Copters' Missile Threat (and How to Stop it)

We do not have any direct evidence that insurgents in Iraq are using advanced surface-to-air missiles (sometimes called MANPADS �€“ from MAN-portable Air Defense System); just best guesses, for now. But with the loss of five (and maybe even six or seven) helicopters in quick succession -- and an insurgent video apparently showing the latest loss to be a missile casualty -- the possibility needs to be considered.

Early MANPADS like the Russian SA-7 are fairly primitive, homing in on exhaust heat. As they steer towards the hottest object in their field of view, they can easily be lured away by decoy flares (or even the sun).

With more advanced missiles, it becomes a game of cat and mouse between the electronics in the missile seeker head and the countermeasures seeking to confuse it. Advanced seekers can not only discriminate flares from engines, but they can be smart enough to home in on the source of the flares. Advanced laser-based countermeasures like CLIRCM do not blind or dazzle seekers as is sometime supposed, but produce a signal which generates false targets and sends the missile off course.

Some missile makers claim that their seekers can beat all known countermeasures; some countermeasures manufacturers claim to be able to defeat all known missiles.

Certainly better missiles need better countermeasures. It's interesting that the proposed defenses for civilian airliners against terrorist MANPADS only goes up to the level of Stinger Basic, a technology now 20 years old.

Earlier missiles were intended to get close enough to have some chance of damaging an aircraft with shrapnel; modern warheads are contact fuzed, indicating that they are expected to actually hit the target. And hit in a specific place: the missile can discriminate between single-engine, multi-engine aircraft and helicopters and select the optimum point of vulnerability. The recent models are designed to send a dense pattern of high-speed fragments through the target for maximum damage, and the explosion may be enhanced by fuzing which detonates any unused fuel. Their destructive power is formidable.

This leads to last-ditch defenses like aim-point biasing, relatively cheap countermeasures (compared to the multi-million dollar laser jammers) to get the warhead to strike the less flight-critical parts of a helicopter and make the difference between a hit that results in a hard landing and one that destroys the helicopter completely.

Another way of dealing with the threat is to gets the MANPADS first. While Rules of Engagement are unlikely to be changed to alow helicopters to open fire at will, the AirCrcaft CounterMeasures (ACCM) laser provides one option. This is a laser dazzler fitted to helicopters to illuminate potential threats on the ground. The laser makes it much harder to target a helicopter, but more significantly the reaction of the person targeted gives a clue as to whether they are an insurgent getting ready to fire or an innocent civilian.

Another new approach, Ares notes, is DARPA's Battlefield Helicopter Emulator, an expendable decoy drone which produces the same noise and heat signature as a real helicopter. It may seem like an expensive option -- but losing helicopters is a far more costly prospect.

Helicopters operate at low speed and low altitude, making them especially vulnerable to MANPADS. Heavy armor is not an option except for attack choppers like the AH-64 Apache; transport, utility and scout craft carry much lighter protection. And in Afghanistan, even the Soviets' armored Mil-24 Hind gunships proved vulnerable to Stinger MANPADS.

The situation in Iraq has its parallels with the conflict then. The main importance of new missiles would not be in shooting down helicopters, but on the morale of both sides. The Mujahideen took new heart that the previously invincible �€˜Devils Chariot�€™ could be defeated. Soviet helicopter crews found themselves facing an opponent who could shoot back, and were forced to adopt more evasive tactics which limited their effectiveness.

A similar decrease in effectiveness could happen in Baghdad.

"Based on what we have seen, we're already making adjustments in our tactics and techniques and procedures as to how we employ our helicopters," Maj. Gen. William Caldwell was reported as saying earlier.

Previously, US helicopter cover has prevented insurgents from operating from rooftops. If exposing helicopters becomes too risky, then that cover will be more limited. In this way, just a handful of MANPADS could have a significant impact on the ground battles. Which makes the timing of these latest helicopter losses -- just before the surge of US troops arrives for a make-or-break operation in Baghdad -- highly significant.

(My thanks to Jim O'Halloran, editor of the authoritative Jane�€™s Land Based Air Defence for providing an insider view on this topic.)

-- David Hambling

Giant Blimp Deflated; Laser Jet Delayed

The big weapons -- the destroyers, the aircraft carriers, and the stealth jets -- all emerged pretty much unscathed in the Pentagon's latest budget. Some of the more bleeding-edge projects weren't so lucky. Especially at the Missile Defense Agency, which took about a half-billion dollar hit for fiscal year 2008.

Take the High-Altitude Airship, for instance. Just a year ago, the Pentagon handed Lockheed a $150 million contract to build the missile-spotting dirigible. No, it wouldn't be 25 times bigger than the Goodyear Blimp, as originally planned. Nor would it be powered by lasers. But it would still be built to "hover above the jet stream at an altitude of 65,000 feet for months at a time." That is, if major advances in solar panels, fuel cells, aerodynamic controls, and flexible materials could be overcome.

Lockheed won't get the chance any time soon, however. The High Altitude Airship "has been canceled due to funding constraints," according to the Missile Defense Agency. But get too distraught, blimp-lovers; the budget for the Aerostat Joint Program Office just jumped from $243 million to $481 mil.

The Airborne Laser -- the modified 747, meant to zap missiles as they take off -- still gets more than $500 million in the new budget. But its first live-fire test has been delayed, again. Originally scheduled for 2002, the blast has now been rescheduled for 2009, Inside Defense notes. The Laser Jet's alternative -- the "Kinetic Energy Interceptor," a non-explosive interceptor missile -- has been pared back, as well. There's no longer a "kill vehicle," or warhead, part to the program, Defense News observes. Instead, the KEI has been tweaked, to become a "common booster" for all sorts of missile interceptions.

There's much, much, much more in this budget to explore. Expect lots of posts in the week to come.

Iran's Super Missile Will Defeat Great Satan, Steal Your Girlfriend

There was an AP story the other day that parroted some hilarious Iranian claims about the capability of their missiles :

Stressing Iran's preparedness, state television said the Revolutionary Guards planned to begin three days of testing the short-range Zalzal and Fajr-5 missiles Sunday. It could not be confirmed if the exercise had begun near Garmsar city, about 60 miles southeast of Tehran.

"The maneuver is aimed at evaluating defensive and fighting capabilities of the missiles," the report quoted an unidentified Guards commander as saying.

Last year, Iran held three large-scale military exercises to test what it called an "ultra-horizon" missile and the Fajr-3, a rocket that it claims can evade radar and use multiple warheads to hit several targets simultaneously. (emphasis mine)

When I first read this, I practically fell out of my chair laughing. For those unacquainted with the Fajr-3, it is spin-stabilized artillery rocket based with a range of about 50 miles. It is typically fired out of tubes mounted on the back of a truck, similar to the classic Katyusha. Iranian generals have tried to pass off the Fajr family of rockets off as some sort of medium range ballistic miracle before, which I imagine was greeted with a healthy amount of skepticism.

