[dogma1138]

I would be really curious to know what kind of sensor the seekers are using. The ground radar only tracks the target and calculates an estimated IP the terminal guidance is performed individually by each interceptor.

At $100K a pop a even a mid range CCD sensor seems to too pricey, the size of the missile also precludes any cryogenically cooled IR sensor or an active radar array and since they can hit a target as small as a larger mortar even passive radar sensing seem to be nearly impossible to achieve.

Day and night also seems to have no impact on the performance of the system if anything it seems to have slightly higher interception rates at night and since the rockets it intercepts are in their ballistic stage it can’t even use heat seeking to intercepts its targets.

It hits targets as small as 1.5M in length and 15-20cm in diameter so the overall cross section for the target lock is tiny.

The politics aside I can’t think of a single missile system that can even compete with this level of performance even at orders of magnitude higher costs.

I’m actually surprised that the US hasn’t bought and installed a battery on every single warship it has since the system can also intercept anti ship missiles and even combat aircraft at short ranges.

[webmaven]

> I’m actually surprised that the US hasn’t bought and installed a battery on every single warship it has since the system can also intercept anti ship missiles and even combat aircraft at short ranges.

There have been proposals to add Iron Dome installations to the US arsenal in various contexts, but they've foundered on the difficulties of integrating it with other systems in use, and without access to the source code (which wasn't forthcoming) those couldn't be resolved (so far).

So, it looks like the US military has passed on deploying a system that is yet another special-purpose silo, however effective it is in its original context.

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/us-army-iron-dome-cannot-b...

That said, a lot of money is at stake here, so Rafael and Raytheon may yet be able to get the square peg to fit a round hole. Their efforts are, reportedly, ongoing.

[stagger87]

> the terminal guidance is performed individually by each interceptor.

I wasn't able to find this explicitly stated. Do you have a reference for that? What I did find was that unsophisticated rockets are primarily what it defends against. So its guidance may also be 'unsophisticated'. Any reason the interceptor couldn't receive communications from the ground radar to update it's trajectory with minimal onboard guidance?

[Thristle]

Other than in extreme circumstances, the radar unit never stops tracking targets after they were classified as ballistic and with relevant IP

[enigmadev]

Re warships: I suppose the price is the problem. Israel have developed a seafaring system based on the iron Dome on the Sa'ab 6 class, to protect their oil platforms