As Iran threatens to attack Israel over the assassination of a Hamas leader in the Iranian capital, its long-vaunted missile program offers one of the few ways for Tehran to strike back directly.

Quick summary: an analysis of the Iranian ballistic missiles used in the attack in April showed them to demonstrate dramatically worse performance than had been expected of them.

  • tal@lemmy.todayOPEnglish
    0·
    1 month ago

    U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, told the AP they assessed that 50% of the Iranian missiles failed at launch or crashed before reaching their target.

    Assuming Iran targeted the hangars, the James Martin analysts measured the distance between the hangars and the impact zones of the missiles. That gave an average of about 1.2 kilometers (0.75 miles) for the “circular error probable” — a measurement used by experts to determine a weapon’s accuracy based on the radius of a circle that encompasses 50% of where the missiles landed.

    That’s far worse than a 500-meter (1,640-foot) error circle first estimated by experts for the Emad. After a U.N. weapons ban on Iran ended in 2020, Iran separately advertised the Emad to potential international buyers as having a 50-meter (164-foot) circle — a figure that is in line with top missile specifications for systems deployed elsewhere, said Hinz, the IISS missile expert.

    • tal@lemmy.todayOPEnglish
      0·
      1 month ago

      That may have broader implications than just for Israel. My understanding from past reading is that the Iranian ballistic missile stockpile was of concern to other countries too, like Turkey, and why Turkey was pushing hard for having anti-ballistic-missile capability.

      But if Iran’s ballistic missiles can’t reliably impact much closer to their target than this, absent nuclear warheads, it may mean that Iran has much less military capability against other countries in the region than expected.

      • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.caEnglish
        0·
        1 month ago

        Not sure if inaccuracy makes them less dangerous if they have enough of them to throw. The supply is probably not unlimited but for example we now know that the current combined compatibility of Israel and whatever the US has in the region can’t stop all of 180 missiles. Assuming my thinking isn’t wrong, that means Iran could throw 500 and expect over 100 to land around their targets. If they really want to hit something, they just have to increase the number. Then of course they might have nothing left after a few salvos, but hit they will.

        It would be bad for others who bought missiles from Iran, since they likely don’t have that large stockpiles to compensate. Plus they paid for better accuracy.

    • Count042@lemmy.mlEnglish
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      1 month ago

      Huh, yeah, not accurate I guess.

      Remember, Israel has extreme censorship over damage caused by the missile attack right now.

    • Saleh@feddit.orgEnglish
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      1 month ago

      Over on reddit people where saying how stupid targeting the hangars would be as they are strongly reinforced and you need bunker buster bombs rather than missile payloads for that.

      This was to claim that there was no threatening damage possible.

      Now what we see is 4 points on the map and a circle drawn to emphasis the presumed aim point and accuracy. But we don’t know if all the missiles were targeted at the same place on the base. We don’t know how many missiles were sent to the base in total and which points they were aimed at and if it was different points at the base or not.

      The statistical assessment made here is practically worthless without further information.

      What we know is both sides lying about their capabilities and lack thereof. Iran claimed 80% and i think also 90% to have hit Israel. Israel claims 90% interception rate. We seen videos of dozens of hits, making each 90% number improbable, but it is evident from the videos that more were intercepted than not intercepted.

      I wouldn’t trust any information that is thrown around right now, especially not by “officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters”

      For reference i’d like to give this WW2 propaganda video of the US army claiming the German MG42s bark to be louder than its bite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcpR77N2Jn4 Soldiers found out quickly on D-Day that the MG could bite quite badly.