News from Gaza Part 2

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Here you go Billy T:

Defiant Hamas launches new rockets deeper into Israel | Worl...
Jan 1, 2009 ... Defiant Hamas launches new rockets deeper into Israel ... In the past, regular Grad rockets had reached up to 12 miles inside Israel, ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/01/rockets-hamas-israel-border

In the past, regular Grad rockets had reached up to 12 miles inside Israel, hitting cities such as Ashkelon. But now an enhanced, longer version with a slightly larger 22kg warhead has reached ranges of 25 miles. Rockets fired on Tuesday night and yesterday hit the city of Be'er Sheva, in the Negev desert, for the first time, although they remain inaccurate and are not fired from sophisticated launchers.

New longer range rockets, 25 miles, and still using the old 12 mile range one to.

The problem is they keep smuggling in new rockets with better range, warheads, and size.

With the new Grad's Hamas can now out of Gaza cover a range fan from Ashded in a arc to Beersheba, to the Egyptian boarder.

These are not Qassam, Billy T.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-DjCgYmPRw
 
No I am pointing out the sections you fail to understand, again, the whole Treaty.

The Israelis are in compliance with the treaty and the additional protocols, and there isn't a dammed thing you can do about it.
Legally, they are in their rights to do what they did.

Your the ones who whish to ignore the parts of the Geneva Convention, and the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and you want to narrow the focus to just the points that you think prove Israel to be in the wrong.

You ignore the Chapter, Verse, section, subsection, and lines that approve of Israeli actions and give the right for Israel to defend it's self even if Hamas is hiding behind civilians and children.

CHAPTER IV.-PRECAUTIONARY MEASURES
Article 57.-Precautions in attack​

Give the Israelis the right to defend their people lives even at the expense of Palestinian lives.

Try and parch it any way you want but you can't get past:

2. With respect to attacks, the following precautions shall be taken:

(a) Those who plan or decide upon an attack shall:

(i) Do everything feasible to verify that the objectives to be attacked are neither civilians nor civilian objects and are not subject to special protection but are military objectives within the meaning of paragraph 2 of Article 52 and that it is not prohibited by the provisions of this Protocol to attack them;

(ii) Take all feasible precautions in the choice of means and methods of attack with a view to avoiding, and in any event to minimizing, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects;

(iii) Refrain from deciding to launch any attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated;

(b) An attack shall be cancelled or suspended if it becomes apparent that the objective is not a military one or is subject to special protection or that the attack may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated;
(c) Effective advance warning shall be given of attacks which may affect the civilian population, unless circumstances do not permit.

3. When a choice is possible between several military objectives for obtaining a similar military advantage, the objective to be selected shall be that the attack on which may be expected to cause the least danger to civilian lives and to civilian objects.

These subsections and sentences clear Israelis actions, and it is incumbent to you to prove that Israel failed to comply with said sections and and exceptions.

Israel is not required by any section or subsection in treaty or international law to allow adversaries to take free shots at their people, and murder their citizens, with weapons of war.

Hamas isn't attacking the Israeli military, it is not launching on the military formations they are launching on civilians.

So Hamas bought every thing it deserved, and paid for it in the blood of their own people, they could have stopped this even before it started, by honoring the cease fire in the First Place, in all aspects, stop the arms smuggling, stop the rocket attacks, stop trying to kidnap Israeli Military personnel, and kept their word, and do it long enough to prove the ill intentions of the Israelis.

They did nothing to prove the Israelis wrong starting with the first rocket they smuggled across the boarder from Egypt, and the failure to return, Gilad Shalit.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1052544.html



Ok if you don't like the accusation of Cherry Picking, then lets put it another way:

You ignore all of the sections that don't agree with your obtuse interpretations of the Geneva Convention, and Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and in your puerile, dogmatic, imbecilic assessment of what is happening and has happened.

