So Why Isn't Israel Using Patriot Missle Defense?

[Schema Thing]

I'm sure there is something obvious that I don't know (too expensive for anything more than a showcase, want to level the playing field for Hizbollah, what's war w/o civilians being killed? etc).

Anyone know?

[Marie26]

1. I think it isn't effective

against Katuysha rockets.

[Schema Thing]

3. Any idea why not?

[Marie26]

Not really

It's got something to do w/the short range of the missiles & how easily they are moved around. I believe that the Patriot missile defense was designed for more hi-tech, long-range missiles that can be launched from a far-away country. But I'm sure other posters here can give you more detailed information on that.

[Marie26]

9. Dupe, sorry. nt

[Buzz Clik]

4. 100s of rockets, low trajectories,

the expense of Patriots, and their general lack of effectiveness.

[Kingshakabobo]

5. Correct me if I'm wrong but those Katuysha rockets aren't much..

....larger than large professional-grade fireworks(with a large grenade attached). They seem to be more effective as a terror weapon than anything else.......like leveling buildings.

[cali]

7. seems like you're wrong

From wiki:

Katyusha multiple rocket launchers are a type of rocket artillery built and fielded by the Soviet Union beginning in the Second World War. They are multiple rocket launchers able to deliver a devastating amount of explosives to an area target in a short period of time, although with poor accuracy, and then take a relatively long period of time to reload.

[Kingshakabobo]

10. You are correct...

48 pound war-head.....I checked wikipedia AFTER I posted. 48 pounds is nothing to sneeze at but the original design was for saturation bombing.

>>>The weapon was not accurate but was extremely effective in saturation bombardment. Katyusha batteries were often massed in very large numbers to create a shock effect on enemy forces.<<<<<

[WoodrowFan]

2. Because Hizbollah is not using Ballistic Missiles

Missile battery defenses such as the Patriot are designed to use against Ballistic Missiles (see link), not the short range surface-to-surface missiles that Hizbolla uses...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_missile

[Buzz Clik]

6. Katyushas are ballistic

They're launced in large numbers with nearly random aiming.

[WoodrowFan]

12. really? (back to do more reading then)

ok, thanks. Back to do some more reading. How high do they go? Is that a factor? Is their flight time to short for Patriots to be effective? (assuming they'd work in the first place).

[Marie26]

14. Are they?

Why aren't they listed as a ballistic missile? Not saying you're wrong, just curious.

[Buzz Clik]

15. You have to get down to the basic definition...

They're ballistic because they are initially self-propelled and then fall unguided based on their original path.

Perhaps a small weapon like Katyusha falls into another category, but if we lump it in with missiles that are either ballistic or guided, it's definitely ballistic.

[lectrobyte]

16. Really? I thought they were more like a glorified RPG used as a mortar

than something like a Scud.

[Buzz Clik]

17. True -- my comment was more ballistic versus guided ...

... rather than missile versus rocket.

[sweetheart]

8. wouldn't a vulcan gun sorta item work?

There is a ship-based system who's name eludes me, that looks like a little astronomy dome,
that opens up with a high rate of fire to take out missiles.

Place one of these every 500 meters orthogonal to the flight path and shoot all the birds
out of the sky. Or they could detonate nuclear weapons right as the rockets land,
and then the rocket damage will be unnoticable.

[Kingshakabobo]

11. Phalanx system... n/t

[Schema Thing]

13. I like how you think

You're going to get a new set of bars for that kind of out-of-the-box problem solving, soldier!

[MyNameGoesHere]

19. Well Phallanx is fine

but the principle it works on is dubious at best. While it can track a incoming low level target better than a Patriot missle battery, it still is not that great. The theory is to put up a wall of DPELETED Uranium projectiles and hopefully hit something. So as you can see we have 2 worries there also. It blows its load on one rocket and dumps thousands of rounds of DP everywhere.

[sweetheart]

20. on principal it should work

The DU could be dropped for lead, surely even a lead bullet can wipe out one of these
little rockets. If the israeli's have as good computers to know where the origin of
the missiles is firing from, then they know the path of the missile as well, and probably,
i could locate you on a map, a series of ground-installation points for a phalanx-like
system custom designed for ground deployment facing a particular direction.

This would avoid the falling bullets problem, and put the bullets in the most likely path
of all these rockets. Yes, they fire a wad, but that's easier to resupply on land than on ship,
and for all the fallability, one knocked out, is defending the people, one less suffering.

Surely phallanx must be 30 years old, and a modern installation custom on a few sites near the
lebannese border, could stand a good chance of nailing a lot of the incomings. Phallanx would
have completely wiped out the V-1 buzz bombs the germans used in ww2.

[Buzz Clik]

18. A media quote supporting many of the comments posted here:

Meanwhile Sunday, the IDF deployed a Patriot missile battery outside Safed. On Saturday, three batteries had been deployed outside Haifa. Senior IDf officers stressed that the Patriots would not be effective again Katyusha rockets, but could only intercept larger, long-range ballistic missiles.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1150886020501&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

21. Patriot missles don't work.

The Israelis learned that in the first Gulf War.

They're just another multi-million dollar boondoggle from the defense industry.