The only way an unguided rocket like the Fajr could avoid radar is if it was fired in a really low arc. The efficacy of this option is very limited, however, because it drastically reduces the rocket's range. The MIRV is just silly. The only way that rocket is going to strike a target in multiple times is if it breaks up in mid-air.

By the way, the Fajr also provides a excellent case of why Wikipedia isn't always the greatest source of information. Some poor sap named ArmanJan created a profile for a Fajr-3 ballistic missile based on the erroneous San Diego Trib article I linked to. Check out the discussion page for lots of great back and forth between him and the heroes that defend Wikipedia's veracity on a daily basis.

If that wasn't enough to crack a smile on your face, just look at how inconsistent the AP story is with a CBS.com story on the same subject:

The Iranian military on Monday began five days of maneuvers near the northern city of Garmsar, about 62 miles southeast of Tehran, state television reported. The military tested its Zalzal-1 and Fajr-5 missiles, the TV reported.

The Zalzal-1, able to carry a 1,200-pound payload, has a range of 200 miles, making it able to hit anywhere in Iraq or U.S. bases in the Gulf as well as into eastern Saudi Arabia. The Fajr-5, with a 1,800-pound payload, has a range of 35 miles.

Neither could reach Israel, but Iran is known to have missiles that can. It is not known if either missile tested Monday is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. (again, emphasis added)

To quote Donald Rumsfeld, "Oh my goodness gracious." 1,800 pound payload? I think I will go with Globalsecurity.org and the Nuclear Threat Initiative's more conservative payload estimate of 90 kilograms (about 200 pounds).

As for the nuclear question, I think that even 1,200 pounds is a bit light for basic gun-type payload. We managed to get our kiloton W9 and W19 nuclear artillery shells down to 850 and 600 pounds, respectively, but I don't know if the Iranians are anywhere near that level of technical prowess yet.

- Crossposted from Robot Economist's blog The Arms Control Otaku

UPDATE 11:33 AM: Now the Mullahs are claiming they've got a hand-launched UAV, too.

�€œResearchers in this company have for the first time designed and built four-kilo (nine-pound) hand-launched aircraft,�€ Rasool Peyghambari, director of aeronautics company Asr-e Talai Factories told the ISNA news agency.

�€œThese aircraft are unique in the country and they are as good as the best and most efficient ones internationally,�€ he said, adding �€œwe prefer to display its capabilities after operational tests�€.

This isn't really my areas of expertise. But Armscontrol.ru has a extended article on Iranian drones, with pictures and data. Needless to say, I don't think they can compete with our snappy F-22 Raptor RC plane, let alone the RQ-11 Raven UAV.

UPDATE 11:433 AM:Check out Jane Vaynman's take on the trouble brewing for Iran's psycho president.

Good Luck Stopping Missiles Early

"I have to say that it is the ugliest aircraft I have ever seen."

That's what Missile Defense Agency director Lieutenant General Trey Obering said when he laid eyes on the Airborne Laser at a rollout ceremony in October.

I'm not one of those guys that swoons in front of aircraft. But I were, I guess I'd agree, with the modified 747's turrets and antennae and protrusions. But the Airborne Laser isn't mean to win beauty contests. It's being to blast ballistic missiles -- using a chemically-powered, megawatt-class laser -- as they're first climbing into the sky. That's when missiles are slowest and most vulnerable.

This is called boost-phase intercept. Mid-course intercept is up to the Navy's SM-3 missile and the Ground-Based Interceptors based in California and Alaska. Terminal interception -- right before the suckers hit -- is left to Army Patriot missiles, Navy SM-2s and the Army's forthcoming Terminal High-Altitude Air Defense missile, or THAAD. It takes defenses in all three phases to make a fully-functioning missile shield.

The boost-phase intercept is the hardest. There's just a short window before a missile accelerates, noses over, deploys decoys and gets a lot harder to kill. Some folks in the military think the job is so difficult, we shouldn't even bother, going with "pre-boost phase" defense instead -- blowing up the missiles before they ever get off the launching pad, with lightning-quick attacks. But with three Airborne Laser jets, you could maintain a 24-hour orbit near a launch area and zap the missiles mere seconds after launch. Theoretically.

Problem is, the 747's chemical laser and delicate sensors don't quite work yet, despite about a zillion tests, and planning going back the Reagan Administration. The first was supposed to enter service in 2002, then 2005. Now, the target date has been pushed back at least until 2009, and further production is on hold. Obering says he hasn't lost hope -- yet. "Airborne Laser, if it pans out, is very capable," he said at the Surface Navy Symposium, held yesterday in Crystal City near Washington, D.C. "[It is] our primary boost-phase program -- but it's a high-risk program. If it doesn't pan out, we [still] need a boost-phase capability."

So Obering has a back-up... sorta. It's called the Kinetic Energy Interceptor, a fancy name for a "hit-to-kill" (no explosion) long-range missile. Obering figures it will launch from ground silos or from the Navy's projected CG(X) missile cruiser. The general prefers the latter. "I'm a big believer in a more mobile capability. An increased emphasis on seabasing ... is important."

But the Kinetic Energy Interceptor exists mostly on paper, and couldn't be operational before 2014. So too the CG(X), which is still in the study phase. It's supposed to be based on the $2-billion DDG-1000, itself clinging to life after a series of cutbacks. A theoretical missile on a theoretical cruiser is hardly a confidence-inspiring alternative to the finicky flying chemical bomb that is the Airborne Laser.

But nobody's got a better idea.

UPDATE 12:10 PM: "Besides the [Airborne Laser's] technical difficulties, of which there are many, I don't think that MDA [the Missile Defense Agency] has even begun to address how one could realistically try to use ABL in an operational setting," adds missile defense analyst Victoria Samson.

One justification for the ABL is that it's better than other types of interceptors because it can continually shoot at a target until the threat is gone - unlike others, which would have to shoot-look-shoot. However, that doesn't take into consideration the logistics of how one would continually shoot the ABL. That's a heavy requirement of your chemicals. How much do you need for one shot? For two? For five minutes' worth? And how would the aircraft fly with that type of dangerous load on-board?

Missile Radar Still Adrift

CBS News took a peek last night at our favorite giant golf ball, er, missile defense radar.

With documents obtained by the Project on Government Oversight the CBS News Investigative Unit found a host of issues with the Sea-Based X-Band Radar �€” SBX for short �€” that still remain unresolved, just ahead of its activation in the waters off Adak Island, Alaska.