All your doing is making your self look like an ignorant moron. You can claim the Israelis are in compliance all you want but it doesn't change the fact their not. The very parts that use to defend them are the ones that damn them. They aren't doing everything feasible to minimize civilian casualities. I understand what the word feasible means. You don't. Because you clearly think that choosing a means and method of attack that maximizes civilian deaths when another method that would cause less would work just well is doing everything feasible to minimize civilian deaths.



and your still to dimwitted to get it through your thick skull that if bells and I are cherry picking( which were not) than you are( which I at least am begining to think you are)




You ignore the Chapter, Verse, section, subsection, and lines that approve of Israeli actions and give the right for Israel to defend it's self even if Hamas is hiding behind civilians and children.
You fucking nit wit no one is saying that. What we are saying is if and when Israel acts it must also adhere to the conventions which its not. Just becuase your to damn stupid to understand using more force than needed is violating the conventions doesn't change the fact its a violation.
 
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al Jazeera is showing a Witness Special on the refugee children of Palestine, communicating with each other across different refugee camps.

Its amazing how little of the Palestine perspective is known to the people outside those prisons.

http://www.linktv.org/video/3477

http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/witness/2009/01/20091412114846748.html

The news is covering the full extent of the destruction.

Apparently, the Israelis even stole the money and jewelry of these people in the houses they staked out. Pathetic.

Not to mention all the waste in the houses, cans of tuna, heat warmer packs and lots of trash.

People are digging through the rubble for the bodies of their family members.

Israelis are STILL not giving permission to Egyptian ambulances. Wtf is wrong with these people?

Ayman Mohyeldin is the new star of the Middle East.

Israeli strategy:

The Israeli theory of what it tried to do here is summed up in a Hebrew phrase heard across Israel and throughout the military in the past weeks: “baal habayit hishtageya,” or “the boss has lost it.” It evokes the image of a madman who cannot be controlled.

“This phrase means that if our civilians are attacked by you, we are not going to respond in proportion but will use all means we have to cause you such damage that you will think twice in the future,” said Giora Eiland, a former national security adviser.

It is a calculated rage. The phrase comes from business and refers to a decision by a shop owner to cut prices so drastically that he appears crazy to the consumer even though he knows he has actually made a shrewd business decision.

The Palestinians in Gaza got the message on the first day when Israeli warplanes struck numerous targets simultaneously in the middle of a Saturday morning. Some 200 were killed instantly, shocking Hamas and indeed all of Gaza, especially because Israel’s antirocket attacks in previous years had been more measured.

When Hamas’s prime minister, Ismail Haniya, appeared on Hamas television from his hiding spot last Monday, he picked up on the Israeli archetype, referring in Arabic to the battle under way as “el harb el majnouna,” the mad or crazy war.

Hamas strategy:

Still, the actual damage to Hamas appears to have been limited partly because it acted so cautiously. There is irony in this, that Israel, the state with the well-trained army, wildly pressed the attack, while Hamas, the Islamist militia that supposedly embraces death, shied from the fight.

The group was by all accounts able to preserve a substantial portion of its force. Hundreds of Hamas fighters were reported killed, but general estimates put the entire force well into the thousands. Israeli military officials said they saw very few fighters on the battlefield. They came out mostly in ones and twos and only a few attempted suicide bombings.

Those who know Hamas in Gaza say this was carefully calculated.

“In previous times, the fighters would confront and throw themselves at Israeli attacks,” said one man close to Hamas who declined to be identified further. “It was a kind of suicide. It was love of martyrdom. You go and confront the tanks and many were killed, 80 in a few days.”

“This time it was different,” he added. “They have more experience and they have training from Syria and Iran. They helped them rethink their strategy. They fired rockets in between the houses and covered the alleys with sheets so they could set the rockets up in five minutes without the planes seeing them. The moment they fired, they escaped, and they are very quick.”

A Hamas man interviewed on this question quoted a verse in the Koran that one should not throw himself into death in vain. “Hamas has not shown all its strength,” he said. “We have to maintain our strength. Israel did not want to fight face to face, so we stayed back. Israel said it felt like it was fighting ghosts.”

An Israeli military official involved in the operations said Hamas had three main goals: harming Israel, ruling in Gaza and extending its rule to the West Bank.

“He understands that he needs to get bloodshed and delegitimize us in the international arena,” the official said of Hamas. “So he cynically used people and hit us from within schools and mosques and inside civilian places. If our army wants to hit back, it has to hurt the civilian population.”

Still, he and others said, Hamas was a pretty impressive and disciplined force.

“I would say they are very professional, yes absolutely,” the operations officer said. “In each city they have a commander and brigades and battalions; they are very organized. They have mostly lost a lot of their simple fighters, but not their top men.”

Shlomo Brom, a researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University and a retired brigadier general, said it was wrong to consider Hamas a group of irrational fanatics.

“I have always said that Hamas is a very rational political movement,” he said. “When they use suicide bombings, for example, it is done very consciously, based on calculations of the effectiveness of these means. You see, both sides understand the value of calculated madness. That is one reason I don’t see an early end to this ongoing war.”

http://www.gatorsports.com/article/20090119/ZNYT03/901193000?Title=Parsing_Gains_of_Gaza_War
 
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To Buffalo: Thanks for the links in post 804. Your first includes:

“In the past, regular Grad rockets had reached up to 12 miles inside Israel, hitting cities such as Ashkelon. But now an enhanced, longer version with a slightly larger 22kg warhead has reached ranges of 25 miles. Rockets fired on Tuesday {30Dec08} although they remain inaccurate* and are not fired from sophisticated launchers.
Palestinian rockets and mortars have killed four Israelis since Israel's bombing campaign began last Saturday and have caused 20 deaths in Israel in the past eight years. More than 370 Palestinians have died in the past five days of bombing in Gaza.
Israeli military officials believe the rockets are either made in Iran or transferred from there. However, reports in the Israeli press yesterday said some recently fired rockets appeared to have been made in China. Grads, sometimes known as katyushas, have been manufactured by many countries since the second world war ...”


Although the article did not say so, I think that Katyusha type rockets can be rapidly (almost simultaneously) launched so Israel needs to improve the defensive plan I have suggested,** to include an earlier layer of defense than the CIWS along the lines of the three alternatives I have mentioned in recent prior posts. (CAP, armed drones and /or Air to Ground missile firing blimps on station to return counter fire in seconds, if not before launch.)

In addition to your YouTube link (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-DjCgYmPRw) the following show what the IAF can do in the way of specific destruction of threat rockets ON THE GROUND, (pre launch) I AM ALL FOR THIS. Do more of it and less strikes on food storage warehouses, UN buildings etc.

Note the first two links below have the same first screen, but they are different – don’t kill the second one, just because it starts like the first. These two video strongly support what I have been stating – Israel can use technology to PROTECT itself. In the long run, the current High-Kill Ratio policy choice is counter productive. – has just made the problem grow worse over the years and the technology available to Hamas is getting more threatening to Israel – someday it will be biological war, with even non-Palestinians tossing Ebola etc. from Tel Aviv high rise windows. (Many in the Arab world, even places like Indonesia, are being made very angry by the High Kill Ratio policy choice.)

My whole point is: A DEFENSIVE CHOICE EXISTS and which is BETTER FOR ISRAEL, in the long run.

The third link below is almost 7 minutes long and first three minutes are “pro Israel justification” comments in English but soon there after is Hamas made video showing the launch of quasam rockets from what appears to be orange or olive groves. (The overlaying English text stating “from populated areas” is an obvious error. This error tends to discredit other claims that they are launched from populated areas, but of course the Hamas made video does not have any “market place” scenes as the background. Hamas is often dumb, but not that dumb.)

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=hFA-J4w38H8&NR=1
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjudA4FJyYk&NR=1
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Fq-69-qr7iU&NR=1

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*Bold added by Billy T who notes that they can become much more accurate with a little more help from Iran. I.e. a small GPS + steering fins package, easy to smuggle in to Gaza, placed on the nose like those used to make "dumb” bombs into "smart” bombs. Israel must soon switch to a DEFENSIVE plan. - The current High Kill Ratio choice is failing, more rapidly than ever. Hamas can still launch rockets whenever it chooses and as Buffalo pointed out those rockets are getting better. Again my real fear is not rockets - they will never kill as many as Israeli car accidents do. - Thus, rockets are not a real threat to the State of Israel, but biological weapons can be. There are many who would be glad to send EVERYONE living between the MED Sea and the Jordan River up to Allah for him "to sort them out." (Martyrs to their reward and Jews to hell, of course.) Israel is not dealing with people who fear dying for their cause - The Bali bombers could hardly wait for their execution as martyrs!

**It was designed to cope with the threat of 3 years ago. Threat has grown stronger / Problem grown worse. More evidence that the change to a Defensive choice is long over due.
 
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For all those who wonder at the support that Hezbullah has in the Palestinians, this is what Hezbullah made possible for them by removing Israeli occupation: meeting their relatives and friends after 52 years. Which the Israelis had forbidden probably in support of ben Gurion's words "The old will die and the young will forget"

52 years! the mind cannot comprehend it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTcKHIikxbE
 
For all those who wonder at the support that Hezbullah has in the Palestinians, this is what Hezbullah made possible for them by removing Israeli occupation: meeting their relatives and friends after 52 years. Which the Israelis had forbidden probably in support of ben Gurion's words "The old will die and the young will forget"

52 years! the mind cannot comprehend it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTcKHIikxbE

At least the Israelis allowed them to hug each other through the fence :bawl:
 
Yeah. That was pretty generous of them. :p

That clip is from The Frontiers Of Dreams & Fears by Mai Masri

Wonderful documentary on the lives of two girls in two different refugee camps under Israeli occupation.
 
To Buffalo: Thanks for the links in post 804. Your first includes:

“In the past, regular Grad rockets had reached up to 12 miles inside Israel, hitting cities such as Ashkelon. But now an enhanced, longer version with a slightly larger 22kg warhead has reached ranges of 25 miles. Rockets fired on Tuesday {30Dec08} although they remain inaccurate* and are not fired from sophisticated launchers.
Palestinian rockets and mortars have killed four Israelis since Israel's bombing campaign began last Saturday and have caused 20 deaths in Israel in the past eight years. More than 370 Palestinians have died in the past five days of bombing in Gaza.
Israeli military officials believe the rockets are either made in Iran or transferred from there. However, reports in the Israeli press yesterday said some recently fired rockets appeared to have been made in China. Grads, sometimes known as katyushas, have been manufactured by many countries since the second world war ...”


Although the article did not say so, I think that Katyusha type rockets can be rapidly (almost simultaneously) launched so Israel needs to improve the defensive plan I have suggested,** to include an earlier layer of defense than the CIWS along the lines of the three alternatives I have mentioned in recent prior posts. (CAP, armed drones and /or Air to Ground missile firing blimps on station to return counter fire in seconds, if not before launch.)

In addition to your YouTube link (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-DjCgYmPRw) the following show what the IAF can do in the way of specific destruction of threat rockets ON THE GROUND, (pre launch) I AM ALL FOR THIS. Do more of it and less strikes on food storage warehouses, UN buildings etc.

Note the first two links below have the same first screen, but they are different – don’t kill the second one, just because it starts like the first. These two video strongly support what I have been stating – Israel can use technology to PROTECT itself. In the long run, the current High-Kill Ratio policy choice is counter productive. – has just made the problem grow worse over the years and the technology available to Hamas is getting more threatening to Israel – someday it will be biological war, with even non-Palestinians tossing Ebola etc. from Tel Aviv high rise windows. (Many in the Arab world, even places like Indonesia, are being made very angry by the High Kill Ratio policy choice.)

My whole point is: A DEFENSIVE CHOICE EXISTS and which is BETTER FOR ISRAEL, in the long run.

The third link below is almost 7 minutes long and first three minutes are “pro Israel justification” comments in English but soon there after is Hamas made video showing the launch of quasam rockets from what appears to be orange or olive groves. (The overlaying English text stating “from populated areas” is an obvious error. This error tends to discredit other claims that they are launched from populated areas, but of course the Hamas made video does not have any “market place” scenes as the background. Hamas is often dumb, but not that dumb.)

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=hFA-J4w38H8&NR=1
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjudA4FJyYk&NR=1
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Fq-69-qr7iU&NR=1

------------
*Bold added by Billy T who notes that they can become much more accurate with a little more help from Iran. I.e. a small GPS + steering fins package, easy to smuggle in to Gaza, placed on the nose like those used to make "dumb” bombs into "smart” bombs. Israel must soon switch to a DEFENSIVE plan. - The current High Kill Ratio choice is failing, more rapidly than ever. Hamas can still launch rockets whenever it chooses and as Buffalo pointed out those rockets are getting better. Again my real fear is not rockets - they will never kill as many as Israeli car accidents do. - Thus, rockets are not a real threat to the State of Israel, but biological weapons can be. There are many who would be glad to send EVERYONE living between the MED Sea and the Jordan River up to Allah for him "to sort them out." (Martyrs to their reward and Jews to hell, of course.) Israel is not dealing with people who fear dying for their cause - The Bali bombers could hardly wait for their execution as martyrs!

**It was designed to cope with the threat of 3 years ago. Threat has grown stronger / Problem grown worse. More evidence that the change to a Defensive choice is long over due.

Billy T, your system requires a DEFCON condition Red at all times, and the CWIS does not have the mechanical reaction time to respond to mass launches, yes it can take care of some of the incoming projectiles, but as I keep pointing out, the CWIS was designed as a last ditch defense system to deal with threats that have been degraded with a layered defense starting over the horizon at 205+ miles.

There is no such zone in depth available to the Israelis, the Israelis have at most 30 miles of zone to set a defense, a Kaytushia, Grad, travels at 1/2 mile a second, that at most give the system 15 seconds to target, spin up, engage the incoming targets and make a hard kill.

Again the CWIS was designed to engage leaker, single targets, in the high sub Mach, low Mach, speeds, not 50 to 100 incoming targets at the high Mach numbers of 2+ speed.

I have seen and watched CIWS in action, it doesn't have the mechanical reaction time to engage and defeat a mass launch.
 
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Billy T, your system requires a DEFCON or Red at all times, and the CWIS does not have the mechanical reaction time to respond to mass launches, yes it can take care of some of the incoming projectiles, but as I keep pointing out, the CWIS was designed as a last ditch defense system to deal with threats that have been degraded with a layered defense starting over the horizon at 205+ miles.
There is no such zone in depth available to the Israelis, the Israelis have at most 30 miles of zone to set a defense, a Kaytushia, Grad, travels at 1/2 mile a second, that at most give the system 15 seconds to target, spin up, engage the incoming targets and make a hard kill.
Again the CWIS was designed to engage leaker, single targets, in the high sub Mach, low Mach, speeds, not 50 to 100 incoming targets at the high Mach numbers of 2+ speed.
I have seen and watched CIWS in action, it doesn't have the mechanical reaction time to engage and defeat a mass launch.
Correct on the limitations of CIWS and if Gaza rockets do come fast (Mach2, instead of slowing falling from their post-burnout peak) and simultaneously, then a prior layer of defense is mandatory. We agree on all this.

True, Israeli's Gaza adversary is not far away. The USSR could positions ships very distant and launch dozens of cruise missiles at the US Navy battle group. This distant launch made it impossible for the US to kill the threat prior to launch but did give hundreds of miles for "engagement in depth" which Israel does not have.

This fact is really a great advantage for Israel. I.e. the tiny area from which the rockets can come is already known. - They come from a strip only 12 miles wide. - Very small area compared to the open ocean the USSR could have launched from. The Gaza terrorists do not have thousands of square miles from which to launch their attack. They can be constantly watched and often have their weapons destroyed before they can be launched.

Israel can easily maintain CONSTANT SURVALENCE over a strip only 38 miles long and 12 miles wide. The US Navy could not kill the rockets the USSR could launch at it prior to launch, but Israel can - Israel has already demonstrated this ability in the videos link of my last post.

I do not see why you feel a need, as in this post of yours, to repeat what we agree on. I have stated in my last few posts that my three years old plan needs to be expanded to cope with the growing seriouness of the threat. I.e. add some of the three options I have discussed to give Israel the assured ability to destroy most* rockets on the ground 24/7/365. The videos show Israel can do this but I do not know if they can keep CAP etc. up 24/7/365 now.

SUMMARY: On the requirements for defense, we agree. (CIWS alone is no longer adequate as the threat is now worse.) You even agree that the problem is growing worse. Can you not see that the High Kill Ratio Retaliatory option has failed? Why not make a change to the defensive option? Protect more Israelis.
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* Let the IAF's air-to-air missiles and or CIWS deal with the leakers that do get off the ground.
 
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Israel can easily maintain CONSTANT SURVALENCE over a strip only 38 miles long and 12 miles wide.
If this is true, then the solution seems obvious. Try to shoot down any incoming missles and immediately destroy any and all launch sites detected.
 
If this is true, then the solution seems obvious. Try to shoot down any incoming missiles and immediately destroy any and all launch sites detected.
If a Mach 2 missile is launched from Gaza one cannot be confident an air-to-air missile fired from a CAP plane can catch up with it. You really want to destroy most on the ground before they are launched. One of the videos in my links show the IAF trying to do this - they killed two on the ground, but the first did get off. (It would be "meat" for the CIWS to chew up, IF Israeli had installed CIWS as I suggested 3 years ago.)

Fighter on fighter air to air engagement often do not have this "chase problem" as they are frequently converging on each other. - Both typically get their air to air missile off well before the pilot can even see their adversary. (“WWII “dog fights” with guns are history.) This is why the head on RCS, radar cross section, of a fighter is so important. (You want to detect him before he detects you, and shoot. If his missile uses support guidance from the plane, your missile may kill him and thus save you, but often both planes will be hit, even if one RCS is significantly smaller than the other.)

If Israel cannot shoot down most of the next generation (Mach 2) missiles, from the air-born CAP, etc. then Israel needs to put (closer to the defended area) some missile like the SM-2 (Israeli version) which flyout TOWARDS the incoming threat to meet it, not chase it.

Buffalo is quite correct that one CIWS will be saturated if more than two of the Mach 2 missiles are converging on the same defended area at the same time, so some means of keeping the probable "leakers" to less than three is required (Two CIWS can probably kill two simultaneous Mach 2 incomers, even if they are weavers, but that is not assured.)

Fortunately, CIWS is being removed from many ships, so should be cheap. Israel may need to also use some of CIWS replacements like Nato Sea Sparrow or the Rolling Air frame, RAM, missiles, which are faster flout than bullets. Protecting Israeli cities is just a question of will and money, but certainly technically feasible.
 
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Bells it is the part that you ignore, that blows your assesment out of the water, if it wasn't there, you would be correct in your interpretation, but it is there:

CHAPTER IV.-PRECAUTIONARY MEASURES
Article 57.-Precautions in attack

Give the Israelis the right to defend their people lives even at the expense of Palestinian lives.

Try and parch it any way you want but you can't get past:



You know, at some point, it might just sink into your skull. You are making my point for me Buffalo. The simple point is that Israel failed to live up to its obligations (of all the points you have posted from the Convention and from all the other Articles I quoted from the Convention and more) when it relied on Article 57(7) to defend itself. It's really not that hard to comprehend. I think I make it clearly enough many posts ago. In defending itself, Israel failed to abide by the Convention when it comes to the protection of civilians because it did not take care to ensure their safety and well being.

