Thread by @ELINTNews

✅Quick thread on Israel’s air defence systems in the next war with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Israel currently operates:

🚀10 batteries of Iron Dome
🚀2 batteries of David’s Sling
🚀6 batteries of Patriot PAC-2
🚀2 batteries of Arrow 2
🚀1 battery of Arrow 3

Most of Hezbollah’s 150,000 rocket and missile arsenal consists of small and medium range rockets. Mainly Katyushas: 107mm, 122mm, & Falaq-1/2, Khaibar-1, as well as Fajr-3 and Fajr-5’s. Therefore Iron Dome will likely be doing most of the heavy lifting during the next conflict.

The issue is approx 4,000 rockets and missiles will be falling in Israel each day of the war (at least at the beginning until the IAF can destroy many launch sites and storage sites). Most of these rockets will fall in the range of Iron Dome.

This war will be very different to Gaza. Many towns & villages will likely remain undefended in the north as air bases and critical infrastructure in cities and other areas are given priority in defence. This means many rockets may fall in towns without interception.

In terms of Hezbollah’s longer range rockets and missiles, these are mainly thousands of Zelzal-2 large-calibre artillery rockets and hundreds of Fateh-class ballistic missiles. These will need to be intercepted by David’s Sling and Patriot PAC-2 GEM+

These Fateh-class ballistic missiles are the main worry. They are likely Syrian M-600 variant Fateh-110’s with a CEP of 250m. They will probably be used to strike key sites such as the Haifa oil refinery and Dimona nuclear facility. These will need to be given intercept priority.

Hezbollah’s PGM project aims to upgrade existing Zelzal-2 and Fateh-110’s with Labeik guidance kits which increase the accuracy CEP to around 10m, close to that of a Fateh-313. These will be used to strike places such as air bases and the Kirya. Again these must be intercepted.

Next is the Scud-D threat. In the early 2010’s Syria reportedly handed over a few dozen Scud-D SRBM’s to Hezbollah (I am doubtful- they’re easy targets & need maintenance). If this is true these are very accurate missiles that will need to be intercepted using Arrow 2 batteries.

Next is the drone and cruise missile threat. Hezbollah likely has hundreds of drones- including Ababil-T (Qasef-2k) loitering munitions and dozens of cruise missiles such as the Soumar and Quds-1 (Yemen is likely a testing ground for these Iranian systems).

Air defence systems such as Iron Dome, David’s Sling and Patriot can likely intercept the incoming cruise missiles and drones but will require help from IAF fighter jets for cruise missiles and Apaches for drones. Recently a new air-air missile for this purpose was tested.

In terms of the threat to offshore energy supplies and ships- Hezbollah likely has hundreds of C-802 Noor and C-704 Nasr anti-ship cruise missiles as well as perhaps dozens of Khalij-e-Fars anti-ship ballistic missiles.

C-Dome systems will likely counter drone attacks and Barak-8 on the 3 Sa’ar-5 and 4 Sa’ar-6 class missile corvettes will likely be able to deal with anti-ship cruise missiles and anti-ship ballistic missiles.

A few updates here. Hezbollah likely now has hundreds, possibly thousands of Shahed-131/136 kamikaze drones, among others. As well as the 1000km+ range Abu Mahdi anti-ship cruise missile too.