- Beyond questions raised in our CBS Evening News story about plans to stick it in some of the most unforgiving weather in the world, if the SBX has a single point of failure, according to sources within Missile Defense, it is The Dove. The Dove is the large support vessel, 279 feet long, which travels with the SBX, delivers personnel, supplies and fuel to the radar platform. Though the SBX has a helicopter platform, military and Coast Guard helicopters won�€™t land there. So the SBX uses a single crane to lift people and material off the Dove. According to the Coast Guard letter obtained by CBS News, there are regularly waves as high as 30 feet many days out of the year. There are concerns that the Dove will not be able to maneuver close enough to the SBX to re-supply without colliding or injuring crew men in those conditions.

Other potential problems include:

-Fuel spills: the Dove carries 600,000 gallons of diesel fuel and the SBX carries 1.2 million gallons. If both vessels spilled their fuel in the pristine waters off Adak Island, it would be the second largest fuel spill in Alaskan history. Second only to the Exxon Valdez. How likely is a fuel spill? According to incident reports obtained by the Investigative Unit, the Dove spilled 3-5 gallons of diesel during fueling operations on December 9th. It happened near Hawaii and the system was shut down when crewmembers saw a growing oil slick. That�€™s not a lot of fuel by Exxon Valdez standards but the spill occurred in ocean conditions with 12-foot swells, relatively calm compared to conditions in the Bering Sea.

-Security: As a source within the Missile Defense Agency said, �€œTrying to defend a billion dollar asset with rifles, shotguns and 50 cals is ridiculous.�€ The SBX will be protected around the clock by about a dozen lightly armed security contractors. Can the SBX defend itself from a direct attack by a bomb-laden boat?

Pentagon Plan: Hit Anywhere on Earth, in an Hour

I've had sources ask to meet me in some pretty odd places. But there was one meeting last year that had to be just about the strangest request yet. It wasn't just that this very-recently retired Defense Department strategist wanted to meet at the Pentagon City Mall -- that's a pretty common place to grab an off-the-record cup o' joe. It was where in the mall he had in mind: at the Nordstrom's coffee shop, tucked all the way in the far reaches of the store, just past the little kid's clothes section.

So I walk past the rows of toddlers' jumpers, past the blue-haired ladies ordering around their grandkids. I sit down with my source. And he begins to tell me about a Pentagon plan that's even odder that the place where we're meeting.

Here's the goal, as another source -- U.S. Strategic Command's deputy commander, Lt. Gen. C. Robert Kehler -- later told me on-the-record: "strike virtually anywhere on the face of the Earth within 60 minutes."

Sounds... ummm, ambitious, right? So how do you pull off that kind of mission, now known as "Prompt Global Strike?" Well, that's the subject of my cover story in this month's Popular Mechanics.

Now, of course, the American military has weapons that can destroy just about anything on the planet in a matter of minutes: nuclear missiles. Which might have been the right answer for containing our Soviet adversaries. But as the Cold War receded into memory, U.S. strategists began to worry that our nuclear threat was no longer credible. That we were too muscle-bound for our own good. Were we really prepared to wipe out Tehran in retribution for a single terrorist attack? Kill millions of Chinese for invading Taiwan? Of course not. The weaker our enemies grew, the less ominous our arsenal became. Military theorists called it "self-deterrence." "In today's environment, we've got zeros and ones. You can decide to engage with nuclear weapons, or not," Navy Capt. Terry Benedict told me. "The nation's leadership needs an intermediate step �€“ to take the action required, without crossing to the one."

Benedict's option -- one of two I explore in the article -- is Trident ballistic missiles, armed with conventional warheads instead of nukes. For lots of good reasons (like the better-than-average chance the missiles could start World War III) Congress has negged the idea. But, in the military establishment, there's still a great deal of interest in using ballistic missiles for the hour-or-less mission. How exactly the nuclear holocaust issue is supposed to be resolved is, at this point, unclear.

Which brings us to option #2. It's a long-term play. And a long-shot, too. The military's research divisions are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into exotic, high-speed weapons like the X-51 hypersonic cruise missile, illustrated on the cover. If it works out as planned, the X-51 will go Mach 5 (roughly 3600 mph) -- much, much faster than any equivalent in the U.S. arsenal. Some Pentagon planners see the X-51 as part of a suite of futuristic weapons that can almost-instantly threaten American adversaries everywhere, without threatening the entire planet in the process. But it's way off in the distance; the X-51's first test flight isn't until 2008. I'm expecting several more trips to Nordstrom's Cafe before then.

UPDATE 11:40 AM: If you want to learn how the Prompt Global Strike concept got started -- and how it's being put into early development, today -- I strongly recommend this chronology, from the Federation of American Scientists' Hans Kristensen.

R.I.P.: Conventional Trident

This month's Proceedings magazine is chock-full of techy goodness, including an in-depth essay by naval expert Norman Polmar on the recently defunct plan to put conventional warheads atop Trident D5 Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missiles.

(For the record, Congress effectively killed the conventional Trident by zeroing funding in the FY 2007 budget.)

The most common criticism of this plan to arm each of the Navy's 14 boomer subs (SSBNs) with two conventional missiles -- alongside 22 nuclear missiles -- is that foreign powers might mistake the launch of a conventional missile for a nuclear one, and might respond with a nuke of their own. In short, the conventional Trident was a diplomatic nightmare.

But there are other flaws, as Polmar points out in his article, which is unfortunately not available online:

Following a Trident SLBM launch, the missile's third-stage booster, weighing several thousand pounds, will fall to earth. This concern could greatly inhibit conventional SLBM launch locations with trajectories over friendly or neutral territory.

There's more:

Perhaps one-half of the Navy's 14 Trident submarines are at sea at any given time -- about seven submarines world-wide. ... The number of SSBNs available to cover such terrorist-threat areas as the Middle East and North Africa with conventional Tridents would be limited.

Polmar proposes that outfitting the Navy's 100-plus attack subs, destroyers and cruisers with faster cruise missiles would more than take the place of conventional Tridents -- and do so with fewer diplomatic complications.

The Navy is already on it, moving ahead with its RATTLRS hypersonic cruise missile, which will also come in air-launched models.

--David Axe

Airport Defense: Lasers, Microwaves

Cheap, low-tech, easy-to-use, and utterly lethal, shoulder-fired missiles have become a terrorist weapon of choice, killing more than 640 people in 35 attacks on civilian jets. And so far, countermeasures have proven too finicky and too expensive to widely deploy. So the Department of Homeland Security is trying out instead a pair of new defenses, seemingly straight of science fiction: laser guns and microwave blasters.

The Department will spend $4.1 million to test out Raytheon's "Vigilant Eagle" system, which relies a series of microwave pulses to throw off a missile's guidance package. A series of passive infrared trackers, installed around an airport, would look out for missile exhaust. When these sensors detect a launch, data about the missile's trajectory is sent to a control center, which in turn tells a billboard-size microwave array where to blast.

