bloggie

Thx., MB- interesting. Nothing on counter-battery capabilities, but what I've been reading suggests that the IDF is well-prepared (if only the political constraints would be removed).

Am Yisrael Chai! (one hopes)

Hi, thank you for the link..

Re counter-battery, if you mean in the traditional sense the IDF as Earl posted is well equipped currently for this and there's no released procurement for any additional systems. The Arrow ABM Green Pine Radar system as one example is able to track almost anything, in the Lebanon war last year Hezbollah admitted they were shocked at the ability of the IAF to target & drop munitions on rocket launching sites almost immediately either by air or nearer the end with MLRS. If you meant something else sorry for budding in :)

I left out some stuff we don't talk about.

Welcome to bloggie, saus.
Lots of information on your site, thank you. It makes me feel better knowing Israel is prepared.

I really wish we could just butt out, and let Israel do what needs to be done. Probably allot less loss of lives in the long run than the status quo.

Thanks for the nice comments, I just wanted to post this video to illustrate some real-time capabilities.

This is somewhat disturbing (at least 4 me) it's video from the past week of a Qassam attack on a school in the Israeli city of Sderot on the Gaza border. You hear the municipal loudspeaker announcing 'Tzeva Adom' or Red Alert which warns the residents to take immediate cover as there is an incoming Qassam rocket inbound in their immediate area.. These rockets have about 8-12 km range, the announcement is in real-time giving civilians about 1-2 min to find cover as that's how long it takes for the rocket to arrive from launch. Upsetting, but it illustrates how real-time the counter battery system is in Israel, it's actually remarkable if it were not so disturbing.

This technology was developed in Israel jointly with America, funded in part by congressional military aid & originally started by Ronald Reagan under the 80's star wars program, now the spinoffs are flowing back & forth to help develop the American missile shield. So let me say from Tel-Aviv thank you. This is what Israel is dealing with every single day but it doesn't even make the news outside our country.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRz3nHwgjHY

As saus notes, the adjunct to counter battery detection capability is the ability to destroy the launch site. Which, if in Gaza, would be like shooting fish in a barrel. But by the time the counter battery MLRS/artillery returns the fire, the terrorists have either slunk back into the civilian population and/or the Qassam was placed on a timer in a vacant lot.

And here is where the Israeli "government" has not/will not learn from Bibi's adage, "the Arabs do not respect power, they worship it". The counter battery capability against the Palis is worthless unless it is used to make the Palis immediately feel the consequences of their co-religionists' actions. Ie., collective punishment. Start by incinerating Haniyeh's family compound. Then, work down the Gazan "leadership" chain.

How a First World state in 2007 can permit itself to be be continuously harassed by a terror statelet reichlet just beggars belief.

Very interesting. Great hardware, but what good is it without good leaders? Israel already had far superior hardware to Hezbollah last summer, and I imagine it had inferior hardware in many of the wars that it won.

Cheers, Saus. Your site was down about a year. Wondered what happened.

Great hardware, but what good is it without good leaders?

Or good soldiers...

This was a very hard read:
Crybabies don't win wars

The commander and soldiers abandoned the mission they embarked on, took cover, and provided cover for the few who risked their lives and through incredible acts of courage rescued the wounded, treated them under fire, and pulled the bodies of killed soldiers back so that the enemy could not capture them.

As to completing the mission, the forces left that to the reinforcements who were called up urgently, who also joined the rescue efforts instead of fighting to secure the original objective.

I witnessed one of these cases at the end of the war. After one of the helicopters transporting troops was shot down by a missile, the fighting stopped.

The fighting force that was already on the ground and numbered several paratroop battalions was ordered to hide rather than continue towards the targets, even though it was only a few hundred meters away from the village where the missile was fired from.

For two days we waited in the bushes while a special forces unit searched for the helicopter team's bodies until it found all of them.

RTWT.

Hi Bill - I was abroad, moved twice, was in LA etc before coming to tel-aviv and re-blogging. Nice to be back, regards.

These are all excellent points & difficult points, but it should be pointed out they in essence project the notion Hezbollah won the war, I personally do not think that is the case, they were not destroyed but our estimates are between 500-700 hezbollah killed, Israel was in Lebanon, Hezbollah never came inside Israel etc etc I have big posts from last summer outlining my point of view but they are long (two parter) & only for the very interested. Lebanon under fire (I)

There's no doubt the diplomacy battle has failed entirely with resolution 1701 so Israel most certainly lost the peace / cease fire.

Once our own final reports are released I plan to revisit that series with the mentioned future third part - 'Israel rolling out the heavies' is indeed part of the battle between 'blue & green' I reference in those posts as part III. Military guys know what I mean by blue & green. It is taking some time to actually see the results of the war internally in Israel, but it is fascinating and it is being recitified, heavies is part of that and Matt / Evariste - Indeed there are efforts ongoing to fix the issues you both rightfully mention.

Ok no more paragraphs here.. I promise ;)

And in the meanwhile,

לשנה טובה ומתוקה

Hasn't that always been the case ? Won the war, lost the diplomacy.