Great Test for Iron Dome: Conclusions from Iran's missile-dron attack for Israeli Air defence strategy (Comment)

ine.org.pl 2 weeks ago

Zdjęcie: ChiÅska polityka energetyczna – 2025-07-26T210157.004

Comment summary:

On June 13, 2025, Israel launched an attack on Iran's atomic infrastructure, justifying it a increasing threat from Tehran.
In retaliation, Iran carried out massive rocket and drone attacks for civilian and strategical purposes in Israel.
Israeli air defence strategy intercepted about 90% of missiles fired by Iran, but the attack revealed its limitations in the face of massive saturate attacks.
A crucial cost imbalance – Iranian rockets and drones are much cheaper to produce and operate than expensive, technologically advanced Israeli interception systems.
The most crucial challenge seems to be the integration of fresh technologies, specified as targeted energy weapons (DEW) and the increase in the production of interceptor missiles, in order to offset expanding threats.

Introduction

The war between Israel and the muslim Republic of Iran began on 13 June 2025 with Israel's launch of the "Rising Lion" operation aimed at Iran's atomic infrastructure. The government in Tel Aviv has justified the carrying out of operations ‘direct’ and ‘existential’ threats, which were defined as the anticipation of Tehran acquiring atomic weapons. Thus, Israel announced the launch of the alleged preemptive attacks aimed at key infrastructure for Iran's atomic programme: uranium enrichment facilities and investigation centres in Fordo, Natanz, Arak and Isfahan. The consequence of Iran did not take long — the next day, i.e. 14 June, Iran launched its first missiles towards Israel’s territory — at the same time giving emergence to the most serious test for Israeli air defence so far.

Iran attack

The Israeli side of the victims' balance was 29 killed and nearly 3,500 wounded (as of 26 June 2025). [1]. This is much more than in the October 2024 attacks – the origin of this imbalance (while maintaining akin technological capabilities of Tehran) we can see in the evolution of the approach to mark selection, the attacks from the erstwhile year focused primarily on military objects specified as the Ramona or Nevada Air Base. [2] .

Based on data provided by Galei Tzahal — The Israeli Armed Forces radio station — fell from 50 to 60 Iranian missiles in Israel, mainly into densely populated civilian areas. 5 of them hit the energy infrastructure and military facilities. Among the targets were among others. Bazan refinery in Haifa and power station in Ashdoda. In addition, a hit was reported in Tel Aviv administrative territory — Ha’Kirya — Just 300 metres from the Ministry of Defence [3].

Despite the amazing scale of the Iranian attack, it is hard to see the actual qualitative improvement in rocket systems or unmanned aircraft (UAV) compared to the attacks of October 2024. Identified by the Israeli site, the remains indicate the usage of previously utilized Emad, Haj Qasem, Khaibar Shekan and Fattah 1 missiles. For UAV, Shahed 136/ models dominated Shahed 101 as well as Arash 2 [4].

Israeli air defence system:

Since the proclamation of independency in 1948, 1 of the most crucial challenges facing the recently established state of Israel has been to make a military doctrine adapted to highly hard geostrategic realities. For a country with specified limited strategical depth — where the narrowest part of the territory, between Palestinian Tulkaram and coastal Netanya, is only about 15 kilometres wide — a functioning air defence strategy is existential.

The Israeli air defence strategy is 1 of the most comprehensive and advanced specified systems in the world. It is based on a layered structure to address real-time threats of varying nature — to effectively defend the territory of the state against both mortar shells, typically utilized by Hamas or Hezbollah fighters, and far more technologically advanced Iranian ballistic missiles of short and average range.

Iron Dome

Iron Dome System is the first link of Israeli air defence — designed to combat short-range rockets and artillery missiles (4 to 70 kilometres) [5]. The strategy effectively captures threats specified as Grad rockets or mortar ammunition. According to the manufacturer, it operates around the clock, in all weather conditions. It is capable of responding to many threats at the same time and of an advanced selection of targets — only those missiles that are heading towards urban areas or military facilities are captured. This allows strategy operation to be optimised: focusing only on a real threat, minimising the hazard of overload. According to available data, each Iron Dome battery is able to supply protection for an area of about 150 square kilometres.

Iron Dome consists of 3 basic components:

EL/M-2084 detection and tracking radar– Elta developed in collaboration with IDF is liable for detecting and tracking the trajectory of incoming missiles.
BMC– created by mPrest Systems for Rafael, analyzes radar data and assesses whether the incoming rocket is simply a threat.
Fire unit- launchers equipped with electro-optically guided Tamir maneuvering missiles. The battery contains 3–4 launchers with 20 rounds each.

David’s Sling

David’s Sling is another link in the Israeli air defence system, designed to capture maneuvering rockets, aircraft and tactical ballistic missiles—has a scope of about 300 km. Developed jointly by Rafael Advanced defence Systems (Israel) and Raytheon (USA), the strategy entered service in 2017 [6].

Arrow II and Arrow III systems

The most advanced part of the Israeli air defence strategy are the Arrow II and Arrow III systems. The first captures ballistic missiles in the final phase of their flight, operating in the advanced atmosphere layers below the Kármán Line — the contractual boundary between the atmosphere and space, located about 100 kilometres above sea level. In turn Arrow III operates outside the atmosphere of the earth and captures missiles in the mid-flight phase. It was designed to neutralize long-range ballistic missiles, including those capable of carrying atomic charges. alternatively of an explosive head (as in the Arrow II system), it uses a "hit-to-kill" technique, destroying the mark by direct collision at tremendous speed, utilizing only kinetic energy [7].