How exactly this is done without disrupting a plane's avionics system has never been fully explained to me. Which may be why DHS is also sinking nearly $2 million into a study of Northrop Grumman's laser-based, "SkyGuard" defense, as well.

The system is a modification of the company's Tactical High Energy Laser, which successfully blasted dozens of Katyusha rockets and mortars out of the air during military testing. The laser, powered by vats of toxic chemicals, was considered too cumbersome for battlefield use. A permanent set-up an airport might be a different story, however.

DHS has spent nearly four years and $239 million to adapt the military's series of countermeasures to civilian jets. But most commercial carriers have been unwilling to pay for the systems, which could cost $50 billion over ten years to install and maintain. So far, Fedex is the only big flier to invest heavily in the defenses, agreeing to outfit 11 of its planes with the countermeasures.

Ground-based systems -- even ones based on ray guns -- might prove more palatable to the airline industry. Sure, the technology is less proven than the jet-based defenses. But eventually, the microwave and laser blasters could prove "more reliable," Daniel Goure, vice president of the Lexington Institute, tells Bloomberg News. "It is easier to be on the ground where you can have an infinite power supply. Aircraft are only vulnerable below a certain altitude, when they are taking off and landing. For most airports you can place them on towers where you can cover landing and takeoff routes."

Raytheon and Northrop have 18 months to prove their futuristic systems are ready to handle the job.

UPDATE 4:18 PM: In case you're wondering -- no, this is not the 300-oven death ray.

(Big ups: CP)

Eyeing China's Missileers

Hey all, Jeffrey Lewis from Arms Control Wonk.com here. After spending a couple of days crashing at Shachtman's place in NYC, I figured I needed a crosspost to say "Thanks."

ITAR TASS reports that China test fired a DF-31 ICBM from the Taiyuan Space Launch Center:

China has carried out a regular test launch of a Dongfeng-31 intercontinental ballistic missile. Itar-Tass was told at the Russian Defence Ministry on Tuesday that "the Chinese side had notified the Russian Defence Ministry in advance about the upcoming launching of the intercontinental missile".

"The Dongfeng-31 missile was fired from the Wuzhai launch site towards the Taklimakan desert at about midnight on Monday", a Russian ministry official said. The head section of the missile, he added, flew approximately 2.5 thousand kilometres. The Russian space control facilities had tracked the missile's start and flight.

The new Chinese intercontinental ballistic missiles will be put into
service already this year. Improved longer-range Dongfeng-31A missiles are expected to be commissioned in 2007. These two types of intercontinental silo-based ballistic missiles are compact systems, which can be moved by means of tractors along general-purpose roads.

FAS has a nice summary of the DF-31 program in relation to this, probably the sixth flight test since 1999.

The Taiyuan Space Launch Center is called the Wuzhai Space and Missile Test Center by the US intelligence community for reasons that I've never understood -- the facility is NOWHERE near Wuzhai. In fact, isn't all that close to Taiyuan -- 284 km from Taiyuan City either by train or bus.

Anyway, I found the Taiyuan facility in GoogleEarth a while back, checking it against the map on the China Great Wall Industry Corporation website. You can see most of the major areas of the center, including the technology center, telemetry station (I think) and launch complex. (Mark Wade has a very nice map, too.)

If you look a little further north of the launch complex, you can see an area that is not on the map -- a some buildings and big concrete launch pads that might be a candidate (and I stress might) for bthe DF-31 area.

Just a guess, though. The facility is huge, with something like 4 launch sites and more than a dozen support areas. I've posted a 1982 DIA report on the construction of a new assembly/checkout facility on the southeast edge of the facility -- unfortunately, that area is low resolution.

So, take a look at the site -- one aspect I would like to find is China's R&D silo for the DF-5, which is at what the intelligence community called Launch Site B. I may have to zip over to the National Archives to see if there are any reports on the facility with handy maps.

-- Jeffrey Lewis

Rattlrs Strikes Fast

Cruise missiles are about to get a lot more lethal, thanks to a Navy program called Revolutionary Approach to Time-Critical Long-Range Strike, or Rattlrs. Lockheed Martin and Rolls-Royce North America have a $120-million contract to build a hypersonic missile demonstrator "with trace-ability to an eventual tactical weapon," says Craig Johnston, the Lockheed Martin program manager. First flight is slated for November 2007.

Older cruise missiles such as the Navy's sea-launched Tomahawk and the Air Force's Air-Launched Cruise Missile putter along at subsonic speeds, too slow to hit fleeting targets such as terrorist convoys. Rattlrs, by contrast, is a "near hypersonic" vehicle capable of speeds up to Mach 4. The demonstrator is aiming for a five- to 15-minute flight time. "To put that in perspective, that's on the order of a 500-mile range," Johnston says. The production version might have even longer legs.

But getting to that level of capability won't be easy.

"The challenge is to fit all of the required techs -- engine, flow-path, airframe, avionics -- into a package that is the size of a cruise missile," Johnston says.

Mach 4 speed normally requires a two-stage vehicle with a scramjet second stage. But Rattlrs is aiming for a single-stage turbine engine in order to keep the vehicle small. That means some creative engineering and materials science.

"Temperature is what drives efficiency in turbine engines," says Bob Grude, the Rolls-Royce manager. "We have some special techniques using materials called 'LAM alloys' [as well as] existing high-temperature materials, with a cooling system that allows us to operate the burner at much higher temps than normal."

Affordability is one of Rattlrs' goals, according to Johnston. "The objective on Rattlrs is an integrated system that pulls all same elements of current cruise missiles at greater than three times the speed with no premium -- to put it all into the same cost. Much of tech that is being developed, specifically in the engine area, is a careful balance between a maximum degree of expendability and [adaptability] for reusable vehicles that want to have a long lifetime."

In other words, Rattlrs won't just produce a better cruise missile; it'll feed tech into other hypersonics programs too. "We're in a sense enabling the turbine side of an eventual hypersonic solution [to several problems]," Johnston says.

Rattlrs is just one in a billion-dollar portfolio of hypersonics programs that, in the next 20 years, might revolutionize air combat, commercial air travel and space ops. The most dramatic outgrowth of these programs is the Marine Corps' squad space transport. Much more on that and other hypersonics programs later ...

-- David Axe

Score One for Missile Defense

At long last, there's some good news for the most troubled part of the ballistic missile defense system. In testing this afternoon, an interceptor launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California caught up to a target warhead, and destroyed it.

"This was the first intercept of [an] operationally-configured warhead and booster, and the first intercept overall in nearly four years," Victoria Samson, the ordinarily uber-skeptical missile defense analyst, told Defense Tech. She called the test "progress" after repeated failures in previous tests of the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system to get an interceptor off of the launch pad. (Other anti-missile systems, including the shorter-range Terminal High-Altitude Air Defense and the sea-based Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense, have been performing much better.)

