No indication it was a Zulifqar. Hard to tell a F-110 gen 1 to 3 model just from appearance vs internals. Export version vs domestic.
Houthi’s were supplied liquid missiles export level ToT based on Qiam (finless Shahab-3 upgrade) and Ghadr (upgraded Shahab-3).
Transporting a solid fuel missile via ocean then to land is very tricky. Any static charge transfer to the fuel body and its fireworks. Considering small boats are generally used and the rocky nature of waters of Arabian sea, I would be surprised if Houthi’s have any large amounts of solid fuel missiles unless solid fuel production has now occurred on Houthi soil.
So regardless what Houthi’s said or UAE said. It’s unlikely these were even fired. Neither side provided proof. Whereas Saudi Arabia provided proof of stages of Qiam missile plus video footage.
Sejjil ballistic missile flight altitude = 400++ KM
Easy kill for THAAD
Emad ballistic missile flight altitude = 400++ KM
Easy kill for THAAD
That’s not how things work. Thats dumbing it down ALOT. Come on brother.
It’s a game of KE energy burn off: interceptor vs the warhead. Interceptor has only X moves it can make based on fuel and speed while taking into laws of physics (G force allowance as it moves at Mach 4+) and warhead has x moves it can make to cause the interceptor to have to counter adjust.
If warhead bleeds interceptor or interceptor loses warhead then warhead wins. An interceptor moving at Mach 4+ doesn’t have infinite fuel or ability to readjust. It’s a game of a maneuvers, unless you want to be like Ukraine and just fired 15+ interceptors consecutively and hope one hits something. Anyway the interceptor is not a UFO. Warheads theses days have anti interception tech (dummy warhead, metallic chaff dispensary, and its evasion method aka TVC).
This is why the most preferred method is during ascension (leaving earth’s atmosphere or during its mid course). The problem with old scuds was the warhead either didn’t separate from main flight stage or it separated too late. Which meant a nice radar target to track thru space by satellites as it goes on a standard ballistic trajectory. Furthermore, in history usually they were never fired in major salvos even in Houthi, I don’t believe they ever fired maybe more 3 BMs at a time (could be wrong going off memory).
Once you go from 2000’s Scud tech into Sejill (solid fuel) and Emad (MRV warhead for S-3’s to replace “baby bottle” warhead design of early 2000’s or the tricone design) then the warhead was built to have lowest RCS (on top of maneuverability either via TVC or fins or a combo). The missiles themselves were built to jettison stages faster in flight to reduce its RCS in mid course and eventual re entry from radar. This was a key design that Scuds never attempted considering the lack of ABMs and such technologies in 1960’s-1990’s.
Now this all assumes there is a THAAD sitting around in the right zone to make the interception during the “sweet spot”. As we saw with a Armaco attack and incidences of Patriot failure in Yemen war that it’s not as easy as just stacking batteries everywhere. Because you can’t, it’s limited amount of systems hence why they are being pulled from all over the world right now.
Furthermore, a lot of air defense trial tests are always THAAD vs 1 missile maybe 2, never a major salvo of 25+. So true interception rates of a modern (keyword modern) BM is unknown especially in a salvo scenario.
The Middle East is a big place, impossible to cover EVERYWHERE. I know you agree. So it’s impossible to cover every strategic economic to military HVT. The world can tip into a recession if even one major oil terminal in Middle East is hit. (We have discussed this portion so I won’t go into it).
In war (with Israel) from the iran side Salvos of at least 50 to maybe as high as 100 BMs possibly even more would be fire near simultaneously. We have seen Iran fire 20+ missiles during a war game just for kicks and giggles. We saw with the deliberately choreographed early warning Al-Assad attack that firing 10+ at a single target is very easy. Unfortunately no ADs to get some data on interception of such a attack.
Now Consider the geographic size of Iran regarding launching positions:
Now add in the salvos from Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen.
In Iran alone they have TELs across massive geography, add in buried under dirt - missiles in closed off containers that use new generation quasi gel fuel, add in the mountain missile silo bases you have seen with rotating reload mechanism for repeated salvos on short intervals of which there is at as many as 6 different mountain missile bases (that we known of).
