Israel strikes back: New ballistic capabilities in response to Iran's assault
The massive missile attack by Iran, as has happened in the past, will not go unanswered. We explain what Israel is most likely to attack with, as it has already announced retaliation.
The Israel Defense Forces announced a retaliatory attack on Iran after a massive ballistic missile attack on October 1, 2024. It can be assumed that this time, the retaliation will be more than symbolic compared to the earlier situation.
Israel may attack Iran's critical infrastructure, such as refineries, fortified command points, or deployment points for S-300 air defence systems.
Here's what Israel might use
In addition to the Jericho ballistic missiles carrying nuclear warheads, which are considered the "ultimate weapon," Israel also has an air force with a rich arsenal of cruise missiles with a range of several hundred kilometres and ballistic missiles launched from aircraft.
The most probable scenario is the use of ROCKS aerial ballistic missiles launched from aircraft still in Israeli airspace.
It is unlikely that, for example, Iran would allow the launch of cruise missiles with a range of about 300 km (186 miles) over its territory by enemy military machines. Such a move would only be possible with F-35I jets that virtually fly unchecked across the Middle East, but cruise missiles would not fit into their internal bays. Meanwhile, an F-35I raid on targets in Iran using gliding bombs would be too risky.
ROCKS aerial ballistic missiles — a unique weapon of Israel
It is highly probable that Israel's new mysterious weapon, ROCKS, is based on missiles from the Sparrow family designed as ballistic targets for testing the Arrow-3 anti-ballistic system. Previous information about these missiles indicated a two-piece construction, in which the combat warhead module was separated from the propulsion segment and dropped off after burning out.
The Rafael company responsible for the ROCKS missile does not provide any information about its speed and range, hiding everything under the phrase "extended range." However, boosters from Israeli missiles were found during the previous attack on Iranian territory. Considering the distance, it can be assumed that Israel's mysterious weapon has a range greater than 650 km (404 miles).
The most likely range exceeds 1,000 km (621 miles), in addition to the range of aircraft carrying these missiles. Since it is a ballistic missile that first rises into space and then descends, the attack speed will be multiple times Mach 1 (1,230 km/h or 766 mph). As a result, it is a challenging target to shoot down, with which few air defence systems in the world can cope.
In the case of Iran, probably only the Russian S-300 systems could have a chance of shooting it down. The warhead of the Israeli missile is unknown, but due to the training nature of the platform from which it was created, it will certainly not be 500 kg (1,102 pounds) but rather less than half that value. It is only known that there are two variants: fragmentation and bunker-penetrating.
The lower destructive force should not be an issue, as Rafael boasts ROCKS's hit precision of about three metres (ten feet). This is ensured not only by the classic tandem of inertial and satellite navigation but also by an optoelectronic warhead that sees the target's thermal image. Furthermore, ROCKS can also home in on radar wave sources, allowing it to serve as an equivalent to the AGM-88 HARM for hunting air defence radars.