Interestingly, an intercept wasn't even the main goal in this trial. Instead, it was designed to gauge the system's "ability to successfully detect, track, [and] discriminate... a target in space," a Raytheon statement observed.

The system appeared to do just that. "A key radar collected target information and shared it with an operationally configured interceptor, the interceptor used that data to zero in on a target in space, and battle managers oversaw this activity in real time from thousands of miles away," added a Boeing statement. "The team is energized."

The successful test was, not, however, the "full end-to-end" demonstration that Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld said he wanted to see of the system.

"It's missing key components - the sea-based X-band radar (which was used in the test, but only for the radar's calibrations), the satellite network system needed to track the missiles (STSS), [and] threat-representative countermeasures for the target missile." Samson noted.

Most importantly, the missile defenders knew where their target was going to fly before they shot off their interceptor. The real test will come when they don't get that info beforehand.

Missile Radar M.I.A.

When you're a kid in Little League, the first lesson your coach drills into you is to keep your eye on the ball. And what works on the sandlot goes double for missile defense: the better you can see the target, the higher your chances are of hitting it.

That's why the Missile Defense Agency has been so hyped about its Sea-Based X-Band Radar, or SBX. The $815 million, 28-story, orb-like contraption has the ability, in theory, to tell which way a baseball is spinning -- from 3,000 miles away. That's the kind of vision any hitter would kill for. No wonder the SBX quickly became one of the centerpieces of the Bush Administration's revamped anti-missile strategy, after it took office.

But there's catch. In order to spot the most incoming ICBMs, the radar's converted oil rig platform has to be positioned near Alaska's Aleutian Islands -- an "unforgiving [stretch] of the Bering Sea where winter weather can be so violent that the islands have been nicknamed 'the birthplace of winds,'" the Chicago Tribune tells us. And considering how bad the SBX was roughed up during "its first long ocean voyage," in the comparatively calm waters from the Gulf of Mexico to Hawaii, that isn't inspiring a lot of faith in the system's survivability. Scheduled to leave Hawaii after repairs eight months ago, the SBX won't head out to Alaska until "at least later this fall." Needless to say, the radar will miss the next round of missile defense testing, scheduled for this week.

"That radar is absolutely packed with sensitive electronics, and... salt water, wind and waves don't go well with sensitive electronics," said Philip Coyle, who as assistant secretary of defense from 1994 to 2001 was the Clinton administration's chief weapons evaluator.

He went on: "The bottom line is that the designers of this system didn't begin to contemplate the realistic conditions under which the X-Band would have to operate. When you look at all the facts, you really have to wonder what the people who designed this thing were thinking..."

[What's] more, a recent independent assessment obtained by the Tribune lists dozens of concerns from naval and defense experts about the design and administration of the radar vessel...

Among the findings:

- The sensitive radar... is mounted atop a vessel that might need to be towed to safety in the event of rugged Alaskan seas, but its one towing bridle likely would be underwater and impossible for a rescue ship to use anytime waves reached more than 8 feet.

- Although the SBX may be hundreds of miles away from support ships, it lacks a quickly deployable rescue boat in the event of a man overboard, does not have a helicopter landing pad certified for landing the most common U.S. Coast Guard and Navy rescue helicopters, and its crews have not been trained "for heavy weather or cold-weather operations."

- And, ironically, the X-Band, considered one of the nation's foremost technologies in defending against foreign missiles, has minimal security itself. Many critics speculate that it is vulnerable to attack by enemy nations or terrorist groups.

"This is no surprise and again demonstrates MDA's [Missile Defense Agency's] stubborn refusal to accept that engineering and logistical limitations can be just as damning as anything else the weapon systems can come up against," says missile guru Victoria Samson, with the Center for Defense Information. "What with Thursday's test of the GMD [Ground-based Midcourse Defense] system, it would've been nice to see how the SBX would play in there, which it would have done - probably - if it'd made it to Adak [Alaska] last year as planned. Instead, what we're getting from the GMD tests are conjectures because there are too many placeholders to make up for the actual components which are missing."

Star Wars: The Next Generation

Get ready for a new round of "Star Wars" stories.

Within the next couple of weeks, the Missile Defense Agency is scheduled to test its national missile defense system, again. If there's a successful intercept, expect the Bush administration and its backers to talk it up as another sign the system is ready to go. But if they miss, there's an out: It's not officially an intercept test, see, so while a hit would be nice, it's not officially what they're trying to do. Missing, in other words, is perfectly OK.

Regardless, you can be sure the results will lead to the usual spate of "will Star Wars work?" coverage.

It's been more than 20 years since Ronald Reagan made his so-called Star Wars speech, kicking off his grandiose plans for a global missile defense shield that came to naught. Yet we still can't shake the Star Wars moniker for missile defense of any kind, even the shorter-range programs that bear almost no resemblance to the old Strategic Defense Initiative.

Star Wars, the name, most often crops up in attacks on the system, as in here (to use just one recent example), but it still has mainstream media cachet, too. To wit: this Aug. 15 Reuters story.

Missile defense backers have long hated the name, feeling (quite correctly) that it is a derogatory dismissal of the whole premise behind missile defense, or at least the idea that ICBMs can be shot down effectively by other missiles. It's a science fiction movie; get it?

I also think the name's insulting. To the Star Wars movies, that is. (And I'm not even a fan.)

Think about it: Star Wars was a smash hit from day one, and remains the most popular movie franchise ever. But Reagan's SDI vision was roundly decried as too far-out and too costly from the start, and those criticisms proved accurate. And while reviews may be mixed on the current crop of missile defense systems, they haven't exactly been big hits in testing.

If critics and reporters need a dismissive science fiction movie handle for missile defense, maybe they should try Star Trek. Like SDI, the original Star Trek show had an inauspicious start -- canceled in just its third season and seemingly relegated to history. Only a hard-core band of supporters kept the flame alive until movies and, later, new TV shows made it a hit again.

And just like the Trekkies, a group of star warriors kept Reagan's Star Wars dream alive throughout the administrations of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Once George W. Bush took over the White House, he brought along with him quite a few of those diehards -- Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney, to name just three -- giving missile defense its best friends in power since Reagan. The next generation, if you will.

And while I don't want to belabor the analogy -- I'll leave that kind of thing to the Trekkies at The Corner -- let's not forget the nickname Bush's national security advisers picked for themselves during the 200 campaign: The Vulcans!

-- Dan Dupont

p.s. Can't resist: Go watch this.

THAAD's Right!

The Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system, better known as THAAD, has had a checkered past. Now, however, with a recent test success under its belt, its future appears increasingly rosy, according to today's Inside the Army:

At the request of combatant commanders, the Missile Defense Agency is expediting the testing and fielding of its Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system to get the capability into soldiers�€™ hands two years sooner than expected, according to Army Col. Charles Driessnack, the agency�€™s project manager.

