Iran Curses X-Vision

May 12, 2008

Strategy Page, May 12, 2008

The U.S. will provide Israel with a mobile X-band radar that will enable it to detect incoming ballistic missiles father away. Currently, the Israeli Green Pine radar would only detect a ballistic missile fired from Iran when the missile warhead is about two minutes from hitting a target in Israel. The X-band radar would allow the Iranian missile to be spotted when it was 5-6 minutes away, enabling the Israeli Arrow anti-missile missile to hit the Iranian warhead farther away and with greater certainty.

Israel has two batteries of Arrow missiles, and over a hundred missiles available. An Arrow battery has 4-8 launchers, and each launcher carries a six missiles in containers. The Arrow was developed to knock down Scud type missiles fired from Syria, Saudi Arabia or Iraq. The two ton Arrow is being replaced with the 1.3 ton Arrow II, which can shoot down longer range ballistic missiles fired from Iran.