Footage of Israeli defenses vs. rockets around Tel Aviv [video] | Hacker News Reader

Footage of Israeli defenses vs. rockets around Tel Aviv [video]

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24 pointscsomar29 comments

Instagram is censoring and banning accounts that highlight the atrocities happening at the hands of Israel.

I've heard little about the 10+ children killed by Israeli airstrikes in the media. Insane.

Let's try to keep politics aside from this one.

... what?

It's a very hot political topic; but I made this submission about footage of the rockets not what happening on the ground.

Fair point

What a strange construct.

The article is about war by an Army associated with war crimes.

Let's keep it relevant to the article and discuss said army.

There is no article. It's a video tweet. You can make a different submission.

A noble sentiment but I found that nothing polarises opinion quite as much as the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Technology aside, it's a terribly sad situation with no easy solution in sight.

...and to play devil's advocate: if I'd chose a place to have a "political" discussion, I guess HN would be the place, since the level of debate is a cut above the rest, and the comments often well informed and eloquent.

Afaik the Gaza rockets are just homemade flying pipes with no guidance (Iranians/Hezbollah keep the good stuff not to escalate the conflict).

Costs $800 for the Qassam vs $40,000 for Iron Dome missile.

They have also some Iranian rockets. Also they had some "tech transfers" from Iran/Hezbollah to improve targeting. This probably working as it looks like they targeted power plant and hit it's fuel storage tanks

The rockets are meant as a psychological weapon rather than a means of warfare.

Hamas don't care if 90% are destroyed by Iron Dome or the 10% land in empty fields or cause little damage.

Those rockets really explode and kill people. Make holes in buildings. There is already a bunch of dead people and few tens of wounded. The only reasons that numbers are low it's that Iron Dome intercepts majority of rockets and that building code requires in every apartment bomb shelter (and in every commercial building )

Not denying that but the main aim is to terrorize.

Well, killing people is great way to achieve it.

Defense costs are always higher. A bullet runs about 25 cents, but bullet-proof jackets are hundreds of dollars. Still often worth it.

You kind of need something to shoot the bullet out of, no?

Ehhhhh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improvised_firearm

Guns are re-used for many bullets, jackets are not

I guess the vest thing is a good analogy to the weird politics here. The vest doesn't matter if enough bullets are fired. You are still dead. The Iron Dome thing has not entirely prevented the Palestinians from causing death and destruction in Israel and is thus a failure. It is clear that technological approaches will always be imperfect and that leaves the Palestinians with leverage for some sort of political solution to the current situation.

$40000 per missile seems like a decent price to me though. Compared to the property damage it avoids it's peanuts. At this point, Israel probably produces them in bulk, which helps keep costs. AA missiles are a different story in comparison.

It's easy to think of artillery and rockets as something that can be lobbed at an enemy from a safe position, but that is generally not true. The range of most rockets and artillery is not as far as you might think. I estimate they are probably coming from less than 10km away. If you have drones in the air, it's very possible to find out where they are coming from and blow them up with counterbattery fire.

Of course you then get yelled at for bombing schools/children/hospitals/infrastructure, because that's where the missiles were launched from.

>I estimate they are probably coming from less than 10km away.

Currently rockets falling at northern Tel-Aviv (70km from Gaza) and been intercepted north of Tel-Aviv. Air defense alarms (they work based on estimated trajectory) are going on 30km north of Tel-Aviv.

> If you have drones in the air, it's very possible to find out where they are coming from and blow them up with counterbattery fire.

It's pointless. Most of launch sites are single use holes in a ground that were covered till it's time to shoot something.

This system that Israel uses to intercept rockets is called Iron Dome. Fun-fact: Israel helped Singapore set up a similar defense system due to the potential threat of surrounding nations, notably Malaysia.

Has Singapore actually deployed anything? All I've ever seen over the past 20 years is an endless series of rumors and announcements concerning collaboration.

I know Singapore has extensive relations with Israel regarding more mundane activities--training, arms, etc. And they both have good reasons to nurture rumors that their collaboration is more sophisticated than it really is. Israel because the mythos helps them sell more traditional weapons systems; Singapore because to the extent they can appear as militarily superior as Israel in the Middle East, Singapore's neighbors are less likely to attempt a serious arms race.

I think for similar reasons Singapore likes to train extensively with the U.S. and Australia, where they station several of their own air wings. Both those nations have top-notch professional armies, and Singapore rightly has a good reputation AFAIU, but I suspect the image is at least as important.

This guy on Youtube did a comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-hrbdsOP-E

Singapore comes out on top, but I'm not sure how credible he is.

The report mentioned in Haaretz (https://www.haaretz.com/1.5053685) was plausible but by no means incontrovertible.

Malaysia is not necessarily more threatening than Indonesia so it’s rather unclear why you mention it in particular. Indeed, Indonesia bombed various things in Singapore during the Konfrontasi period, whereas Malaysia has never done anything like that. (Well, I’ve heard rumours of actual hostilities about some islands supposedly from a relative in the army, but either way both sides have kept it very quiet if that did happen.)

I don’t really see the point of an iron dome system for SG: Singapore can hit KL or Jakarta in a matter of hours (if that), their relatives shop and children go to school at international schools in Singapore, there’s a big American base, if Singapore gets hit they’ll immediately end up in a terrible recession, etc.

There's not a big US base. I used to be stationed there. There is a logistics command, CTF-73, and more recently (past decade) some LCS rotational crews call Sembawang/Chagi Naval Base home. Singapore owns the wharf where the logistics command resides, as well as the old black and whites used by the US military.

To your point of it being intended for Indonesia over Malaysia, that could be the case. I was going off of heresay about Malaysia being the threat . It seemed plausible since some sensitive positions are still off-limits to Singaporean-Malays during their NS.

It’s not that Malaysia isn’t a threat (there has been sabre-rattling too, e.g. in 1991 when the army was mobilised in response to a Malaysian exercise)—just that it’s not only or most important one. Merely geographically Indonesia is probably in a broadly comparable position to try to blockade Singapore to that of Malaysia. There are fewer e.g. Javanese citizens of Singapore, and many Indonesians assimilated to a Malay community principally associated with Malaysia and not Indonesia if anything, so fears of dual loyalty do not tend to focus on Indonesia; for example many Malays will have Javanese ancestry.

Changi is not, as you point out, really a big US base, but I imagine that putting strategically important thingums for the US Navy at risk would not be regarded well in DC which, (inter alia!), would deter Malaysia and Indonesia. It would also hurt US economic interests regardless because of the port and various investments, so I suppose the US Navy might not even be terribly important.

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