Israel has stopping rockets launched from right next door in a small surrounded area with 10+ satellites, ISR aircraft, drone aircraft, fighter jets flying nearly round the clock. So targeting Iranian/Syrian/Iraqi TELs (with or without US) direction intervention is a momenumental task. Which means the rate of missile launches will likely not be hindered in any significant way as time goes on (more a stockpile issue at that point —on both sides).
Thus from Iran alone there will be exo BM like: Cheaper Qiams/Ghadrs (total guesswork cost 100K-200K) mixed with sejill and Emads and as well as a undisclosed warhead variant for S-3 based missiles, this was noticed in at least one war game that shows a unique maneuverability outside of a standard MRV. Now add in larger payload Khorramshahr, K-2, K-4 family of missiles and Fattah HGV with motorkick adjusted lift maneuvering. Plus the announced but not yet unveiled other HGV missile(s). As for solid F-110 family tree Exo/Endo you will have Qassem, Dezful, and depressed GV Keiybar Sheikan.
Now US and Israel will have to not only detect all these launches and their precise varying trajectories across the Middle East,
but they will have to coordinate which THAAD batteries will intercept which missiles (as you said)
at the same having to differentiate the “cannon fodder” missiles (Qiam/Ghadr/old mothballed S-3’s) from the high value target BMs.
Lastly they will be under immense time crunch, a S-3 fired from Iran lands in Israel in under 12 mins depending on launch trajectory apogee, other faster BMs with higher flight speed and Terminal velocitys drop that number as low under 7 mins. Reduce all arrival times by at least 30% for a PG/Saudi Arabia based target (significantly less distance).
Thus Not exactly a whole lot of time to sit and analyze a salvo and coordinate a response. A lot will be up to automation since time is of essence. Alot of radiation will be leaking from all these radars and ADs. So depending on Iran’s own intelligence capability (plus any assistance by China ISR and Russia ISR) of enemy radar and air defense locations, then US central command will have to deal with some of those salvos containing Iranian Anti Radiation BMs and suicide drones made specifically for THAAD and long range radiation leakage. Plus the optical warhead variants of F-110 derivatives like Mobin (land based IO) or PG missile (anti ship IO).
So then what do you do? Do you shut off your radars to avoid a radiation strike as we saw happen on numerous occasions against Russia by a much lesser equipped Ukraine? How do you know it’s radiation vs optical due to precise intelligence? Tricky questions no easy answers.
Again this has Never truly been done in a war scenario (only pentagon itself knows what true no-political censored simulations results show). And lastly how much ammo does the US have for THAAD? Patriot? How fast can it reload its battery after a major salvo? 1 hour? 3 hours? 1 day? Reloading a THAAD isn’t the same as a dinky Iron Dome interceptor.
Just as an example, US warship that intercepted the “alleged” Houthi barrage (no evidence of even a single piece of recovered material so did this salvo launch even happen?) it would have likely expended its entire anti air arsenal on board. Rarely do warships run full LR anti air layout although they could if protecting a carrier during wartime, but usually it’s an attack based plus some closer range layout defense layout with a section devoted to longe range AA capability. So out of 90 VLS most are probably LACM rather than long range AD.
All these factors have To be considered. And we have seen Israel struggling with the Iron dome interceptor resupply after a mere 5,000 crude homemade rockets fired with sometimes hours of major lull periods to recover (compared to HZ arsenal of 100,000).
I would look at IDF own recent assessment of their capabilities assuming just a HZ front + Hamas war that was released long before these attacks. They expect HZ to be able to fire 3000 artillery rockets a day. Now Iran has transferred the JDAM equivalent of dummy to precision kits to HZ for their artillery kits according to israel. A few years ago this led to major airstrikes and even an alleged Lebanon factory strike. Israel believes HZ now makes them on its own soil after Iran decided to ToT the tech due to constant Israeli air strikes in Syria. So it will be seen how much of these has HZ artillery rockets can hit accurately. Now The HZ missile arsenal is unknown. Anything out there is mere speculation.
