Ageing air defences have left Iran vulnerable to an Israeli attack if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decides to ignore global pressure not to retaliate directly for the unprecedented drone and missile salvoes of Saturday night.
\nSetting aside the wider diplomatic and strategic costs that are likely to be the strongest deterrent to any counter-strike, experts say Israel would have little trouble hitting targets inside Iran, which has an obsolete air force and indigenous air defence systems based on ageing Russian models.
\nIran\u2019s weekend barrage demonstrated both the strength of its airborne armoury and Israel\u2019s formidable defence systems, which ensured that the hundreds of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones launched against it caused only minimal damage.
\nIran is a \u201csuperpower in tactical ballistic missiles and UAVs,\u201d said Zvika Haimovich, a former Israeli air defence chief.
\nIts air defences are another matter, built largely around Russian S-200 and S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems or a range of locally produced equivalents such as the Bavar-373, Khordad, Raad, Sayyad and Talash as well as old American and Russian warplanes, some of which date from the 1970s era of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.
\nSimilar systems gave been deployed in Syria since 2015, giving Israeli pilots years of experience in dealing with them.
\n\u201cOur air force and coalition air forces flew in this environment. They know how to deal effectively with this system,\u201d Haimovich said. \u201cI will give them the respect, but that will not be the main challenge dealing with Iran.\u201d
\nSidharth Kausha, a research fellow at the Royal United Strategic Institute in London, said the main challenge for the Israel may not be evading Iran\u2019s surface-to-air missiles, but being able to successfully strike military bases in western and southern Iran which require the use of penetrating bombs.
\nKausha said Israeli aircraft, such as the stealth F-35 jets, which could evade Iran\u2019s air defence networks, typically carry smaller ordnance. But against deeply buried targets larger munitions may be needed, which would mean they may have to be carried externally on aircraft such as the F-16 \u2013 making these more detectable to radars. For safety, pilots might be more likely to launch them from further away.
\n\u201cThe Iranian air defence network is certainly not impenetrable to these aircraft, but this raises the risk of losses and the Iranian capacity to, at least in theory, intercept some incoming standoff munitions increases,\u201d he said.
\nSTRATEGIC
\nWhether Israel is willing to risk a direct strike would partly depend on how confident it is that it can thwart further attacks by Iran, which described the weekend salvoes as reprisals for a lethal Israeli strike on its generals in Syria.
\nFurther escalation could see Iran opting for more powerful weapons from an arsenal which analysts say includes more than 3,500 missiles and drones numbering in the low thousands.
\nIsrael\u2019s multi-layer air defence is built around the high-altitude Arrow systems successfully used over the weekend, the mid-range David\u2019s Sling and the short-range Iron Dome which has fended off thousands of rockets fired from Gaza and Lebanon.
\nBut these do not come cheap.
\nAlthough Israeli officials have given no details, according to calculations by a number of analysts, the price of Iran\u2019s attack probably amounted to $80 million to $100 million \u2013 but cost Israel and its allies around $1 billion to repel.
\nThe problems currently being experienced by Ukraine in securing replacement ordnance has underlined the long-term impact on air defences subject to continuous attack from Iran or its proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon, which has an arsenal of thousands of missiles of its own.
\nOn Wednesday, U.S. President Joe Biden urged Congress to pass an aid package that would replenish Israel\u2019s air defences.
\nBrigadier-General Doron Gavish, head of Israel\u2019s air defence task force, said Israel has been working overtime to rebuild its stockpiles in preparation for another possible attack from Iran or its proxies.
\nWere the Israelis to face Iran alone in a future flare-up, they could use Iron Dome and David\u2019s Sling as more thrifty fallbacks: Any missiles that might be missed by Arrow could be tackled by the lower-altitude systems.
\n\u201cWithout getting into the numbers, you could say that again, together with allies, mainly with the United States, but also from other countries, we feel that we have the needed supply,\u201d he told reporters at an Iron Dome battery in southern Israel.
\nAmos Yadlin, a retired Israeli air force general and chief of military intelligence, predicted Israel would not sit back and rely on its defences to repel attacks without responding to eliminate the threat.
\n\u201cIran is not the only side that knows how to attack,\u201d said Yadlin, who runs the Mind Israel strategic consultancy. \u201cIsrael has very significant offensive options. There will not be a situation where Israel just defends itself while Iran strikes.\u201d
\n(Reuters)Air defences. ageing air defences, Israeli attack, Iran vulnerability<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Iran’s aging air defenses make the country vulnerable to an Israeli attack, despite its strong ballistic missiles and drones. Israel’s formidable defense systems have the capability to hit targets inside Iran due to its obsolete air force and aging Russian-based air defense systems. Israel’s main challenge would be successfully striking military bases in western and southern Iran, requiring the use of penetrating bombs. The cost of repelling Iran’s attack could be significantly higher than the cost of the attack itself. Israel is working to replenish its air defense systems in preparation for potential future attacks. Israel is unlikely to rely solely on defense and may respond with significant offensive options if attacked by Iran.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":8757,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[7027,122,3258,1534,383,1234,460,810,4538,492,6595,1793,6196,2511,6458,2464,1232,203,6331,614,4081,145,504,146,7029,6499,299,7028,756,412,450,185,3504,2788,466,2470,493,1012,5821,4843,1670,3775,5838,1792,6074,6790,4054,6735,1222,6386,6377,729,3269,2471,1846,841,3523,6330,17,544,293,6305,18],"class_list":["post-8756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other","tag-ageing-air-defences","tag-aid","tag-air","tag-arsenal","tag-attack","tag-attacks","tag-bases","tag-battery","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-biden","tag-capacity","tag-coalition","tag-congress","tag-costs","tag-cruise","tag-damage","tag-drones","tag-environment","tag-escalation","tag-f-16","tag-future","tag-gaza","tag-hezbollah","tag-iran","tag-iran-vulnerability","tag-irans-attack","tag-israel","tag-israeli-attack","tag-joe-biden","tag-lebanon","tag-london","tag-main","tag-military","tag-mind","tag-missile","tag-missiles","tag-netanyahu","tag-numbers","tag-package","tag-president","tag-president-joe-biden","tag-pressure","tag-price","tag-prime-minister","tag-research","tag-respect","tag-risk","tag-rockets","tag-safety","tag-situation","tag-strength","tag-strike","tag-strikes","tag-syria","tag-threat","tag-trump","tag-u-s-president","tag-u-s-president-joe-biden","tag-ukraine","tag-united-states","tag-war","tag-who","tag-world"],"acf":{"keyphrase":"","keywords":"","sourceimg":"","country-category":""},"yoast_head":"\n