Under the MDA�€™s previous THAAD schedule, the missile defense capability would be deployable worldwide in fiscal year 2012, Driessnack told reporters here Aug. 16 at the Army�€™s annual Space and Missile Defense conference.

However, when combatant commanders began �€œscreaming�€ that they wanted to get the capability to the field as quickly as possible, the agency formulated a plan to run testing activities concurrently, to shave two years off the program -- placing the system in the field at the end of FY-09 or in early FY-10, Driessnack added.

Remind anyone of anything?

Back in the 1990s, the Pentagon tested THAAD many times, with results so poor the program was on death's door. Two late and highly tailored tests led to intercepts and a decision to move the program forward into its next phase, where the missile was essentially overhauled.

It was back then that the phrase "rush to failure" entered the national security lexicon via a much-ballyhooed report on missile defense. Led by a retired Air Force four-star, Gen. Larry Welch, the report had this to say on THAAD and a companion effort:

These programs are pursuing very aggressive schedules, but these schedules are not supported by the state of planning and testing.

Testing beginning next year in the Pacific will be the real gague of how far THAAD has come.

UPDATED 08/22/06: More missile defense news -- free! -- here.

UPDATED (AGAIN) 08/25/06: The Missile Defense Agency's director says "a congressional proposal to accelerate testing of ballistic missile defense assets would be counterintuitive and could cost taxpayers more in the long run." Full story here.

-- Dan Dupont

Packing up....

The annual Space and Missile Defense Conference is packing up around me. Just a quick note: five years ago this was a sleepy little gathering of mostly Huntsville-based companies and die-hard supporters, hoping to revive plans for a missile shield. Love or hate missile defense, in five years, they've managed to put together the rudiments of a system that can--at least theoretically--shoot something down.

--Sharon Weinberger

From Huntsville, with love and rockets

Funding for missile defense may not be quite what it used to be, but then again, it ain't exactly suffering by the looks of the very-packed annual conference I'm attending here in Huntsville, Alabama. Since there have been no recent tests to discuss, the most entertaining part of the conference has been reading The Eagle, the "authorized unofficial newspaper" published by U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command. The latest issue has some great descriptions of the Alaska National Guard rushing back to duty when the Ground-based Midcourse Defense System was declared operational last month during the North Korea crisis.

"Cruises left for exotic locations with family members aboard as the Soldiers reported back to headquarters for duty," reports The Eagle, which has a flair for the dramatic. The newspaper also describes one married couple whose vacation to Hawaii was interrupted by the call to duty in Alaska (just prior to the spouse's deployment to Iraq). That sucks, though probably more for the spouse off to Iraq than for the one sent back to Alaska.

But the stories of lost vacation point to an as-yet unresolved issue: proponents of missile defense have long argued that the U.S. should pursue concurrent testing and operations -- but there isn't really any way to do that yet, as officials here acknowledge. They can switch between testing and operations �€” but not do both simultaneously.

Currently, Army Space and Missile Defense Command operates the missile defense system (that is, when it's operational, and it isn't exactly clear what that means). During tests (and in preperations for tests), it's transferred over to the Missile Defense Agency, and the operators are effectively booted out. There's no way to, say, dedicate half your missiles to testing and half to operations �€” the systems aren't in place to do that yet, officials here say.

So, while Fearless Leader waited to the Fourth of July weekend to send a signal to America (and to mess up some soldiers' vacations), in fact, he got it all wrong. Since you can't test and operate, North Korea could have waited for the Missile Defense Agency to conduct a test, launched its missiles, and waited for the inevitable mayhem that would followed as the military tried to switch from "test" to "operations" mode.

Of course, as critics of the system point out, tests, particularly successful ones, are few and far between these days. There hasn't been a successful intercept test of the missile defense for four years.

- Sharon Weinberger

Classified Incompetence

Things are looking a bit scatterbrained in the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) these days, especially in light of a November 2005 internal memo recently obtained and published by the Federation of American Scientists. Regarding the status and location of foreign-deployed missile defense systems, the document penned by MDA Deputy Director Gen. Marvin K. McNamara reads:

There are many operational and political sensitivities that require varying levels of protection as we consider possible deployments. Therefore, I am requiring that potential host nations being studied or considered by MDA for operational deployments not be identified by country or city name on Unclassified computer systems or networks�€�

Political sensitivities? While you ponder that one, watch how the memo in the same breath declares:

The names of multiple foreign countries and/or cities undergoing study for consideration as a host nation are not classified. However, to ensure they are properly protected, they must now be e-mailed or documented ONLY on Classified computer systems or networks�€�

To recap: they�€™re classified, but they�€™re actually unclassified, therefore MDA must take measures to safeguard their unclassified secrets. As decoded by Victoria Samson of Center for Defense Information, "�€�when they claim that the new sites for missile defense deployment are not classified, they are actually classifying them by making the contractors etc only use classified networks when discussing them. So they are, in a sense, skipping around having to justify classifying the sites and yet getting to still do so. Very clever."

Issues of reclassification aside, the question remains as to why MDA is so hush-hush about its operational foreign deployments, that in context seems to indicate ground-based interceptors. As we pause to consider this paranoia, it may help to recreate a relevant sequence of events:

As far back as summer 2004, then-Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton stated that "we�€™re now engaged in discussions with Poland about the possibility of basing interceptors and radars here." This statement was followed by news reports of similar third-site prospects in the Czech Republic and elsewhere in Eastern Europe, to ostensibly counter an Iranian ballistic missile threat.

But months later in February 2005, the Bush administration suffered an embarrassing setback when, after months of trying to shove missile defense cooperation down Canada�€™s throat despite widespread domestic opposition, the Canadian Prime Minister abruptly and unequivocally pulled the plug on all such plans.

Fast-forwarding to November 2005, the administration and MDA may have learned from their Canadian missteps that when foreign missile defense deployments hinge on the outcome of democratic debate, it becomes much harder to impose less-than-popular policies upon informed electorates. That, in any case, is perhaps the most plausible explanation for the sudden classification �€“ or "secretification"? �€“ of what was previously public information.

But no sooner was the memo passed around than a PowerPoint presentation containing the supposedly classified material was used by MDA Director Lt. Gen. Trey Obering at an AIAA conference, and then circulated widely. Right there, on slide 35, the presentation gives a complete rundown of desired foreign deployments, listing Poland, Czech Republic, and even the United Kingdom as potential third site candidates. Related or not, public debate over missile defense has mushroomed in Eastern Europe this summer, with 82 percent of Czechs opposed to the idea while Warsaw sizes up missile defense with its national interests.