THAAD (Terminal advanced Altitude Area Defense)

THAAD strategy batteries complement the Israeli multilayer air defence system, primarily utilized to capture medium-range ballistic missiles (MRM). The strategy includes a fire command centre and radar that detects and identifies targets from a distance of 2 500–3,000 km, including during launch of the missile. The biggest limitation of the strategy is not its functionality, but the advanced cost of operation - each projectile is between 12 and 15 million USD [8].

The function of the Patriot system

The 12-day war was most likely the first case of specified intensive usage of the strategy in the full past of its existence; however, we have no confirmed information on its effectiveness during this period [9]. In the context of Donald Trump's last statement, which assessed the effectiveness of the Patriots as 100%, it is worth recalling both the long evolution of this strategy and its complex and ambiguous heritage, primarily in the mediate East region.

The trust of the Israeli administration in the Allied Systems deployed in its territory should be considered by the prism of the experience of the First Gulf War. In 1991, erstwhile Iraqi SCUD missiles fell on Tel Aviv and Haifa based on the Patriot system, the Israeli Air defence first faced a real threat from ballistic missiles. Even then, the effectiveness of the Patriot strategy raised doubts [10]. Although the U.S. Army provided optimistic data, the independent MIT study assessed the actual effectiveness of the strategy in Israel and Saudi Arabia at only 0–10% [11]. This minute became a breakthrough in the context of the improvement of multi-layered rocket defence in Israel—showing the request to build their own independent and cost-effective systems capable of combating various threats—from simple short-range rockets to advanced ballistic missiles.

The experience of this period has mostly shaped the Israeli defence strategy. Israel's defence Forces (IDF) gradually left Patriot systems (initially optimised on manned and unmanned aircraft) until they yet decided to retreat them completely [12]. Their place was taken by modern and better adapted to local conditions.

Summary:

The 12-day war with Iran ended with Israel's successwho came out of the conflict with a defensive hand, confirming his position as a regional military power. The Israelis achieved 2 main objectives: weakening Iran's atomic programme and limiting Tehran's ability to produce ballistic missiles. Despite the amazing scale of the Iranian attack, the Israeli air defence strategy proved to be highly effective — it intercepted about 90% of the threats, which confirmed his reputation as 1 of the best in the world. However, even specified an effective strategy does not supply complete, airtight defence in the case of simultaneous, massive drone attacks (UAVs) and ballistic missiles. In addition, the conflict highlighted the hazard of overloading the strategy and the very advanced costs of its operation, especially compared to the amount and low cost of producing Iranian drones and ballistic missiles.

Conclusions:

Israel's air defence strategy remains effective, however, the conflict with Iran exposed its limitations under conditions of intensified saturation attacks.
Use of disparities in production costs– the massive usage of comparatively inexpensive means of demolition against advanced but costly systems aims at financial exhaustion of the opponent.
Iron Dome and another components of Israeli IAMD architecture (Integrated Air and rocket Defense) – they request to be complemented by targeted energy weapons (DEW) capable of combating drones and short-range rockets. The inclusion of the Iron Beam strategy will relieve the burden of the Iron Dome and importantly minimize the costs associated with the request to capture them.
It seems essential to increase production capacity — especially in the context of Arrow interceptors, which form the foundation of defence against Iranian ballistic missiles.

Bibliography:

1. Faruk Hanedar, Haydar Şahin & Seda Sevencan, “At least 50 Iranian missions hit Israel during 12–day conflict”, Anadol Agency, 2025. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/at-least-50-irarian-missions-hit-israel-during-12-day-conflict/3613692 accessed 1.07.2025.

2. Hinze, Fabian, ‘Israel’s attack and the limits of Iran’s missionary strategy’, International Institute for strategical Studies, 2025. https://www.iiss.org/online-analysis/online-analysis/2025/06/israels-attack-and-the-limits-of-irans-mission-strategy/ access 2.07.2025

3. The economical Times, “Iran’s strike on The Kirya, Israel’s Pentagon, Brings the mediate East to a boil; Importance of IDFheadquarters exploited”, The economical Times, 2025. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/us/irans-strike-on-the-kirya-israels-pentagon-brings-the-middle-east-to-a-boil-importance-of-idf-headquarters-explained/articleshow/121841681.cms access 30.06.2025

4. Ibid. access 2.07.2025

5. Wikipedia, “The Iron Dome”, Wikipedia - Free Encyclopedia, 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Żelazna_Kopuła access 1.07.2025

6. rocket Threat, “David’s Sling (Israel)”, 2021. https://missilethreat.csis.org/defsys/davids-sling/

7. Kalisky, Y., “The Israel–Iran War: Air defence Performance”, 2025. https://www.inss.org.il/social_media/the-israel-iran-war-air-defense-performance/ access 2.07.2025

8. The Jerusalem Post, “How much did it cost the US to interpret the missionary launched from Yemen to Israel?”, 2025. https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-848333 3.07.2025 access.

9.Panella, C., “Top US general gives play-by-play of the Patriot conflict to shoot down Iranian missions launched in rhetoric”, Business Insider, 2025. https://www.businessinsider.com/top-us-general-info-how-patriots-shot-down-irarian-missions-2025-6?IR=T access 3.07.2025

10. Wikipedia, “MIM-104 Patriot”, 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIM-104_Patriot

access 2.07.2025

11. Lewis, G. N., & Postol, T. A. (1993). Video evidence on the effectiveness of Patriot during the 1991 Gulf War. discipline & Global Security, 4(1), 1–63. https://scienceandglobalsecurity.org/archive/sgs04lewis.pdfaccess 2.07.2025

12. The Times of Israel, “Patriot air-defense strategy based in Israel to be refurbished, sent to Ukraine”, 2025. https://www.timesofisrael.com/patriot-air-defense-system-based-in-israel-to-be-refurbished-sent-to-Ukraine-nyt/ access 3.07.2025

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