Anti Missile Air Defense System ‘Iron Dome’
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Iron Dome has shown and provided good results whenever it was tested. Though it can target only a particular number of rockets at a time but it is not disclosed yet how many it can target at one go.
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What is Iron Dome?
Iron dome is an Air defence system which covers a small distance. It is used to target and destroy rockets, missiles, UAV, Mortars etc.
It has the capacity of target the rockets at a distance of 70 km in the air. Iron dome is very efficient and any season change does not have any impact on its performance.
Iron dome can be placed on land or sea both.
Who manufactures Iron Dome?
Rafael Advanced Defence Systems Limited has manufactured Iron Dome. Recent use of Iron dome is in Israel against palestine. Istral included Iron dome in its defence system in the year 2011.
How does Iron Dome work?
Iron dome has three systems in its battery which help it to work so efficiently.
- Control Unit
- Tracking Radar
- Launcher Unit: Every launcher unit has 20 anti or interceptor missiles. Interceptor missile uses fuse to destroy rockets in air. For this it releases warning siren once it finds any rocket or threat in air. Once it gives siren, local people get some time to go to a secure placed within 30 to 90 seconds.
Next step is to launch counter missile by the launcher which destroys the rocket in the air itself. Success rate of Iron dome as per Rafael is more than 90%.
No doubt Iron Dome is one of the best Air defence system developed by Rafael. Recently it was proved in the tension that arose between Israel and Hamas. Hamas attacked Israel with lots of rockets but maximum were destroyed by this air defence system.
Drawback of Iron Dome
Iron dome can target only a fixed number of rockets at a time which is yet not disclosed so far. If more rockets are launched which exceeds this fixed number, a lot of destruction could happen.
Another drawback of Iron dome is that minimum range of targeting at enemy’s rocket is 5-7 kms. Due to this it would not be able to sense the attacks which are at lesser distance than that.