What if Iran decides to repeat its ballistic attacks?
Despite the launch of the Iranian -European talks related to the Tehran nuclear program, and the hints of Iranian officials about their willingness to return again to the negotiating table with the Americans, the condition of preserving their interests, the threats did not stop the possibility of the renewed war between Iran and Israel and behind the United States. But what if these negotiations have already failed and the war returns to ignition?
While the 12 -day war between the two parties revealed Iranian missile capabilities that were not taken into account, it also revealed a large gap, not only in the Israeli air defense media, but also in the stocks of Israeli and American defense missiles alike.
America has 7 “Thaad” systems
A report in the Wall Street Journal says that during the war, the United States has deployed two systems of the “Thaad” system in Israel, where it used its operators nearly a quarter of the intercepting missiles that the Pentagon bought for all the seven systems that America owns. However, it was not enough. In cooperation with the Israeli regimes, the “Thaad” ammunition operators burned at a crazy speed, latering more than 150 missiles to shoot down the Iranian ballistic missile waves, according to US officials.
The demand was so huge that the Pentagon studied at some point a plan to convert the interceptor missiles that some countries have bought into the regimes in Israel, according to one of the officials. But it was refrained from this because the move would have exposed these countries to dangers as well. Not only was the “Thaad” system, as the United States also used large numbers of traditional traditional missiles on the ships, and soon Israel exhausted its stocks for its own regulations.
However, dozens of Iranian missiles have succeeded in penetrating the atmosphere, and Tehran may be ready to repeat this again, which revealed a disturbing gap in American supplies, as well as deficiencies in the way its anti -missile systems were fired, and a scrutiny in the performance of some interceptor missiles.
The danger of China, Russia and North Korea
Some Pentagon planners say that the American missile defenses – designed to protect American forces and assets from attacks from Russia, China or North Korea – are not sufficient for a world where cheap and huge ballistic ballistic missiles have become the favorite air weapon.
This year, the US Navy fought battles with the Houthi militants in Yemen, who made the missiles an essential pillar in their arsenal. Ukraine was exposed to repeated Russian shelling, using missiles and drones instead of endangering its pilots. China has invested extensively in the development of missiles, and is rapidly manufactured by weapons that can be used to keep the United States far in any future conflict over Taiwan.
During a hearing in Congress last month, Deputy Admiral Brad Cooper, who will soon take over the leadership of the US Central Command, responsible for US military operations in the Middle East, said officials need to move quickly.
“I am concerned about everything, but one of the concerns is ammunition and the depth of the ammunition store,” he said. Each “Thaad” system, an abbreviation of the “high -height regions defense”, can carry 48 objectionable missiles distributed on 6 launch platforms.
About 100 American soldiers need to re -download, analyze data, maintain maintenance, and firing interceptor missiles around the clock.
“In my knowledge, the United States has not published two (Thaad) regimes in one country before,” said Dan Shapiro, who led the Pentagon’s Middle East policy in the Biden administration.
He added, “It is an exceptional commitment to American technology and cadres with Israel’s security.” Although the Pentagon sent a new batch of interceptor missiles during the war, the supplies were limited.
The Pentagon owns 650 “Thaad” missiles
The price of each system of “Thaad” is about 13 million dollars, and the Pentagon has bought about 650 missiles since 2010. Officials are seeking to buy 37 missiles in the coming fiscal year. Lockheed Martin, which manufactures these systems, says it is able to produce about 100 objectionable missiles this year, and it works with the government on options to increase production to meet new requests.
It is likely that the renovation of the “Thaad” missiles that were launched during the last war takes more than a year, at a cost of between 1.5 billion and two billion dollars. Analysts say that the deployment of missiles in the Middle East has negatively affected the readiness of the United States, and pointed to an increasing need, not only for interceptor missiles, but also for more launch platforms.
Army officers say that in an ideal world, there should be two “Thaad” systems in the United States, for every system that is deployed. Under this concept, one system is published, another maintenance and modernization is due, and a third participates in the training for the next spread.
Among the seven “Thaad” regimes operating in the United States, two are currently in Israel, and two other long -term etiquette has been pledged on the island of Guam and South Korea, and another was deployed in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and two in the United States. The eighth system has been manufactured, but it is not yet ready for full operation.
Although Israel has its advanced and multi -class defense, which includes systems such as “Arrow”, “David Slide” and “Iron Dome”, it was suffering from a shortage of its objectionable missiles by the time when the conflict ended. One of the American officials said that if Iran had fired more large missiles, Israel would have exhausted its stock of high -quality “Arrow 3”.
Lack of marine devastating missiles
With the progress of the war and the continued Iranian attacks, the United States rushed to send marine destroyers equipped to shoot down the ballistic missiles heading to Israel, where 7 of them were sent to the eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea.
Most of the American -guided missile destroyers are armed with an armed group of standard interceptor missiles, known as “SM2”, “SM3” and “SM6”, which can shoot down ballistic missiles and other air threats.
According to the Acting Chief of Marine Operations, Admiral James Kilby, he said in the same hearing in front of Congress, that these warships also faced a shortage of interceptor missiles at a rate that warns of danger. During the 12 -day war, it fired about 80 IM3 missiles to repel Iranian missiles. The cost of these missiles ranges between 8 million and 25 million dollars, depending on the model. There are also fears in the Pentagon that those missiles that were used for the first time in the fighting last year were not destroyed by the expected number of targets, according to defense officials. The army is now conducting an accurate examination of every launch to understand what happened better.
In addition to the challenges imposed by the confrontation of the launch of large quantities of offensive missiles, American ships were forced to go to a port in the Mediterranean or the Red Sea after launching all its interceptor missiles, because the navy does not yet have a reliable way to re -download in the sea, which may be a major problem for the United States in a state of possible conflict with China. However, the biggest problem remains in the quantity, and in the event of other conflicts, the United States needs huge numbers of additional interceptor missiles.
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