[nrubin]

From what I understand, many of the statistics quoted about Iron Dome are for "attempted interceptions". This skews the effectiveness of the system towards high-priority scenarios, maybe those that are more likely to produce a winning outcome for Iron Dome.

As an Israeli, I've always heard the Iron Dome rockets are stupid expensive to fire, so the IDF really only wants to fire them during scenarios that are high risk -- e.g., a rocket fired toward the Negev is much lower priority than a rocket fired at Tel Aviv.

On another note, I think that as programmers it's an interesting exercise to speculate as to the nature of the computer systems Iron Dome employs in order to mitigate attacks. AFAIK, Iron Dome rockets are only fired when high-value areas are targeted or there is a high probability of success. Can you imagine the kinds of online learning models we employ nowadays, being able to evaluate a set of inputs in <10s ? Even a complex Bayesian inference algorithm that could solve for a probable strike area in that short time with reasonable accuracy is incredible.

As colloquial evidence, a family member of mine recently posted a photo of Iron Dome intercepting a rocket almost directly over his home. So maybe it's not that accurate or that effective, but when it does work it's worth almost every dollar or shekel spent.

[ars]

> I've always heard the Iron Dome rockets are stupid expensive to fire

I'm not sure that's really true. Estimates range from $20,000 to $60,000 - that's cheap compared to the cost of a single hit on a building (which the Israeli government pays for). (And never even mind the human and economic costs.)

[kamaal]

>>As an Israeli, I've always heard the Iron Dome rockets are stupid expensive to fire

I was wondering how they deal with DDoS scenarios. Lets say the enemy just mixes genuine rockets with dummy one's and keeps firing. They could essentially create a scenario where a lot of Iron dome missiles can be wasted destroying dud rockets.

[ars]

The enemy does actually do that now. Firing a dud is pointless since the cost of the rocket is the same, but they do fire many at once.

So what the system does is calculate the trajectory of the rocket to see if it will hit anything populated, only a small portion of them do.

[kamaal]

>>Firing a dud is pointless since the cost of the rocket is the same

If this is the case. Then in the presence of Iron dome, only impact those rockets have is in scaring away people.

It hardly makes any sense to fire a barrage of rockets in this case. A more optimal strategy is fire them a few at a time spread out over a period of time.

Either way Iron dome will still remain expensive.

[ars]

You are forgetting that Israel [tries to] destroys the launcher and the attacker after every launch. So every rocket attack is basically a suicide attack.

I think that's the main cause of most of the civilian death - Israel doesn't have time to check for civilians in the area, they counter attack almost instantly.

So they'll launch a bunch while they can before they die.

I don't think you can really comprehend the level of hate going on there that would make someone suicide and take civilians with him for even a tiny chance of killing an Israeli.

[salberts]

Why on earth would they do that? If you can launch 9 dummy rockets and 1 real or 10 juts real rockets, wouldn't you just launch real rockets?!

The effort and risk involved in launching any kind of rocket is about the same...

[kamaal]

I don't have much knowledge in this domain. But it might be worth firing dud rockets if they cost lesser than the actual ones.

If you can fire 10 rockets in the same cost as 1 genuine rocket. Then essentially the enemy can drag you into a war of attrition.

[ars]

A dud would cost the same - the warhead is the cheapest part of the rocket.

[aranazo]

Rockets without a payload are lighter and have greater range so you can attack more northerly targets - for example Tel Aviv. They are about public relations far more than they are conventional military weapons.

[golergka]

Every launch site or detected launcher is attacked with an air strike, so setting up a lot of launchers to fire up all at once is very problematic.

[nmeofthestate]

I would guess that a rocket without the explosive warhead isn't that much cheaper.