I really don't think I can get any planer than that. You keep relying on Article 57(7) primarily, while ignoring the whole Convention. You keep repeating over and over again that Israel has the right to self defense (which it does) under 57(7), but you can't seem to grasp the very simple fact that 57(7) does not absolve Israel of its responsibilities under the whole convention. You only now bring forward a few other sections of Article 57, not realising that Israel has failed to meet those obligations as well. Have you actually ever read the Convention as a whole? I would suggest that you do. And pay particular attention to the whole of Chapter III, instead of concentrating solely on Article 57. After you have done that, go back and re-acquaint yourself with all that Israel (and Hamas) have done in this incursion and then apply the Convention as a whole, instead of just 57(7) as you have been doing... :rolleyes:
 
If this is true, then the solution seems obvious. Try to shoot down any incoming missiles and immediately destroy any and all launch sites detected.

It is not true, the rocket do not slow down as much as Billy T would like us to believe, they have a ballistic coefficient that doesn't allow for that even in extended range launches, they cover the distance of 25 miles in 12 seconds.

I have been on the receiving end of Kaytusha rockets and they are still high Mach at impact, referenced by the sonic crack as they over fly the perimeter positions on the bases.

Billy T want to say the Kaytusha Rocket describe a high arc in their flight profile, they don't, it is a low ballistic trajectory, the highest launch angles being some were about 55 deg.

Now lets see what a launch looks like from one of these systems:

180px-Katyusha-chechen-war.jpg


And the mortar:

800px-Mortar_firing_high_res.JPEG


One hell of a difference in the flight profiles of the two systems, not counting the velocity differences, 700fps vs. Mach 2+

The other thing Billy T doesn't look at is that rockets are designed to be balisticaly stable in flight, they are designed to maintain a constant rate of acceleration and deceleration, so they can be targeted to a specific area and impact that area.

The design is optimized to keep them ballistically stable, which gives the BC in the 1+ range and that means they don't slow down well, they carry their velocity all the way to the target with minimum loss of that velocity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BM-21

[edit] Gaza Strip
The Hamas and other armed organizations in the Gaza Strip do not operate BM-21 truck-based launchers.[1]

They have used small man-portable launchers for rocket attacks against Israel, using improvised Qassam rockets, and individual 122-mm rockets which have been smuggled into Gaza, including the type used as ammunition for the BM-21 Grad and other Katyusha rocket launchers. The 122-mm rockets used by these groups in Gaza have a range of about 40 km, and can reach the Israeli towns of Ashdod, Beer-Sheva, Ofakim, Gedera and Gan Yavne.
 
...Billy T want to say the Kaytusha Rocket describe a high arc in their flight profile, they don't, it is a low ballistic trajectory, the highest launch angles being some were about 55 deg.

Now lets see what a launch looks like from one of these systems:

180px-Katyusha-chechen-war.jpg
...
No I do not say that about the super-sonic Kaytusha rockets. I said that about the subsonic Quasam rockets. They have a high peak altitude, achieved after burnout from which they simply fall, and as they are then mainly hollow tubes, do so more slowly than mortar shells which also have a similar high arc trajectory. Please do not put words in my mouth - especially false words. I do NOT want to say what you claim I do.

We agree that the threat has grown worse during the three years since I designed my defensive plan. Thus, Israel now needs more than just CIWS to stop the more modern (Mach2) rockets. I have stated this at least three times, so I see little reason to continue our exchange. We basically agree. -Defense of Israel is more difficult now, and will be much more so when biological weapons are available to the terrorists.

Before ceasing to reply more to you, I do want to point out that in mountainous Chechen and Bosnia etc. areas, with launch from higher ground than the target, a lower angle, less than30 degrees as in your photo, is used. Your photo is NOT of anything like the sub sonic Quasam rocket.

The Gaza launch area is not much above sea level. All of the Quasam launchers are set at approximately 45 degrees - there are hundreds of photographs confirming this. The 45 degree angle gives the max range, when you cannot launch from higher ground at a lower target. It is simple physics.

The Mach 2 rockets may be launched at lower angles, even at targets with the same elevation as they have less time to fall under the influence of gravity than the slow subsonic Gaza rockets my three year old plan was designed for. You can easily test this simple Quasam rocket physics by throwing a rock (certainly a slow, sub-sonic projectile) on the beach. With launch at about a 45 degree up angle you get the max range. - Why the Gaza launch rails for the older sub-sonic rockets are at 45 degrees.

