplies.
The “David’s Sling” is the intermediate lane in Israel’s anti-missile defense architecture, complementing the Arrow (or Hetz) and “Iron Dome” systems as well as the “Iron Ray” laser systems, which are called upon to intercept various missiles already.
Faced with the challenges posed by Iranian missiles, Israel has three options, according to Jean-Lou Saman, a researcher at the Middle East Institute in Singapore: “mixing different systems to avoid shortages; not intercepting missiles or drones headed for uninhabited areas; and increasing pressure to wear down Iran’s capabilities before Israeli air defense resources are exhausted.”