What�€™s the point of this exercise? Was MDA convinced that by classifying �€“ sort of �€“ facts that were already public knowledge, it could keep missile defense off the legislative floors in Prague and Warsaw? Did Gen. McNamara think this was the best way to avoid a repeat Canadian incident? Most befuddling, did anyone involved think they could hide something like this for more than ten minutes in Washington DC? It remains to be seen what their motives might have been, as does the fate of the third ground-based interceptor site in Europe. But one can be reasonably certain that deceiving allies and partners �€“ and ineptly at that �€“ may not be the best way to promote cooperative security.

- Scott Morrissey, CDI

UPDATE 3:41 PM Apparently the PowerPoint presentation was not leaked - it was shown at a quasi-public AIAA conference back in March. Thanks to the commenters for pointing this out!

Hez's 30-Mile Missile

Here's some more on those longer-range Hezbollah rockets mentioned in today's Rapid Fire:

Hezbollah called the rockets the Khaibar-1. They fell more than 30 miles south of the Lebanese border. A few other rockets have traveled this far, but it was still unusual, according to the Israeli military and police.

The rockets are capable of carrying more than 200 pounds of explosives, making them much more powerful than the Katyusha rockets that Hezbollah has been firing most of the time, Israeli authorities said.

American and Israeli officials believe that the rocket Hezbollah referred to as a "Khaibar-1" appears to be an upgraded version of the Fajr-3, a rocket that Iran has supplied to the terrorist network and that Hezbollah has used often during the conflict. The rocket fired today has an estimated range of 90 kilometers, which makes it the longest range rocket fired thus far. Officials said that it is still unclear whether the rocket is actually a Fajr-5 �€” which Iran has also given to Hezbollah �€” or a new model altogether. [The Jerusalem Post and Ynetnews both argue differently -- ed.] Hezbollah�€™s leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, said earlier in the week that his Shiite group would strike beyond Haifa, about 20 miles inside Israel, which has been the southernmost city to come under regular attack.

One thing the weapon was not, according to Israeli authorities, was "an Iranian-made 'Zilzal' rocket, which has a range of about 210 km (130 miles) and would have put the Israeli commercial capital Tel Aviv within reach."

That honeymoon is looking less and less likely, all of the time...

(Big ups: SOI)

Israeli Missile Defense: Not Katyusha-Ready

Israelis are used to missile attacks; they've spent tons of cash on missile defense systems. So why have their interceptors been silent, as a thousand Katyushas have slammed into their soil? Victoria Samson, the Center for Defense Information's resident missile defense sage, has the answer: the Israeli systems are built to stop longer-range missiles -- ones that fly for hundreds of miles, like those Iraqi Scuds that fell on Tel Aviv during the first Gulf War, or the missiles Iran might one day nuke-equip.) The shorter-range projectiles that Hezbollah is firing are are too quick, and too mobile, for these interceptors to catch.

Israel has a two-tiered missile defense system. The first, the Arrow Weapon System, is to intercept ballistic missiles in their final phase of flight. It would do so by shooting the U.S.-developed Arrow II interceptor at a threat. Once the Israel-developed Green Pine Fire Control Radar, Citron Tree Fire Control Center, and Hazel Nut Tree Launcher Center have sent the interceptor near the target, the Arrow II would blow up, with the hope that the fragments from the blast would either destroy the target or knock it sufficiently off course so that it would no longer remain a threat. There are two Arrow batteries deployed. One covers the center of Israel from its position in Palmahim, while the other in Ein Shemer is supposed to defend Israel�€™s northern territory...

Israel also has an early version of the U.S. Patriot missile defense system. The Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC)-2 is designed to defend against ballistic missile targets in their terminal phase as well; also, it would provide defense via a blast-fragmentation warhead... The Patriot differs from the Arrow in that it aims at targets which are at lower altitudes.

[But] neither missile defense system has been used is because they are not designed to intercept short-range rockets. It is estimated that of the 13,000 or so rockets and missiles in Hezbollah�€™s arsenal, 11,000 of them are of the Katyusha type. These rockets have a short range �€“ maybe up to nine miles or so �€“ and a small warhead of roughly 40 pounds. Based on vintage Soviet technology, these rockets can be rolled out of a hiding place, shot, and rolled back in before any detection can be made. Their flight is over in seconds, making tracking difficult, much less shooting anything down. A system would have to be in exactly the right place to detect the missile once it is launched, then the defensive system would have to make a nearly instantaneous decision to respond, after which the interceptor would have to get to the target quickly enough to destroy it. It is an exceedingly difficult proposition when the flight times are as short as those launched by Hezbollah.

That's one of the reasons why Israel spent year pursuing a speed-of-light rocket defense, the Tactical High Energy Laser -- and why some folks are trying to re-introduce an updated version of the system to the Sabras.

But even an updated THEL will take years to get ready. In the short term, Israel's plan seems to be to clear out as much of southern Lebanon as possible, the Times notes.

Homes in southern Lebanon received taped phone calls in Arabic warning that they needed to evacuate because strikes would hit house by house. The recording ended by saying it came from the Israeli Army. The Israelis also used a radio station near the border to broadcast warnings into southern Lebanon for residents to leave.

The radio warning also stressed that any truck, including pickups, traveling south of the Litani River would be suspected of transporting weapons or rockets, and could therefore be a target.

(Big ups: TP)

Hezbollah's Surprise Weapons

Wonder why the Israelis thought their ship had been hit by a drone last week -- when it turned out to be a radar-guided missile instead? Or why the crew of the Hanit corvette didn't use their countermeasures to protect themselves? Simple: the Sabras knew that Hezbollah had been playing with drones; they had no idea that the terrorist group had such a sophisticated missile in their arsenal. It's one of a number of ways that the "power and sophistication" of Hezbollah's arms "has caught the United States and Israel off guard," the Times reports. "Officials in both countries are just now learning the extent to which the militant group has succeeded in getting weapons from Iran and Syria."

The missile that hit the Hanit was a C-802, an Iranian-made variant of a stealthy, turbojet-powered, Chinese weapon. It's "considered along with the US 'Harpoon' as among the best anti-ship missiles" in the world, GlobalSecurity.org says.

"Iran began buying dozens of those sophisticated antiship missiles from the Chinese during the 1990�€™s," the Times notes. "Until Friday, however, Western intelligence services did not know that Iran had managed to ship C-802 missiles to Hezbollah."

Now that the Israelis know, it's influencing their choice of targets to hit. The C-802 was most likely "fired it from a truck-mounted launcher cued by a coastal radar installation," Situational Awareness says. So "Israel has stepped up its attacks against coastal radar sites, as any sort of surface-search set would be able to provide data for the initial launch."

After launch, the missile takes care of itself with its own inertial guidance system and onboard radar seeker. Since the launchers are mobile, the trucks carrying them could scoot after firing. And we all know how notoriously difficult it can be to locate mobile units, even when you have lots of reconnaissance assets.

