From a military point of view, I would like to talk to you about Iran's retaliatory actions against Israel this time.
I also spoke politically and diplomatically about the confrontation between Iran and Israel. However, we are all military fans, and it is obviously not enough to talk about politics and diplomacy alone, so we must talk about the situation of this confrontation between Iran and Israel from a military point of view.
So, from a military point of view, what should we talk about? The most controversial and most interesting thing was the air raids and counter-air raids in the course of this exchange.
What is the most talked-about and most debated thing right now? It is Israel that claims to have intercepted 99 per cent of its incoming targets. As a result, many people said, "Israel is very good", "it deserves to be Israel, and it can intercept 99% of the time". There are also people who say "this is 99% not credible". For example, Iran said that "50 percent of its ballistic missiles hit their targets," and US intelligence officials revealed that seven missiles hit an Israeli military base. Anyway, everyone has their own opinions, and they are fighting fiercely.
So what about the 99% gold content? I said 99% might be a bit of a braggadocio, but 95% is possible, 90% is basically reliable. Why do you say that?
If you look closely, the Israelis are actually playing with words. He's talking about intercepting 99 percent of the targets, so what are the targets? Including drones, including cruise missiles, including ballistic missiles. What is the proportion of each of these total targets? Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are obviously the majority, while cruise missiles are much less, and ballistic missiles are likely to be even less. So, in terms of intercepting all targets, you can intercept 90%, 95%, or even brag about 99%. But if you say that you intercept ballistic missiles and take out ballistic missiles alone, Israel dares to say that it has intercepted 99 percent, and even if it dares to say that it has intercepted 90 percent? I don't think he dares to say that.
You may say, is it also good to intercept so many drones? Didn't you say "air defense and air defense, ten defenses and nine air" before, how can you have such a high interception success rate by blocking drones at this time?
We should not only look at the interception rate, but also look at the air defense side and how well it means interception. More specifically, it is necessary to see the air defense side, the density of the air defense fire network, the extent to which it can achieve early warning, and the depth of its air defense operations. In fact, in these three aspects, Israel's air defense combat conditions are unusually good this time.
To what extent can Israel's own air defense network reach? Let me give you a statistic that is not very complete. Israel is now equipped with the main air defense systems, including the "Arrow-2" and "Arrow-3" anti-missile systems, including the "Patriot" air defense system, including the "Iron Dome", including the "David's Sling". So how many of these things are there? There are 2 sets of "David's slings", about 10 or so launchers, and one set has multiple launchers. 10 sets of "Iron Dome" and 40 launchers. 4 sets of "Patriots", 32 launchers. There are 3 sets of "arrow" anti-missile systems and 24 launchers.
If you count by the number of launchers, there are more than 100 units. Everyone knows that in the land of Israeli projectiles, in such a small area, with so many anti-aircraft missiles, the density of this fire network is basically the first in the world. There is probably another place in the world that can come close to this density, and that is the Taiwan region of the mainland.
The density of anti-aircraft fire is an extremely critical thing. It is said that the air defense of the United States is powerful, but the air defense of the Russian system is not. In fact, at that time, the Russian air defense was also glorious. During the Fourth Middle East War, the Soviet Union's aid to Egypt's "Sam-6" did not mean that the Israeli Air Force did not dare to go out? In fact, it was not only how powerful the "Sam-6" was at that time, but also how high the firepower density of the "Sam-6" of the Egyptian army at that time, including the firepower density of other anti-aircraft firepower, was high. Why do you say that Ukraine has intercepted how many percent of drones and how many percent of Russian missiles have been intercepted, I say that it is bragging, because if you look at its firepower density, can it be compared with Israel?
Then the second point is to look at early warning. Needless to say, the approximate time of the attack has already been revealed. And the drones on the Iranian side flew together, announcing the start of a retaliatory strike. And at this time, it will take nearly 10 hours for the drone to fly over Israel. In other words, Iran has done all the early warnings.
At the same time, in Syria, in Iraq, in these countries around Israel, there are American and Western troops stationed. These garrisons have anti-aircraft radar monitoring networks. Therefore, this early warning should be said to be very strong, and the scope of the early warning is very large, and this condition is difficult to compare.
The third, the depth of air defense operations. As with the early warning, there is the US Air Force in Syria and the US Air Force in Iraq, which is the first line for Israel in front. Even Jordan is intercepting drones that have crossed the air. And France also participated in the interception in Jordan. Therefore, the results of the current air defense operation are not achieved by Israel alone, but by a number of Western countries, which are basically the result of a "NATO" model.
After watching this Iranian air strike on Israel, one might say: drones are useless. I used to say how powerful Iran's "little motorcycles" were, but this time they showed their stuffing, right? Almost 100 percent of them were intercepted.
In fact, whether it is good or not depends on what the use environment is. In the face of such an air defense network, will the "small motorcycles" have no room for survival? In fact, we can also think differently: The "small motorcycles" released by Iran this time are on the order of "hundreds."
What would happen if you changed your thinking and increased this order of magnitude to "thousand" and "10,000"? If a wave of attacks and 10,000 "small motorcycles" were volleyed, I think even the dense anti-aircraft firepower like Israel's would be saturated at once. Therefore, the key to such a thing as a "small motorcycle" is to increase the amount, not to use it, like the Russian army with dozens or hundred, like this time Iran with a hundred or two hundred, if you really encounter dense anti-aircraft firepower, you will not survive.
It's like a school of fish in the ocean. The sardine is in the middle of the sea, and the food chain belongs to the bottom, so how can it survive? A huge school of fish, everyone is together, you are a predatory fish, no matter how good you are, how much can you eat my school of fish? If you eat half of it, then my species will become extinct sooner or later. If you can only eat less than 1% at a time, the species is still thriving. The idea of "small motorcycle" is such an idea, it is to rely on the quantity, and the amount of use drowns everything. Of course, the use of large-scale quantities involves the coordination between bombs and bombs, which is why the so-called "swarm" of UAVs is concerned, and the reason lies in this place.
Speaking of ballistic missiles, ballistic missiles cannot be said to be uninterceptable, because after all, the development of anti-missile systems has been carried out for so many years. Moreover, the United States and Israel have invested the most in this field. Therefore, for low-end ballistic missiles, the interception success rate is still quite impressive. However, what about high-end ballistic missiles, there is no more real combat data yet. At least in this encounter, Iran's ballistic missile penetration, it is clear that there is a penetration, and the target is struck. As for the extent of the blow, Israel knows, and the United States believes it will know.
What kind of reaction will Israel make in the next step, and will it retaliate against Iran again? It will depend on the effect of Iran's missile attack. The better the effect, the less likely it is that Israel will retaliate, because retaliation and retaliation are a cycle. When Israel sees Iran's missiles, which have relatively good results in actual combat, this in itself is a deterrent capability.
So now on the Internet, all kinds of arguments are flying all over the sky, and I suggest that you wait a little longer, and slowly the more things go on, the more convincing. Including what kind of reaction Israel will make to Iran next. Speaking of which, this reaction will also be related to the success rate of Iran's attack and the interception rate of Israeli air defense systems.