George Rebane

From the “Iron Dome” report in Breitbart.com –

Israel has successfully tested a new defence system designed to intercept rockets fired from southern Lebanon and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, public radio reported on Sunday.

The “Iron Dome” system is expected to be fully operational within a year and will be able to intercept the military-grade Katyusha rockets used by Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia and the cruder Qassam rockets favoured by Hamas.  Citing Israeli security officials, public radio said the system would also be effective against mortar fire which has a much smaller window of warning.

There’s a famous analytical combat model – Lanchester Combat Model – used since WW1 to do high level warfare planning, the application of which to the Iron Dome should put a lid on fielding this system.  Here the cost ratio of the attacking weapon and its countermeasure is huge.  It doesn’t matter if the Iron Dome works perfectly.  If it costs $100 to stop each 10 cent bullet, then the defender is doomed because the attacker will break the defender’s bank.   And it will be the US taxpayer who will be asked to bear this cost.  Hmmm… maybe when Lanchester is exercised from the viewpoint of the Israelis, the system makes sense after all.  Now if only Uncle Sam could deploy an iron dome over its wallet when it comes to our annual gift to Israel.