[Defense News, 2Oct06] Barbara Opall-Rome - After-action data and battlefield imagery are revealing that Israel's air operations against Hizballah displayed unprecedented use of swarming manned and unmanned systems that found and destroyed mobile missile launchers and enemy tactical drones. By the third night of the war, the Israel Air Force attained full operational capability of the world's first Boost Phase Launch Intercept (BPLI) force to hunt and immediately kill small, mobile missile launchers. Israel's BPLI capability has been credited with destroying more than 100 launchers. "This was the first large-scale use of UAVs, not only for providing a continuous presence over the entire battle area, but in [assisting the direction and delivery of] smart munitions to these very small, well hidden, moving targets," said Isaac Ben-Israel, a retired IAF major general and former director of Israeli defense research and development. "Here, there's only a matter of seconds between the time the terrorists emerged to launch these missiles to the time when they returned to their hiding places among innocent civilians. Those medium-range missile launchers became suicide launchers. They were destroyed either before or immediately after they fired their first missile." According to a senior IAF official, more than 90% of the medium-range missile launchers used by Hizballah were destroyed almost immediately after they fired their first weapon. "Without a doubt, the second Lebanon War was the turning point in unmanned warfare," said Asaf Agmon, a brigadier general in the IAF reserves and director of Israel's Fisher Center for Air and Space Strategic Studies.
2006-10-06 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive