What Happened to Ukraine's Missile Defense | Hacker News Reader

What Happened to Ukraine's Missile Defense

missilematters.substack.com

15 pointsbharbr12 comments

>Ukraine’s ballistic missile defense intercept rates had dropped from around 37 percent in August to just six percent in October

Israel must by now have intercepted more missiles of all kinds then the rest of the world combined, and more ballistic missiles too. They managed to shrug off 4 to 5 rounds of saturation attacks from iran with almost no major hits. Something like a 95% successful intercept rate. That's not even discussing short range Iron Dome interceptions.

I can only guess the difference is more sophisticated missiles, a larger area to defend and fewer resources to do so. I still feel i'm missing something here.

The major different factor is that Russia is sending these drone & missile strikes just about every single night, learning from the data they gather to use less predictable routes and more countermeasures.

Ukraine does the same too, obviously, but missile/drone defence is harder than attack, and there’s a numbers disparity in terms of interceptors and being able to place them in the right places.

Iran got just a couple of goes at Israel and didn’t get a similar chance to learn from and adapt to what it learned in the process.

While it's probably true, most drones and quite a lot of missiles too were intercepted not by Israel itself, but it's allies (mostly US, UK and EU countries).

That's only partially correct. The vast majority of missiles were intercepted by Israel. I was surprised at how little drones featured in the war. It seems that sophisticated defences can easily handle them. Ukraine and russia use them to devastating effect, but neither of those countries are on the cutting edge of warfare . Western armies have more in common with Israel so hopefully drone attacks are a solved thing for them.

Isn't it much more related to the distance between the countries ? When Iran sent hundreds (thousands?) of drones towards Israel they all take several hours to arrive - all were shot down outside of Israel (again by allies).

Would you have some numbers on how much was shot down by Israel and how much by allies ? I didn't find anything

Iran is a less sophisticated attacker and they attacked Israel on several days. Russia has been throwing everything they can make against the larger Ukrainian perimeter for multiple years. If Iran could keep pummeling Israel long enough for attrition to set in, or had the same caliber of missile and drone hardware, or artillery+aircraft strikes on the defense infrastructure you’d see Iron Dome dropping off, too.

> Israel must by now have intercepted more missiles of all kinds then the rest of the world combined

Very unlikely more than Ukrane alone (unless you count fireworks from Hamas and alike). Iran just didn't launch this many. Besides they are less advanced.

70% of interceptors used were US. A whopping quarter of THAAD stockpile.

https://jinsa.org/jinsa_report/rising-lion-air-defense/

> almost no major hits

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_Military_Censor

> saturation attacks

They weren’t saturation attacks; in fact many were surprised by their small size compared to preceding True Promises. Unlike Israel, which had to tap out after 12 days, with a face-saving intervention by the US, Iran was in for the long haul.

> Missing something

Israel + US + friends had the highest density air defence network with plenty of interceptors and it wasn’t enough. They had all the time and space to operate without threat and yet by the end Iranian drones were hitting Israel. Given area and supplies and proximity, it’s just hopeless for Ukraine. Also, previously claimed interception rates were exaggerated.

You are massively downplaying the scale of the attack. Iran sent hundreds of missiles in a go. They had something like 1500 launchers so that was a major portion of their capabilities. Perhaps everything they could muster.

By the end the attacks tailed off, because they simply ran out of launchers and missiles. True their strikes got more successful as they started avoiding central israel, but it was more like a 5% hit rate instead of 1%.

At the end of the day the attacks led to a couple of dozen deaths instead of the predicted 500 to 2000. Irans entire command structure had been battered and they were desperate for an exit, even though it's true that Israel would have been unable to sustain the war for too much longer. In the end israel was able to shrug off everything that Iran could throw at it, at the same time as severely degrading their capabilities. I think a more accurate conclusions is that you need to combine air defence with intelligence and offense in order for it to work.

That 70% figure sounds wrong. I've seen wildly different numbers online. One thing is certain that hundreds of interceptors were fired. I would be surprised if just 2 thaad systems did the lions share of the work. That certainly doesn't match up to the claims of the IDF, and if it was true the Americans wouldn't stop boasting about it.

> You are massively downplaying the scale of the attack. Iran sent hundreds of missiles in a go.

The report I linked and you obviously didn’t read directly contradicts you: 574 ballistics total with no wave larger than 40.

> because they simply ran out of launchers and missiles

No evidence of the former and the latter is laughable.

> In the end…

… they murdered a bunch people, destroyed a bunch of things and achieved no strategic goal. No follow-through, no follow-up. Luckily, being the Jewel in the Crown, they are largely isolated from the consequences of such aggression and failure.

> 70% figure sounds wrong

Feelings. Wild claims online. Well, it’s quite possible Israel as well the US used even more interceptors than they care to admit. But that doesn’t help your case.

> That certainly doesn't match up to the claims of the IDF, and if it was true the Americans wouldn't stop boasting about it.

You must be new to US-Israel relations.

No, I think those three points are sufficient to explain it.

Additionally, Israel has the unwavering support of the world's biggest superpower, while (FOR SOME UNFATHOMABLE REASON) even the Biden administration kept a policy of "give the Ukraine just enough support to survive, but not to win against their mutual enemy".

Now, of course, the US is run by Putin's little toy.

No, Israel did not intercept more missiles than rest of the world.

The main thing you missing is scale. Sheer amount of missiles Russia sent over four years is in thousands, in drones in 10’s of thousands.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com