THAAD transfer to ‘Israel’ points to crisis in defense systems: Report
Israeli broadcaster Channel 12 on Friday reported that “Israel” has requested the US to deploy a second THAAD battery to bolster its defenses against a potential Iranian retaliation to its planned upcoming attack.
Related:
U.S. Missile Defense Is Under Strain
Read More »The THAAD system is designed to intercept and destroy short-, medium-, and intermediate-range ballistic missiles during their final phase of flight. Instead of using explosive warheads, THAAD relies on kinetic energy to neutralize incoming missiles by colliding with them at high speeds. The system’s radar and interceptors allow it to detect and destroy threats both inside and outside the Earth’s atmosphere. Each THAAD battery typically includes six truck-mounted launchers, 48 interceptors, a radar system, and a command-and-control unit. A crew of approximately 95 U.S. soldiers operates the system.
This deployment follows Iran’s missile attack on Israel on Oct. 1, 2024, during which Iran launched more than 180 ballistic missiles, including the Fattah-1 hypersonic missile. Unveiled by Iran in 2023, the Fattah-1 can reportedly travel at hypersonic speeds and change trajectory mid-flight. While the U.S. has not yet encountered the Fattah-1 in combat, the THAAD deployment offers a chance to assess whether the system can counter this new Iranian missile.
Read More »
Zelensky Ukraine victory speech: Listen for the quiet parts
Zelensky is going to give his “victory” speech on October 16 to Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, but much of the speech will be secret. The secret part is about giving up territory to Russia.
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The Rada has just passed new legislation that allows NATO officers to command Ukrainian units. So far, the Russians have been mostly quiet, probably because they do not believe NATO will supply field commanders for Ukraine’s military. But if it happens, and that is a big if, the Russians will see it as NATO sending combat troops and react accordingly.
Some speculate that Zelensky will hint at a desire to get some sort of ceasefire and establish a buffer zone patrolled by a kind of coalition of NATO-willing. This is being billed as a Zelensky “concession” to the reality of Russia occupying Ukrainian territory.
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There also are rumors that Ukraine may try to attack Transnistria, the breakaway area of Moldova that includes a few thousand Russian troops – some of them on an agreed peace-keeping mission and others protecting a huge ammunition dump left over from the Soviet period.
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The Russians also have been attacking dry cargo ships in the port of Odessa that are unloading weapons and military supplies from Turkey.
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Moldova also has an important election on October 20. An attack on Transnistria could backfire and topple the current pro-NATO. pro-EU Moldovan government.
Following in the footsteps of Nikita Khrushchev? FYI, “Khrushchev Lied!”😉
Related:
Read More »Israel races to supply anti-missile shield
“Israel’s munitions issue is serious,” said Dana Stroul, a former senior US defence official with responsibility for the Middle East.
“If Iran responds to an Israel attack [with a massive air strike campaign], and Hizbollah joins in too, Israel air defences will be stretched,” she said, adding that US stockpiles were not limitless. “The US can’t continue supplying Ukraine and Israel at the same pace. We are reaching a tipping point.”
Boaz Levy, chief executive of Israel Aerospace Industries, a state-owned company which makes the Arrow interceptors used to shoot down ballistic missiles, said he was running triple shifts to keep production lines running.
“Some of our lines are working 24 hours, seven days a week. Our goal is to meet all our obligations,” Levy said, adding that the time required to produce interceptor missiles was “not a matter of days”. While Israel does not disclose the size of its stockpiles, he added: “It is no secret that we need to replenish stocks.”
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The Israeli military claimed in April that, with the help of the US and other allies, it achieved a 99 per cent interception rate against an Iranian salvo of 170 drones, 30 cruise missiles and 120 ballistic missiles.
But Israel had less success fending off a second Iranian barrage of over 180 ballistic missiles fired on October 1. Almost three dozen missiles hit Israel’s Nevatim air base, according to open source intelligence analysts, while one missile exploded 700 metres away from the headquarters of the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency.
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“We are not seeing Hizbollah’s full capability yet. It has only been firing at around a tenth of its estimated prewar launching capacity, a few hundred rockets a day instead of as many as 2,000,” said Assaf Orion, a former Israeli brigadier general and head of strategy at the Israel Defense Forces.
