The Iron Dome works wonders for intercepting dumb rockets which are on a calculable set trajectory. They are not guided with electro-optic but using a simple signal to tell the rocket where to be at what time. Dumb rockets are much, much cheaper to produce than guided missiles.
Iron Dome’s fatal flaw is when a projectile does not follow the path of the image above but changes trajectory mid-air. E.G another guided missile. It is designed to stop Hamas style fire-and-forget rockets. It cannot deal with projectiles rapidly changing trajectory.
It is very expensive compared to projectiles.
The Iron Dome works wonders for intercepting dumb rockets which are on a calculable set trajectory. They are not guided with electro-optic but using a simple signal to tell the rocket where to be at what time. Dumb rockets are much, much cheaper to produce than guided missiles.
Iron Dome’s fatal flaw is when a projectile does not follow the path of the image above but changes trajectory mid-air. E.G another guided missile. It is designed to stop Hamas style fire-and-forget rockets. It cannot deal with projectiles rapidly changing trajectory.
Compared to ciws, cram, phalanx it’s pretty expensive sure but it’s also less vulnerable to saturation by dumb weapons than any of those others.
Dumb saturation is the Iron Dome’s nemesis. Even Hamas managed to overwhelm it with a comparatively “small” amount of rockets on October 7.
Once the batteries are empty all the enemy rockets are going to land.
Ciws no matter how good so long as it’s a single gun can only intercept a single target at a time. Ciws saturation is literally more than one.
A single iron dome launcher can intercept 20 from any launcher and track and engage 36 from any one radar iirc.
Low angle saturation is the weakness of any rocket/artillery interceptor, and depletion issues go the same with any weapon system.