Israel’s air defense capability took a severe beating over the past few days when media reported that a drone entered 4km into Israeli air space from Syria. The nation’s missile defense system was scrambled to intercept it. Two Patriot missiles were fired and each missed their target. Then an IAF jet was sent up and it missed as well.
There are numerous ironies in this story. Chief among them is that Israel is the world pioneer in drone technology. It created the first one, it was the first to use drones to kill people. It is one of the largest exporters of drones in the world. Yet it appears it doesn’t know how to defend against its own products. It hasn’t worked out how to protect its own borders from the very weapon it first devised.
There have been numerous examples of foreign drones violating Israeli territory. One apparently originating in Gaza flew over a dozen miles into southern Israel and nearly reached the Dimona nuclear reactor before it was intercepted. Hezbollah, possibly with Iranian help, has hacked into the navigational/communication system of Israeli drones and commandeered them, causing some to crash into the sea.
I queried one of the world’s leading experts on third-world rocket technology, Dr. Ted Postol of MIT. He reminds me that a drone presents a very small profile to hit. A Patriot missile is engineered to strike much larger missile targets. The same would hold true of an anti-rocket missile fired by an Israeli jet. So Postol isn’t surprised that both failed. But he does note the added irony of using a $1-million (or $500,000 with bulk discount!) Patriot missile to shoot down what might be a $199.99 drone. Using two Patriot missiles and an IAF missile amounts to $2-million spent on this failed experiment. Shrapnel from one of the downed Patriots landed in a northern Israeli kibbutz wounding a girl and causing a brush fire.
To add insult to injury, the drone escaped unscathed and returned to Syrian airspace. One guess, since Hezbollah has played a cat and mouse game with Israeli drones before, is that this was an operation conducted by the Lebanese Islamist group, again likely with Iranian help.
Military sources told Haaretz that it may’ve been a Russian drone. This is possible, though Russia and Israel have spent a huge amount of time and effort, with many high level meetings among Putin, Netanyahu and Lieberman, trying to avoid conflicts between their forces in Syria. So I’m not sure why Russia would deliberately provoke Israel in this way.
Mako’s report provides yet another delicious irony: the drone was likely an Israeli model!! And you guessed it: Israel has sold this particular model, called the Searcher, to Russia in the past. In fact, Israel granted Russia permission to assemble the drones in Syria itself. It’s possible the Syrians were operating its drones, but it’s doubtful Russia would permit them to do so in such a provocative circumstance.
If all this is the case, then Israel doesn’t even know how to shoot down its own drones! Yikes, that’s gotta hurt. Prof. Postol offers some free, simple advice to the IAF: if you want a good air defense against drones employ some good old fashioned propeller-driven planes with a few guns. A pilot with good shooting skills should be able to handle the job. Sometimes low-tech does the job quite nicely!
Perhaps the final irony is that Israel considers this drone to have penetrated its “border.” But the attempt to intercept it was made in Israeli-occupied Golan, which is Syrian territory under international law. So in effect Israel attempted to shoot down a Russian drone over Syrian territory.
This entire incident raises the distinct possibility that if they can improve this technology and employ a firing system like U.S. and Israeli drones are capable of–they might actually be able to hit Israeli targets if they wished. That would certainly dent the aura of invincibility Israel projects regarding threats from external sources.
@Richard
“If all this is the case, then Israel doesn’t even know how to shoot down its own drones! Yikes, that’s gotta hurt ”
Schadenfreude, Richard?
@ Trippin’ Jon: The point of my post was not to enjoy Israel’s failure. But rather to point out the foolishness of Israel’s military posture. That’s called political satire & it serves an important and constructive role in any democratic society, which is why it annoys you. Clearly, you either don’t understand or appreciate what I do. Too bad for you.
I think Israel’s borders are a great deal more secure than Syria’s.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4830948,00.html
Well, of course. Syria does not have the world’s super power, the US and it’s puppets Israel, France Turkey, UK, Saudi Arabia, Qatar attacking it.
Israel doesn’t have borders.
Israel sells drones — it has no economic interest in demonstrating their vulnerability, do they?
A few comments –
1. Israel isn’t “one of the largest exporters of drones” but the largest one and with a great margin https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2015/mar/16/numbers-behind-worldwide-trade-in-drones-uk-israel
2. The title reads “Russian Drone” but in the text you write “may’ve been a Russian drone” and “drone was likely an Israeli model”. Are we certain or not?
3. “what might be a $199.99 drone” – most defiantly not. Those toys stay airborne a 10-20 minutes and have a range up to 1 km (more likely 100 meters). What true is, the missiles shot are likely to cost 10 or even 20 times the cost of the drone. Just not 10,000 times like you suggested
@ Danny:
You don’t understand how the IDF works. They don’t tell you important information like that directly. They hint, they imply. They leave it to you to guess. The less specific information they offer the less blame anyone can place upon them. So yes, it’s pretty definite based on the IDF hints offered that it was an Israeli-made Searcher owned by the Russians.
As for the drone’s cost, it should be self-evident that the price of the drone I mentioned was offered to connote satire. I didn’t think that was the exact cost of the drone. I meant to use that amount to contrast it with the enormous cost of the Patriot or the war plane’s missile used in trying to shoot the drone down. The Searcher drones Israel sold to India appear to be quite expensive, though the price mentioned in the media may include maintenance, training and other costs.
For the record, the Searcher drone sells for about $6 -7.5 million.
@pea: That depends which model and what are the conditions of the deal. Israel sold 100 to India for $750 million. But it may’ve been the latest model and included training, servicing, repair, parts, etc.
The earliest models are 30+ yrs old & certainly don’t cost $6 million. I doubt Russia would’ve used a late model Searcher for this task since it was likely to be lost.
[comment deleted: snark violates the comment rules. Just because you find your snark witty doesn’t mean anyone else does. Comments must be substantive. Snark isn’t. Consider this your first warning. And read the comment rules.]
I’ts Israeli Drone that sold to Russia
The FIRST drones were used in WWII, before israel even existed.
@Wilbur: I have no idea what you’re talking about. If you make a claim, offer proof.
Think about this for a second……you have a “Patriot” or whatever variant headed right into the image of a target as the system sees it…….If the target is moving at a high rate of speed it cannot take evasive maneuvers without really getting off track and will miss its target……..So if we have a drone moving along at a lower rate of speed and its controller knows it is being tracked/locked and takes evasive action……Isn’t it just possible that the drone can evade the “Patriot” with a smart evasion plan at a lower speed that hopefully would be in the drone control package?
The F-16 has a gun. Why didn’t the pilot forget all the fancy air-to-air missile stuff and just shoot the damn thing out of the sky with his 20mm cannon?
After all, even one slug is going to take that down.