“The Battle of Israel”, a la “the Battle of Britain”?
First time? It’s been happening on a practically daily basis in Ukraine for the past couple years. Or do Patriot, IRIS-T, S-300, etc, not count as modern air defense?
As best as I can tell, Russia has never launched anything of this scale - 300 to 500 missiles and drones in one attack. And while Ukraine has some decent air defense equipment, I wouldn’t say that they have a modern air defense system.
According to the IDF spokesman, Iran launched 185 Shahed-238 explosive drones, 36 cruise missiles, and 110 Kheibar ballistic missiles. The U.S. military, RAF and Jordanian air force intercepted 70 drones; the remaining drones and cruise missiles shot down by Israeli fighter jets before they reached Israel. Of the ballistic missiles, most were intercepted by various Israeli missile defense systems (Arrow-3, Arrow-2, David’s Sling, and Iron Dome); a handful managed to hit targets, causing minor damage to an Israeli Air Force base. The sole casualty in Israel was a Beduin girl in southern Israel who was injured in her tent by an interceptor fragment.
@Alessan , no comment for now, but I do appreciate you keeping us up-to-date with what’s happening in Israel at this time. Thank you!
How did American forces intercept these things? Aircraft from the Eisenhower? Some base in Iraq?
Somebody mentioned a U.S. aircraft carrier in the eastern Mediterranean. I don’t know which one that is.
To add to what I said earlier - as best we can tell, all of the drones were shot down by aircraft, not ground defenses.
Given the cost on all sides of making and breaking everything, that is likely the most expensive wound in history. Worse than Bush’s theoretical camel butt.
I’d think the point of Iran attacking would be to punish Israel enough so they wouldn’t repeat their attack on Iranian “soil”. If so, it would seem to me Iran failed. Other than the actual cost of munitions, Israel got off scot-free. Iran is saying they are done with the attack. Was this just a face-saving measure that, if it worked - great, if not they can claim to have stood up to Israel? Tit for tat and back to the way things were?
Do you have a link for that last?
On its surface, this means that nuclear weapons can be stopped.
Of course, the surface may be deceptive. Maybe there were a few solid hits on targeted Israeli military facilities, even if no one was killed. But if there was no damage, other than from falling debris after the 110 ballistic missiles were destroyed, this changes a lot.
Perhaps a low population density country like the U.S. is less practical to defend than high population density countries like the Netherlands and South Korea. Maybe India, although high density, and in obvious need of such defenses, lacks needed resources. But, at a minimum, big metropolitan areas everywhere need this protection.
If I was a national leader, I would today be asking my national security advisor, or equivalent, if we are protected.
Can they? In any case, the retaliatory nuclear strike is launched before waiting around to see whether you can stop some or all of the incoming warheads.
The only winning move is not to play.
IRGC called it “Operation True Promise”.
On and off, the US has some aircraft in Jordan. The largest U.S. base in the Middle East is located in Qatar, known as Al Udeid Air Base and built in 1996. Other countries where the U.S. has a presence include Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Also UK participated - from the Guardian -
"Royal Air Force fighter jets and refuelling aircraft were also involved, taking off from bases in Cyprus. Their role, according to the Ministry of Defence, was to fill in for the US Air Force in the sorties against the Islamic State normally carried out over Iraq and north-eastern Syria, but also to intercept Iranian drones if they came into the UK area of operations.
“In response to increased Iranian threats and the growing risk of escalation in the Middle East, the UK government has been working with partners across the region to encourage de-escalation and prevent further attacks,” a defence ministry statement said.
“We have moved several additional Royal Air Force jets and air refuelling tankers to the region. These will bolster Operation Shader, which is the UK’s existing counter-Daesh operation in Iraq and Syria. In addition, these UK jets will intercept any airborne attacks within range of our existing missions, as required.”
Maybe we should call it “Operation Broken Promise” 
Site for coverage of drone/missile attack. Dozens of videos and updates to the situation. Also coverage of air space disruption and diversion of commercial aircraft.
It means that nuclear weapons launched on cruise missiles and short-ranged ballistic missiles can be stopped. ICBMs aren’t even in the same ballpark as either of those, as they come in much faster. Nobody has ever demonstrated a system that can actually take out an ICBM post-launch.
So, roughly double the highest volume attacks in Ukraine, and those have had a higher proportion of cruise missiles vs the drones and ballistic missiles.
Also more success in shooting down, though it’s a lot easier to have a high density of air defense in a small nation like Israel. Ukraine is trying to defend over 20x the area, without any friendly air forces to assist.
It’s a notable event to be sure, and a truly remarkable defense. But while there are some differences, it still looks a lot like the mass missile/drone attacks on Ukraine to me. Iran seems to have taken various lessons from those, like attempting to saturate defenses with the cheap drones timed to arrive just ahead of the more lethal missiles, but they’ve lacked various of Russia’s advantages like the ability to launch against many far-flung targets and from multiple directions at once, and Israel has significant advantages relative to Ukraine, like the ability to focus their defenses in a small area, multiple friendly air forces assisting them, and no concerns about their fighter jets being shot at while flying defense sorties.
Reports now indicate no US carrier aircraft were involved. USS Carney (DDG-64) and USS Arleigh Burke (DDG-51) got four between them, using the SM-3 missile for the first time in combat.
More;
U.S. Defense Official has stated that all 3 of the Iranian Medium-Range Ballistic Missiles attempting to Target an Airbase in Southern Israel that were Downed last night by the United States, were Intercepted by U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-Class Guided-Missiles Destroyers in the Eastern Mediterranean utilizing their Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System to Track and Target the Missiles before launching Standard Missile-3s (SM-3) to Intercept.
This is not strictly true. The LIM-49 ‘Spartan’ missile (the ‘early terminal’ phase component of the briefly deployed Safeguard ABM systems was repeatedly demonstrated in testing to be capable of near physical intercept of ICBM-class targets (actually RVs deployed by the then-retired LGM-30A/B ‘Minuteman’ ICBM), clearly close enough to disrupt the flightpath or destroy an incoming RV with its 5 MT ‘enhanced radiation’ W71 warhead. The current Ground-Based Interceptor, the interceptor component of the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system, has kinetically intercepted ICBM-class targets in testing, although with relatively poor reliability due to issues with the Exo-Atmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) and without the integrated use of the Sea-Based X-Band Radar system (which has spent most of its time at Pearl Harbor in maintenance and testing, and is not capable of operating in routinely high sea states of its North Pacific AO).
Of course, Safeguard was cancelled and the Spartan and Sprint) interceptors removed from deployment shortly after the system was declared operational (and was only a point defense system for Wing VI silo launch and control facilities anyway); and many critics have pointed out that even the successful tests of GMB have been highly orchestrated for success and question its efficacy in a real world scenario, and the system is limited to around 30 interceptors so it could be overwhelmed by even a small salvo of incoming threats, but it has shown that the kinetic interception of ICBM-class targets is physically feasible even if technically and logistically challenging.
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