24 from lift-off. According to Israeli media, about 150200 launchers were thus destroyed. The videos of launcher destruction were clearly taken from armed UAVs, not from combat aircraft. This is corroborated by images released in Iran of downed Israeli UAVs. In one video taken near Isfahan, the debris of what is clearly an Israeli Hermes 900 can be recognized. Near it lies what seems to be a glide bomb, type unknown. It is impossible to assess how many Iranian missile launches were prevented by the “offensive defense” operation, but the impression from IDF videos is that in most cases, the launchers were destroyed together with their asyet unfired missiles still on board The “offensive defense” strategy seems to have been fairly effective, as evidenced by the gradually diminishing rate of Iranian ballistic missile fire (from 120 missiles on the second day of the campaign to 22 on the last day). Moreover, it seems to have gradually decreased the size of the Iranian salvos. The main Iranian tactic against missile defenses is saturation – that is, the simultaneous launching of as many missiles as possible to overload the defender’s detection and tracking systems. The first few Iranian salvos were relatively large, at 40 or more missiles per salvo, but they gradually declined over time as the campaign evolved. In the last two days, salvos consisted of five or fewer missiles. It seems that Israel’s “offensive defense” forced the Iranians to “shoot and scoot”, so to speak. It is impossible to assess how many Iranian missile launches were prevented by the “offensive defense” operation, but the impression from IDF videos is that in most cases, the launchers were destroyed together with their as-yet unfired missiles still on board. If so, then the destruction of 200 launchers may mean that somewhere between 100 and 150 missiles were destroyed before launch. This was important for reducing the burden on the active defense segment of the defensive shield and to economize on interceptor consumption. The combined US-Israeli missile and air defense assetsperformedwell against the Iranianonslaught – especially in the case of the UAV offensive, which, for all practical purposes, was fully deflected. The 86% success rate against Iranian theater-range ballistic missiles was close to the habitual 90% score against short-range rockets. Yet the heavy damage and loss of life from the Iranian ballistic missiles far exceeded the level of damage and loss in past rocket attacks. This is obviously not the result of the somewhat lower score (86% vs. 90%), but rather the effect of the heavier warheads on Iranian ballistic missiles compared to the lighter warheads on Hamas and Hezbollah rockets. Until Iran’s True Promise attacks, Israel’s missile defense had contended only with relatively light rockets fired from relatively short range. Iron Dome and David Sling proved capable of coping with those threats successfully. True Promise III was the first serious test of Israel’s heavier interceptors, the Arrow 2 and 3, side by side with their US Army and US Navy equivalents. The experience of True Promise III indicates that both American and Israeli missile defense should strive in the future to enhance their success rate to exceed that of Iron Dome.
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