Aerial defense system is not new. During cold war, both America and Russia developed some kind of system to protect their cities and important military targets. China once imported Russian missle system to intercept Taiwan high attittude reconnaisance plane in 60s. But it was Isarel used American defense system Patriot missle to protect Isarel cities from Iraqi SCUD missle attack in the first Gulf War in 1991. It worked quite well.
It seems Isarel uses new Iron Dome system purchased from France instead of from Uncle Sam. I guess the basic principle remains the same: a system to detect incoming weapon from air and send the info to own actual counter attack missile to intercept the warhead in the air. From video clips on media, it appears the system worked well. It did hit the targets in mid air.
However there is an issue for this approach: the system is designed to destroy high value weapon such as missile from enemy which is accurate, powerful and dangerous. I don't think it is designed for crappy, low budget and small capacity rockets. It is simply not cost effective. It is somehow like using tank canon to shoot mosquitos. Of course you can easily blow up the tiny insect into peices but it is awfully expensive. In the recently Hamas attack, vast majority of Isareli casuality came from armed ground assaults. It is not caused by those rockets. It seems those flying rockets are only for show. It looks spectacular but it barely do anything.
Anyway, I guess lots of military experts and scientists are watching this conflict closely. You can only know the true value of weapon system in actual combat. Mid East has been a great weapon test site for long period of time.
Aerial defense system is not new. During cold war, both America and Russia developed some kind of system to protect their cities and important military targets. China once imported Russian missle system to intercept Taiwan high attittude reconnaisance plane in 60s. But it was Isarel used American defense system Patriot missle to protect Isarel cities from Iraqi SCUD missle attack in the first Gulf War in 1991. It worked quite well.
It seems Isarel uses new Iron Dome system purchased from France instead of from Uncle Sam. I guess the basic principle remains the same: a system to detect incoming weapon from air and send the info to own actual counter attack missile to intercept the warhead in the air. From video clips on media, it appears the system worked well. It did hit the targets in mid air.
However there is an issue for this approach: the system is designed to destroy high value weapon such as missile from enemy which is accurate, powerful and dangerous. I don't think it is designed for crappy, low budget and small capacity rockets. It is simply not cost effective. It is somehow like using tank canon to shoot mosquitos. Of course you can easily blow up the tiny insect into peices but it is awfully expensive. In the recently Hamas attack, vast majority of Isareli casuality came from armed ground assaults. It is not caused by those rockets. It seems those flying rockets are only for show. It looks spectacular but it barely do anything.
Anyway, I guess lots of military experts and scientists are watching this conflict closely. You can only know the true value of weapon system in actual combat. Mid East has been a great weapon test site for long period of time.
美国的超大城市肯定是重中之重。
在美国，死于战争的可能远远低于死于美国人自己的枪械的可能。