Food for thought: if an open air prison measuring a mere 350KM2 like Gaza was able to smuggle in black market AT4s and NLAWs and various other advanced weaponary. Then what does that say about what HZ was able to smuggle into a large open border with Syria in-spite of Israeli strikes? Intresting question to ponder.
THAAD can intercept ballistic missiles at Low Endo altitudes as well but it remains to be seen where US will deploy its THAAD system and it will be linked to one of the Patriot systems or not. These measures will determine if the system is vulnerable to Fateh-110 or Fateh-313 types or not.
F-110 isn’t made anymore. And F-313 is just a carbon fiber body, never reached major mass production in my opinion. It was a quick way to increase range by decreasing missile body weight coupled with reduced warhead. Remember this was prior to the maturity of the newer solid and gel based fuels of later models + solid missile engine breakthroughs by Iran in last 10 years.
Earlier derivatives were quasi BM, newer longer range are exo with the exception of Keiybar Shekian which uses a Endo depressed GV trajectory (not HGV) to fly lower than the minimum terminal radar altitude and use curvature of the earth plus slight variations in its course using its warhead fins plus nose design to throw off the ballistic computer Algos that interceptors and their targeting radars use.
A depressed GV (Keiybar sheikan) flight path would be somewhere between what a HGV flight path is and what a HCM flies to give you an idea just in case you need to visualize it using picture above.
Lastly I should clarify that Qassam BM flies at Mach 12+ effectively Hypersonic speed with a option for a terminal glide maneuver (not to be confused with “skip” maneuver trajectory of the latest HGVs blended body warheads ex DF-17, Avangard, etc ). So it has several maneuverability options.
Compare that to the much smaller F-110 with it’s early gen 1 thru 3, that you refer to in Syria, HZ, and Iraqi legions possession that simply fly quasi-BM routes with minimal evasion. I believe some early gens didn’t even have a separating warhead from late stage body thus large RCS. So big difference in tech across the generations and various off shoots. Most of axis has earlier gens and much smaller quantities of any later gens.
So This long post was just covering kinetic BMs. We didn’t even cover multiple warheads (K-4), cluster warheads options (Qadr, Qiam), LACM salvos (KH-55 based and Paveh) and long range suicide drone salvos + LO air defense hunting drones (jet engine/microjet based RQ-170 models)
So it’s safe to say that US supplied network will get overwhelmed at times. This isn’t a knock on US air defense. I think that US air defense systems are quite capable probably the best alongside Russia. But Armaco attack and Ukraine war (on both sides) has shown even the best air defense networks are vulnerable to ISR. I wouldn’t be quick to paint Ukraine as a success story as quite a bit of their ADs (mostly Russian) have been destroyed as well with patriots stationed mostly around Kiyv and deep inside Ukraine layered network. The information censor by Ukraine (civilian filming an attack is illegal) makes it near impossible to verify anyone’s claims. Maybe after the war we get a clearer picture when whitepaper analysis by various institutes come out.
To be honest, I think the AD hype specially the ABM shield capability of
any country is vastly overrated and unfit to handle major war stress scenarios or a major ICBM from a Russia or China.
I think US and Russia have built the
best cost to benefit systems possible given the circumstances. But no one can argue the limited production rate of these high end systems and their associated costs which don’t bode well for war time against a missile oriented focused power like Iran. Outside of THAAD and S-300V most ADs were built to intercept at longer range air centric powers in mind (another dubious effort by the collective).
As we saw with Russia (storm shadows) and US/Armaco (cruise missiles and low flying drones) this anti air centric focus has left these longer range systems vulnerable at protecting their targets or even themselves.
Israel has David’s Sling/Iron Dome/and whatever that new laser system is called Iron Pot? Iron Frying pan? To help patch up weakness to Arrow systems. But Israel also has benefit of having to defend a
very small patch of land compared to most countries. This allows for incredibly dense amount of coverage with the caveat of a lot of radiation leakage that can be detected by 24/7 space based assets or ISR aircraft.
