Iran on Saturday night launched a large wave of attack drones from its territory toward the Jewish state, in the first-ever direct attack on Israel by the Islamic Republic, with warning sirens activated in Israeli communities throughout the country early Sunday as the military worked to intercept the Iranian aircraft.
Footage of the Iranian attack over Jerusalem’s Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif
This is an interesting attack from an economic standpoint. While the cruise and ballistic missiles were worth the cost of interception, the shahed drones cost much, much less than the cost if intercepting (a fact frustrated Ukrainian air defense could talk all day about). Since about the 1990’s we’ve been in a situation where often the missile costs less than the enemy aircraft intercepted… but the cost of the missile va the drone cost has created a huge economic disparity in war. You have to pay the price to prevent death and damage, but a drone can now bleed a country in the pocket book without killing a person.
When viewed from this perspective, the iranian attack takes a new light. Sure, they announced the attack, and then made it, and the weapons were mostly downed. But at the end of the day, israel will spend 5:1 (at least) for the victory. A few weeks of this, and israel would run out of interceptor rounds and be taking serious hits… the answer to which, is… pay millions and millions to avoid this possibility, by overstocking interceptor missiles.
there are more answers to this. just to name a few:
the economic imbalance just forces the other side to act more quickly
Hamas and Hezbollah have been launching near daily rocket attacks on civilian targets for over 6 months now. This attack is larger than the usual daily salvos, but still smaller than what Hamas launched on the first day.
It will be incredibly interesting to see if they continue to launch rockets after Iron Beam is deployed operationally with a marginal cost of interception far lower than the cost of a rocket or drone.