• Cysioland@lemmygrad.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    63
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    It’s just utterly beautiful how Western™ solutions are utterly powerless against people with barely any resources who are just determined

  • duderium [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    62
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Something something, the Soviets beat the Nazis because Soviet tanks were cheaper to produce and maintain though not necessarily better than the Nazi tanks, which were expensive and difficult to maintain because profits were more important than winning an actual war to the capitalist Nazis than to the communist Soviets. That’s one reason anyway.

  • Alaskaball [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    45
    ·
    1 year ago

    Some cope I hear out of some old zionist supporter I know in regards to the tin foil dome getting domed is how the Israelis somehow perfected laser beams and can shoot down missiles with flashlights powered by their unlimited power supply, and I’m sitting there listening like huh

          • Addfwyn@lemmygrad.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            17
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            Honestly laser defenses against rockets are not the craziest idea in the world, you definitely reduce the amount of debris. However, they just started deploying that system like this week I believe, so it is basically untested in real world scenarios. I doubt it was ready to be used yet.

            It could be a surprise success but I doubt it. Might work a bit better against slower moving targets that are easier to track, like drones. I also would wonder how often it can be fired. It’s pulling a lot of power per firing, I doubt it can be rapid-fired in the volume they’d need to intercept the volume of Hamas rockets being fired.

            Even if it worked perfectly, it would still cost several times the cost of a hamas rocket per firing.

            • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmygrad.mlOP
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              14
              arrow-down
              3
              ·
              1 year ago

              The main issues tend to be that lasers need clear weather conditions, which likely isn’t a problem there, the power consumption, and heat dissipation. The other two problems are kinda hard to solve. If you’re intercepting one or two missiles, it works fine, but if you have thousands coming in then the system either overheats or it needs more electricity than you can produce.

          • doccitrus@lemmygrad.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            9
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            Even extremely hot lasers, you have to keep trained on a single spot to have them burn through anything. The idea that you could reliably do this on a spinning, flying rocket in realtime seems pretty incredible.

            Laser beams are also generally easily defeated by fog or smoke or clouds, which is already abundant in any warzone but which could surely be easily added as a countermeasure.

            If these things work at all, there are likely many caveats.

            • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              To add to this, the alternative to trying to slow burn through a rocket like you mentioned is to use pulse lasers, but not only do they still suffer from blooming, they’re also a massive power drain by comparison and unlikely to be viable for long because of that

  • BelieveRevolt [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    43
    ·
    1 year ago

    I remember when Ukraine was pissed off that Israel wouldn’t give them an Iron Dome system. farquaad-point

    To me, it was always obvious the much ballyhooed Iron Dome wasn’t that effective, because it even let the puny Palestinian rockets through pretty frequently. Now imagine if someone fired at them with an actual military-grade rocket battery.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmygrad.mlOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      36
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      Exactly, the thing can barely shoot down home made pop rockets, it has no chance against actual missiles a professional military uses. Giving Iron Dome to Ukraine would’ve exposed it for the sham that it is, and would also be costly as fuck. Israel decided to avoid the obvious PR disaster. It would’ve basically been the repeat of the Patriot debacle. My fav part about it was how it fires like 30 missiles each costing a few million in a space of a couple of minutes, and still failed to intercept the kinzhal. It was immediately shown to be equal parts ineffective and unsustainable as a means of air defence.

  • Soviet Snake@lemmygrad.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    42
    ·
    1 year ago

    I’ve mentioned this was going to happen, the same thing happenes in 2012 and since then they’ve amassed a bigger stockpile but at the same time never Hamas has attacked as this time so the stockpile lasted longer but still not enough.

    According to Ronen Bergman, in 2012, during Operation Pillar of Defense, Israel agreed to an early cease-fire “for a reason that has remained a closely guarded secret: The Iron Dome anti-missile defense system… had run out of ammunition.” Bergman says that as a result of the experience, Israel had tried to prepare larger stocks of interceptors for future rounds of fighting.

      • Addfwyn@lemmygrad.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        19
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        I might be misremembering, but doesn’t the iron dome rely pretty heavily on volume of missiles being shot as a defensive response rather than precision accuracy? Meaning each missile might “only” be 80k but they are launching like a dozen of them?

        80k is still hundreds of times more than the rockets Hamas is using anyway.

    • ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      20
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      That’s extremely cheap, most modern munitions are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars.

      Even a 70’s rinky dink Soviet Strela-2 MANPAD is $120,000 per unit.

      • 小莱卡@lemmygrad.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        19
        ·
        1 year ago

        For reference, you can buy a decent > 300hp tractor for 80k. Isnt it absurd that these expendable missiles are on the same price range as a whole damn tractor 😂

        • DefinitelyNotAPhone [he/him]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          18
          ·
          1 year ago

          Even putting aside the obvious grift/profit factor of these being made by capitalist companies, the raw materials and engineering that goes into making something that can maneuver at Mach 10 while trying to hit a moving target also moving at Mach 10 aren’t cheap.

          • ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            15
            ·
            1 year ago

            A massive amount of the cost comes from the computers, miniaturized guidance and targeting systems, the immense engineering and comp-sci R&D behind those devices, and the sheer difficulty of designing good explosives.

            Even dumb bombs are expensive if you don’t want them to dud, explode randomly, not be aerodynamic, and so on.