The U.S. Army intends to buy two batteries of Israel’s Iron Dome defense system.
The plan is to a buy 12 launchers, 2 associated radars, a pair of battle management systems,
and 240 individual Tamir interceptors.
The total cost is around $370 million, of which US Army wants to have $290 million allocated
from its existing 2019 budget and remaining $80 million from 2020 budget.
In this video Defense Updates analyses why U.S Army wants to have Israel’s Iron Dome defense system ?
Let gets into the details.
Russia and China have invested a lot of effort in cruise missile technology and are at par
or even a step ahead in some aspect when compared to America in this field.
The US Army as well as the Congress is well aware of the treat from short as well as long
range cruise missiles.
This has been underlined in the last U.S. National Defense Strategy which was released
in January 2018 by Pentagon.
Further in the annual defense policy bill for the 2019 Fiscal Year, Congress made it
a legal binding for the US Army to have two batteries of an Air Defense system dedicated
for protection against cruise missiles.
These are to be made operational by 2020.
Israel’s Iron Dome has been chosen for this purpose.
It is a mobile all-weather air defense system developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems
and Israel Aerospace Industries.
For Israel, Iron Dome ’s main objective is to neutralise rockets and other artillery
rounds.
But for US Army it will act primarily as a defense against cruise missiles.
It has been reported by Inside Defense that US Army’s top procurement official Bruce
Jette has sent details to members of Congress for consideration.
The Times of Israel quoted Jette saying, “We want to have some things in place that provide
us some immediate protection.
So what that’s going to do is we’re going to look at things that are readily available.”
As per reports, two other options have been evaluated.
First is the National Advanced Surface to Air Missile System (NASAMS).
This is a joint effort between America’s Raytheon and Norway’s Kongsberg.
Second is the upgraded variant of Multi-Mission Launcher (MML).
It is still in works.
Iron Dome was selected as it satisfied all the requirements including the cost.
The Iron Dome Weapon System is the lowest layer of Israel's multi-layered air and missile
defense umbrella.
It has a first-of-its-kind multi-mission launcher that is designed to fire a variety of interceptor
missiles.
The interceptor is chosen depending on the threat.
Iron Dome’s Tamir interceptor missiles can strike down incoming threats launched from
ranges of 4-70 km.
Tamir missiles is equipped with electro-optical sensors and steering fins with proximity fuze
blast warheads.
Each battery includes three to four stationary launchers with 20 Tamir missiles and a battlefield radar.
A single battery can defend up to nearly 60 square miles.
Iron Dome is considered to be the most used missile defense system.
Ten Iron Dome batteries protect Israel.
According to Israel, it has been used to intercept more than 1,500 targets with a greater than
90% success rate since it was deployed in 2011.
Though the data regarding success rate is is often challenged by critics, but there
is no doubt the system has seen extensive real world usage.
As recently as 20th Jan 2019, the system is reported to have knocked out incoming rocket
launched from Syria.
Currently US Army’s primary air defense weapon is the Patriot surface-to-air missile
system.
But Patriot interceptor cost around $2 million each.
US Army is need of something that is much cheaper so that enough quantity of intercepter
could be deployed.
This is where Iron Dome comes into the picture.
Tamir interceptor used by Iron Dome has a reported unit cost of $100,000 to $150,000.
This means a battery of Iron Dome consisting of 20 Tamir interceptor can be deployed for
the cost of about a single Patriot interceptor missile.
This make it far more cost effective.
Another important aspect is that Iron Dome is readily available to America.
Iron Dome has received quite a bit of funding from US government and America's Raytheon
actually manufactures 70% of Tamir interceptor.
The fact that it has seen significant usage, is low cost and is immediately available makes
the Iron Dome a perfect solution for US’s Army needs.