The terrorists' more traditional weapons, like Katyusha rockets and Fajr-3 missiles, have contained surprises, too. "In the past, we�€™d see three, four, maybe eight launches at any given time if Hezbollah was feeling feisty," one unnammed official told the paper. "Now we see them arriving in large clusters, and with a range and even certain accuracy we have not seen in the past."

70 Katyushas were fired at Israel "within the space of an hour" on Wednesday afternoon, Ha'Aretz writes. Israel is responding by sending small group of ground troops into Lebanon, and by striking targets in Beruit -- including ones in the Christian part of town.

The Times says that "while Iranian missile supplies to Hezbollah, either by sea or overland via Syria, were well known, officials said the current conflict also indicated that some of the rockets in Hezbollah�€™s arsenal �€” including a 220-millimeter rocket used in a deadly attack on a railway site in Haifa on Sunday �€” were built in Syria."

Officials have since confirmed that the warhead on the Syrian rocket was filled with ball bearings �€” a method of destruction used frequently in suicide bombings but not in warhead technology.

"We�€™ve never seen anything like this," said one Western intelligence official, speaking about the warhead.

Conflicts Forum's Mark Perry, on the other hand, isn't as alarmed as most about Hezbollah's weaponry. {Joe Katzman says that's because the guy is a terrorist shill.} Perry declares that the militia only has a handful of sophisticated and long-range missiles. Check out his All Things Considered interview here.

UPDATE 1:43 PM: "Israeli military officials have warned that the next Palestinian uprising could be 'a ballistic intifada,'" the Washington Post reports.

(Big ups: Umansky)

UPDATE 7:13 PM: The Jerusalem Post is reporting that "IAF fighter jets dropped over 20 tons in bombs late Wednesday night on a Hizbullah bunker, possibly the hiding place of the group's leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, in the Bourj al-Barajneh refugee camp in southeast Beirut. It was still unclear who was in the bunker at the time and what their fate was, but IDF sources said the bunker was totally destroyed and that all that was left was a crater."

Hezbollah's Biggest Missile Yet

Watching the news over the last few years, we've grown accustomed to seeing terrorists as a low-tech threat -- guys who hijack airplanes with pocket knives and make bombs out of leftover parts. And that threat has been plenty scary, on its own.

But in recent days, we're starting to see what happens when Islamic extremists get their hands on the relatively sophisticated arsenal of a country like Iran. Talk about terror.

On Sunday, Hezbollah again struck Haifa -- a city untouched by the militia until a few days ago -- using its biggest and most powerful missile yet. It's one of 800 rockets Hezbollah has launched against Israel in the last five days.

The weapon "hit a busy railway maintenance building, destroying the roof, killing eight, wounding more than 20 and leaving congealing pools of blood on the platform," the Times reports. "Israel said [the missile] was a Syrian-produced model of a Iranian Fajr-3 model, [which Tehran claims can avoid radars and carry multiple warheads -- ed.]. [It] has a range of more than 30 miles and carries a warhead with about 100 pounds of high explosives, which includes antipersonnel shrapnel, a significant change from the smaller Katyushas that Hezbollah has mostly been using."

And there may be worse to come, Ha'Aretz warns.

The fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah, which is backed by Syria and Iran, has still not reached its zenith. The Israel Defense Forces' operational plans against the Shi'ite organizations have not yet been carried out. The next two days are the most critical and a lot depends on whether Tehran decides to take a chance and authorize Hezbollah to launch long-range missiles with more powerful warheads. This is a capability Hezbollah still retains, despite the heavy blows it has suffered in the IDF air strikes.

UPDATE 10:44 PM: Kathryn Cramner has worked some of her Google Earth magic, and come up with a fascinating picture of how far Hezbollah can now reach.

Iran Missile Drone Bomb Hits Israelis, U.A.V. Pioneers

UPDATE 07/15/06 11:19 AM: There's an old saw about war: that first reports are always wrong. Looks like that the case about this unmanned plane attack. "A missile fired by Hezbollah, not an unmanned drone laden with explosives, damaged an Israeli warship off Lebanon," Fox News reports.

The attack on Friday night had raised widespread concern in the Israeli military because initial information indicated that the guerrillas had used a drone for the first time to attack Israeli forces.

But the army's investigation into the attack, which left four Israeli sailors missing, showed that Hezbollah had fired an Iranian-made missile at the vessel from the shores of Lebanon, said Brig. Gen. Ido Nehushtan.

"We can confirm that it was hit by an Iranian-made missile launched by Hezbollah. We see this as very profound fingerprint of Iranian involvement in Hezbollah," Nehushtan said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Another Hezbollah missile also hit and sank a nearby civilian merchant ship at around the same time, Nehushtan said. He said that ship apparently was Egyptian, but he had no other information about it.

UPDATE 07/15/06 12:29 PM: Bill Roggio is now throwing cold water on the missile theory. "The use of a ground based anti-ship missile system in these attacks, while certainly a possibility, is unlikely as the characteristics of this system would certainly have been detected by the Israeli Defense Forces," he writes. "A UAV launched missile system, on the other hand, would be a more stealthy system. The UAVs are difficult to detect as they can fly in below radar, [and] can be flown by remote visual methods."

Stay tuned.

"An unmanned Hezbollah aircraft rigged with explosives slammed into an Israeli warship late Friday, causing heavy damage to the vessel," the AP reports. It's the first time the terrorist group -- any terrorist group -- has used a drone in combat, as far as I know.

Hezbollah has flown simple "Misrad-1" unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, twice before, in November 2004 and April 2005. But those were reconnaissance flights, last just a couple of minutes each. And the drones were spotted fairly quickly, both times.

But, as Defense Tech noted in the Spring, the UAV had the potential to be much, much worse -- "a suicide bomber on steroids, basically."

That's what seems to have happened around 8:30pm Friday night to a Saar 5 navy gunship, ten miles off of the Lebanese coast, according to Ynetnews.

It was reported that the stern of an Israeli navy war ship suffered a direct hit in an attack by Hizbullah, which damaged the helicopter landing pad area. The hit caused a conflagration, which was extinguished. No one was hurt in the fire.

Shortly afterwards, crewmembers assessed the damage to the ship and discovered the hit was more severe than originally thought, and had caused damage to the ship�€™s internal operating systems...

Four crewmembers are reported to be missing.

There's more than bit of irony in Israel being hit with drone attacks. For years, the Israeli military was the world's leader in unmanned aviation. During the first Gulf War, Iraqi troops surrendered to Israel-made, American-run Pioneer UAVs. U.S. Army drone mechanics had to learn Hebrew, to repair their Israeli drones.

But in recent years, the rest of the world has caught up. "Some 32 nations are developing or manufacturing more than 250 models" of UAVs, according to the Defense Department.

In response, Pentagon extreme science