“Some of that gap is a choice by Hizbollah not to go full out, and some of it is due to degradation by the IDF. . . But Hizbollah has enough left to mount a strong operation,” Orion added. “Haifa and northern Israel are still on the receiving end of rocket and drone attacks almost every day.”
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“During the October 1 attack, there was a sense the IDF reserved some Arrow interceptors in case Iran fired its next salvo at Tel Aviv,” said Ehud Eilam, a former researcher at Israel’s Ministry of Defence. “It’s only a matter of time before Israel starts to run out of interceptors and has to prioritise how they are deployed.”
Dana Stroul wrote the article that I previously posted back on September 28th.
Previously:
Israel and Hezbollah Are Escalating Toward Catastrophe (it’s not looking good for the IOF)
U.S. to Deploy Missile Defense System and About 100 Troops to Israel + More Updates
by Brian Berletic
Beginning in October 2023 a renewed cycle of violence began destabilizing the Middle East. Hamas’ October 7, 2023 military operation into Israeli-held territory served as a pretext for Israel, not to dismantle Hamas itself, but to conduct an indiscriminate punitive military operation against all of Gaza.
Related:
U.S. to Deploy Missile Defense System and About 100 Troops to Israel + More Updates
Ignore the propaganda. I’ve quoted the most relevant parts of the articles:
09-23-2024 – Israel and Hezbollah Are Escalating Toward Catastrophe
For Israel, the incentives also argue against a large-scale war with Hezbollah. After nearly a year of fighting in Gaza, the IDF is tired, munitions stockpiles are depleted, public support for Israel’s leaders is weak, Israel’s economy is suffering, and its international and regional standing have significantly eroded. And IDF military planners are well aware that Hezbollah’s more advanced fighting capabilities and sophisticated weapons arsenal would make the Gaza campaign look like child’s play.
Read More »
MANILA (Reuters) – The United States has no immediate plans to withdraw a mid-range missile system deployed in the Philippines, despite Chinese demands, and is testing the feasibility of its use in a regional conflict, sources with knowledge of the matter said.
US Keeps Missile System in Philippines as China Tensions Rise, Tests Wartime Deployment
Previously:
Philippines aims to acquire Typhon missile launcher as regional arms race intensifies
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Some new Ukrainian soldiers refuse to fire at the enemy. Others, according to commanders and fellow fighters, struggle to assemble weapons or to coordinate basic combat movements. A few have even walked away from their posts, abandoning the battlefield altogether.
While Ukraine presses on with its incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, its troops are still losing precious ground along the country’s eastern front — a grim erosion that military commanders blame in part on poorly trained recruits drawn from a recent mobilization drive, as well as Russia’s clear superiority in ammunition and air power.
Poorly trained recruits contribute to loss of Ukrainian territory on eastern front, commanders say
Related:
Reuters: Russia and Ukraine report gains as some Ukrainians flee strategic city
But although the incursion is an embarrassment for Russia, Moscow’s forces have continued their gradual advances of the past few months against tired Ukrainian troops in eastern Ukraine worn down by 2-1/2 years of heavy fighting.
Moscow said its troops had taken control of the village of Mezhove in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, and that they had beaten back an attempt by a Ukrainian force to infiltrate its border in a different region to Kyiv’s Aug. 6 incursion.
Ukrainian authorities say Russian troops are now just 10 km (six miles) outside Pokrovsk, an important transport hub in eastern Ukraine, and this week started evacuating elderly residents and children.
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Moscow’s capture of Pokrovsk, which lies at an intersection of roads and a railway line, would give Russia options to advance in new directions and also cut supply routes used by the Ukrainian military in the Donetsk region.
WSJ: Ukraine Moves to Encircle Russian Troops in Kursk and Digs In for Long Fight
The incursion hasn’t, so far, shifted the dynamic on the war’s main battlefields in eastern Ukraine, where Russia is advancing in toward Pokrovsk, a key Ukrainian logistical hub, and Toretsk, a city on strategically important high ground.
The US Is Sending $125 Million in New Military Aid to Ukraine, Officials Say
US To Convert Pacific Oil Rigs Into Military Bases as Part of Anti-China Buildup
Related:
Criticism:
In December 1999, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) in response to a congressional mandate issued a report which delineated the impracticality of MOBs, “the largest floating offshore structure ever conceived by maritime engineers”, on the grounds of high cost and vulnerability to threats such as missile attack.
Wikipedia
Whac-A-Mole is fun!
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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