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Israel’s ‘Iron Dome’ changes the face of battle

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Israel’s ‘Iron Dome’ changes the face of battle

#61

Post by noir_lord »

adamors wrote: post #32
noir_lord wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pretty close to my summation to my gf the other evening "Every few years Hamas launches rockets at Israel, Israel then uses the opportunity to smash the crap out of Hamas for a few days while "international concern" grows, at a certain point Israel stops the attacks, the international community claims a victory and Hamas gets a bloody nose, nothing changes and it all happens again in 2-3 years" I suspect some…

> Hamas gets a bloody nose Is Hamas even a target anymore? In 4 days Operation Protective Edge took the life of 114 people, 88 of which were non combatant civilians [1]. They even managed to destroy a centre for disabled people. [2] That's a quite a big margin of error for one of the most advanced armies on the planet. [1] http://www.sunherald.com/2014/07/11/5693711/gaza-death-toll-... [2] http://www.theguardian.com/…

There is an issue of impartiality on your sources (at least the Guardian), it's one of the better newspapers but is still pretty biased towards Palestinians.

Re: Israel’s ‘Iron Dome’ changes the face of battle

#62

Post by noir_lord »

paletoy wrote: post #57
jds375 wrote: post #16

The software design is particularly interesting. I recommend this article: "Typical command-and-control software for military gear is highly customized and hard to modify. The key to MPrest’s success, Barak says, is that the command-and-control software is simple and modular, so customers can quickly adapt it without reprogramming. The Israeli army was able to recalibrate Iron Dome batteries almost immediately, witho…

From the article: "Microsoft’s Windows and .NET architecture make up the base layer of the system .. The same basic technology is being used for civilian purposes, including for a vehicle fleet management system" This raises two questions: 1. What is the commonality between missile defense and fleet management ? 2. How does a system that is most likely real-time run on windows/.net ?

I would imagine that .Net is used on the control and targetting systems on the launcher I can't imagine they are running a .Net implementation on the actual missiles computer.

Re: Israel’s ‘Iron Dome’ changes the face of battle

#63

Post by [deleted] »

youngtaff wrote: post #60
paletoy wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not an israeli plan. Basically hamas have chosen the wrong side in the syrian conflict, so it lost the support of iran and syria(and maybe saudi-arabia). He also lost the support of egypt due to the regime change. And he is in bad relations with fatah on the west bank. All this put the hamas with very little political and monetary support and with inability to pay operatives. They are near collapse. So how do h…

This appears to be a good analysis of the current situation - http://forward.com/articles/201764/how-politics-and-lies-tri... It appears the politicians created the current war against the army's wishes, and that Hamas were actually keeping the peace on the ground

[deleted]

Re: Israel’s ‘Iron Dome’ changes the face of battle

#64

Post by brucefancher »

ibisum wrote: post #34
yazaddaruvala wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I agree one sided articles are generally very bad in regard to difficult situations like this. But in my opinion that is because they try to illicit sympathy for that particular side. However, in this case.. the post seemed to be about a new cool technology. Perhaps it was just me but at the end of this article I felt drawn to neither side. The only thoughts I had on the matter were, "Man that is cool. Its too bad…

>However, in this case.. the post seemed to be about a new cool technology. So the article is little more than a straw man to divert from the real atrocities being committed by the Israelis' in Gaza today. And that is entirely the point of the OP - that this article is little more than a technocratic diversion to feed the fetish of a homogenous target group, rather than real reporting on the issue.

I figured this article would bring the anti-Semites out of the woodwork.

Re: Israel’s ‘Iron Dome’ changes the face of battle

#65

Post by brucefancher »

akie wrote: post #30
adventured wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a smaller adult is swinging a knife at you, and you're able to mostly avoid being hit by the knife by holding him at arms length, is it acceptable to respond with force to disarm the knife-wielding lunatic? Yep.

You're conveniently ignoring motives here. If the lunatic adult is wielding a knife because (he claims that) you took his house and land and started living in it and don't want to leave, then do you still think it's acceptable to hit him? It seems to me that you're oversimplifying the situation. Nothing is black and white, and certainly not the Israel-Palestina conflict.

No, it's pretty black and white. Unfortunately, the Palestinians don't want peace or negotiations, they just want to kill Jews.

Re: Israel’s ‘Iron Dome’ changes the face of battle

#66

Post by paletoy »

noir_lord wrote: post #62
paletoy wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: "Microsoft’s Windows and .NET architecture make up the base layer of the system .. The same basic technology is being used for civilian purposes, including for a vehicle fleet management system" This raises two questions: 1. What is the commonality between missile defense and fleet management ? 2. How does a system that is most likely real-time run on windows/.net ?

I would imagine that .Net is used on the control and targetting systems on the launcher I can't imagine they are running a .Net implementation on the actual missiles computer.

True. But still , doesn't it need rapid, guaranteed response times?

Re: Israel’s ‘Iron Dome’ changes the face of battle

#67

Post by [deleted] »

youngtaff wrote: post #60
paletoy wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not an israeli plan. Basically hamas have chosen the wrong side in the syrian conflict, so it lost the support of iran and syria(and maybe saudi-arabia). He also lost the support of egypt due to the regime change. And he is in bad relations with fatah on the west bank. All this put the hamas with very little political and monetary support and with inability to pay operatives. They are near collapse. So how do h…

This appears to be a good analysis of the current situation - http://forward.com/articles/201764/how-politics-and-lies-tri... It appears the politicians created the current war against the army's wishes, and that Hamas were actually keeping the peace on the ground

[deleted]

Re: Israel’s ‘Iron Dome’ changes the face of battle

#68

Post by reuven »

As a programmer and person in high tech, I'm in awe of the Iron Dome. The speed with which it has to make decisions, and with which it does so, and the number of rockets that it has knocked out the sky, demonstrate what an amazing piece of technology this is. I've been programming for a long time, but still can't begin to imagine the complexity of the calculations that these systems are doing, and how well they've managed to pull it off.

As an Israeli citizen whose home is in the range of the Hamas rockets, it's hugely comforting to know that this technology has been deployed. I'll be teaching a Python class in Tel Aviv tomorrow, and while I can basically expect that Hamas will be sending a bunch of rockets aiming to kill me (or anyone else they can), I'm happy to know that our interruptions will likely be annoying and frustrating, rather than lethal.

As an Israeli citizen who doesn't want to see our foot soldiers in Gaza (for a very large number of reasons), I'm also happy that Iron Dome gives our government time before sending them in.

The situation with Gaza, and with the Palestinians, is a pretty bad one, although I remain optimistic over the long term. For now, though, anything that reduces the threat of rockets that Hamas is sending at us strikes me as a good thing.

Re: Israel’s ‘Iron Dome’ changes the face of battle

#69

Post by amit_m »

Video summary of the Iron Dome system: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-iron-dome-works-video-201...

The only part which sounds odd is the "human factor" claim near the end. AFAIK the system is fully autonomous once deployed and does not require a human to decide whether or not to launch an interceptor missile.

Re: Israel’s ‘Iron Dome’ changes the face of battle

#70

Post by lutorm »

hn_politics145 wrote: post #37
lutorm wrote: post #18

I'm impressed by how good of a job Israel does at painting itself as the victim despite being the perpetuator of 50 years of ongoing occupation.

The 'occupation' of course being the existence of Israel.

No, the occupation being the one referred to in numerous UN security council resolutions.
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