Inexpensive fiber-optic drones are challenging Israel’s high-tech defenses, shifting the military balance in the Middle East.
A recent video showing an explosive-laden drone striking an Israeli Iron Dome battery couldn’t have been more symbolic: Israel’s famous air-defense system, which cost billions of euros, looked powerless against a small aircraft that cost a few hundred euros.
While the video’s authenticity has not yet been verified, experts believe it is genuine.
The footage was published about a week ago by Hezbollah, a Lebanon-based pro-Iranian militia, which Germany, the US and several Sunni Arab states have classified as a terrorist organization.
The drone strike, if genuine, would mark propaganda victory for Hezbollah and reveal a significant vulnerability in Israel’s military capabilities.
It seems that Iron Dome,like the Patriot, are desgned for the last war, not the current war. Asymmetric deployment of volumes of small&cheap units will overload these systems, or at least cost your opponent too much.
Even aganst peer weapons thay are onlyildly successful. In Ukraine the patriots have intercepted Kinzals,bit will never be able, nor cost effective against Oreshniks (as the split too early)
There is one very cost-effective way to combat cheap drones. Laser systems being developed and deployed now are the logical counter to cheap drone swarms. Those systems have per-shot costs far below even the cheapest of mass produced drones.
DEW weapons are always ‘just about to be deployed’ to change the situation.
It’s never as simple as generating a directed pulse (regardless of the wavelength) if you don’t acquire the target at range, and, environmental conditions are compatible with your weapon system.
I think it’ll get there, but would discourage anyone from believing it’s around the corner until we see shaheeds melting in the video feeds.