You are distorting the truth to infer that the old, subsonic, Quasam rockets used in Gaza were launched at low angles, by showing a photo of a supersonic rocket launched at about 20 degree angle, either from a higher elevation than the Chechen target or with only a short distance to travel, (compared to is max range).

Again, I agree that because the threat is now worse (but not nearly as bad as it will be when it is biological) Israel's defense is more difficult than it was three years ago. I just hope that Israel changes to a defensive policy before some rich Indonesian tourist / terrorist throws Ebola etc from a high rise window in Tel Aviv.

As I said in earlier posts, including most recently post 1106: “my real fear is not rockets - they will never kill as many as Israeli car accidents do. - Thus, rockets are not a real threat to the State of Israel, but biological weapons can be. There are many who would be glad to send EVERYONE living between the MED Sea and the Jordan River up to Allah for him "to sort them out." (Martyrs to their reward and Jews to hell, of course.) Israel is not dealing with people who fear dying for their cause - The Bali bombers could hardly wait for their execution as martyrs!” Israel must stop recruiting so many terrors with its High Kill Ratio policy, not for “moral reasons,” but for its own good, before it is too late.
 
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Yes, this is a dynamic in the conflict - that 'soldiers of Allah" welcome death and martyrdom.

Suicide bombings and other 'terrorist' attacks - like the sort of thing Israel got up to before it became a state, you know, deliberate targeting of civilians and stuff - are methods a guerilla army has available. Regular armies have the option of targeting civilians as collateral targets. But they still end up dead, somehow.

Now that Israel has shown the Arab world what its real priorities are - to create as many radicals and terrorists as possible, so to guarantee if you will, that future conflicts will be ongoing, thus defining its "right to exist and wage war" - it looks like it will get what it wants at some stage.
 
Just heard that Israel has opened a "clinic" for the wounded at the Eretz crossing.

Doctors are "frustrated" because no Palestinians are coming there.

Gee, now why would that be?
 
More news from Gisha [Israeli human rights organisation]:

On "the day after" the fighting in Gaza, the magnitude of the death and destruction continues to come to light. Bodies are still being pulled out of the wreckage, bringing the death toll to well over 1,300, and hundreds of thousands of people are contending with water, sewage, and health systems that are in a state of collapse.

Despite the wreckage that is still being uncovered these very days, the Israeli Supreme Court last night rejected two petitions submitted by human right organizations in Israel, demanding the evacuation of wounded from the Gaza Strip and the supply of electricity to Gaza's humanitarian infrastructure, especially the health, water and sewage systems. The court rejected the petitions without even waiting for the explanations the State was supposed to submit today, in response to claims by the human rights groups that Israel was not permitting evacuation of those injured in the Gaza Strip.

http://gisha.org/index.php?intLanguage=2&intItemId=1465&intSiteSN=113


Hamas and Palestinians:

"Hamas is now our army, the only ones fighting to defend the Palestinian people," said Gaza resident Ahmed al-Sultan, standing outside the rubble of the north Gaza City home his family has lived in for 40 years. "I saw how they fight, their courage and their sacrifice, and so I've changed my opinion about them."

Eighteen months ago, Mr. Sultan fought against Hamas during the group's bloody takeover of the coastal territory. He's a longtime member of the Palestinian Authority's security services, which are controlled by the Fatah party, now led by moderate and Western-leaning Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

After it won control in Gaza, Hamas sentenced Mr. Sultan to death. He won a reprieve through a connected relative. Today, he calls the Palestinian Authority leaders he once served, who are based in the West Bank, "donkeys" and says Hamas, his onetime nemesis, are "rightful defenders of the Palestinian people."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123226304628993811.html
 
One can always test, but I am quite confident that CIWS is better than that. - There has been one test running since 2005 with no failures against mortar shells, sub-sonic targets with trajectories like the Gaza rockets (but more challenging as faster and smaller)
Please, give a reference
 
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