How good is Israel’s Iron Dome Air Defence System which is considered one the best defence systems in the world? Modern-day warfare is all about air raids and attacks from the sky for which most of the nations are trying to procure state of the art air defence systems.
One such extraordinarily impressive air defence system is Israel’s Iron Dome which is a fine example of how technological innovation must be linked to securing nations against aerial attacks.
But even the Iron Dome is not impregnable and that is something the US would surely be considering before going ahead with its plan of acquiring them.
Have The Iron Dome Air Defence Systems Failed in the past?
The stern belief that the Iron Dome developed by Israel is impossible to penetrate was somewhat crumpled after Hamas fired more than six hundred rockets and mortar shells on Israel from Gaza. Precisely six hundred and ninety rockets were fired into Israel out of which 90 never crossed into Israel according to Israeli officials.
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The Iron Dome air defence system of the Israel Defence Forces could only intercept two hundred and forty out of the remaining rockets and that is what has led to apprehensions about the efficiency of the Iron Dome. While the Iron Dome could not intercept all the rockets, four rockets landed in densely populated regions causing damage.
Israelis Too Are Doubtful About The Efficiency of its Iron Dome
After failures of the Iron Dome to intercept all the rockets fired from Gaza, even Israelis have started expressing their uncertainty over the credibility of the Iron dome. Israeli experts have stated that it is difficult to intercept against mass salvoes within short response time as the launchers in Gaza are only a few miles away.
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Hamas stated that it fired such a large number of rockets deliberately to saturate the Iron Dome of the Israel Defence Systems.
Iron Dome’s software is based on risk assessment. Having said that, the software will assess is a rocket fired will hit a populated area or an empty terrain. The air defence system will intercept the rocket aimed at populated areas and will ignore the one aimed for empty terrains. Hence, it’s not always easy to assess the effectiveness of the Iron Dome.
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It may be one of the best air defence systems at present but surely not impregnable. It can be penetrated and it was penetrated by Hamas. How much demand it finds in the international defence market will surely depend on the incidents of its failure and that is what the US too would be looking at while mulling its planned purchase of the Iron Dome.