Welcome to Katyusha World: The Problem With Very Short Range Ballistic Missiles

The Wall Street Journal ^ | July 28, 2006 | Daniel Henninger

[samtheman]

MTHEL

[Kenton]

Exactly what Hezbolla wants. They've maneuvered Israel into a no-win situation: Bleed the Israel on the ground in South Lebanon until they withdraw, or force the IDF to use increasingly draconian tactics, thus givin Hezbollah a propaganda victory. Diabolically clever.

Yeah, they seem to have Israel between a rock and a hard place.

Israel needs to disregard the opinions of people who hate them anyway, and go after Hezbollah's bunkers with something that will suck up all the air in the vicinity of the explosion and kill every last living thing.

First, they need to warn the Lebanese civilians to get outta town, because it's gonna blow up. Notify the UN of that intent, and give them 24 hours to leave.

Notify the UN that any "civilians" left after that will be presumed to be working in sympathy of Hezbollah, or that they are being held against their will as "human shields". Under the rules of war, that makes any "collateral damage" Hezbollah's karma.

Then use a fuel-air device like a DaisyCutter or MOAB to incinerate the town completely off the face of the earth, killing every Hezbollah in every bunker in the area.

I guarantee you, it will NOT be ANY kind of victory for Hezbollah, propaganda or otherwise.

If Israel demonstrates that kind of resolve, it will win them the grudging respect of many in the middle east, and it will discourage further aggression against them by people who have, in the past, mistaken Israel's inherent sense of humanity for weakness.

[ops33]

Small point, but I though Katyushas were rockets, not missiles.

[AustinBill]

Lather, rinse, repeat. :)

[Iris7]

"Are all Katyusha rockets from Russia?"

"Katyusha" is used as a general term these days, like all facial tissue is a "Kleenex", acetaminophen is "Tylenol", etc.

Unguided bombardment rockets have been around a long time. Even Congreve ("the rockets red glare") is a johnny-come-lately. The Chinese used them in the 12th Century.

Solid fuel military steel tubing cased extruded nitrocellulose propellant grain military rocket technology was developed in the 1920's and '30s. Various countries built weapon systems based on them. The British developed anti-aircraft weapons, America various bombardment and ground attack systems (not put in service, US military in those days had no money) and Germany deployed the famous Nebelwerfer. Japan built them and used them against us in WWII. The Russian bombardment rockets, generically called "katyusha", were more intelligent and practical designs than the Nebelwerfer upon which they were based.

Nowadays any outfit that can make "gunpowder", that is, small arms and artillery propellants, can make "katyusha" style bombardment rockets.

Fireworks and adhesive chemicals can get the job done on a hobbyist level.

Every military in the world worthy of the name uses them and they are all domestically produced. Syria appears to make them and Iran certainly does. North Korea makes them. Probably Indonesia. Pakistan and India. Egypt. Romania. Serbia. The list goes on. Chinese bombardment rockets are probably the best buy at this time but are only sold to client states.

[GAB-1955]

It's called Safeguard. It's a production system based on THAD. The good news: It works just as well as THAD. The bad news: It will be 2 years before it's ready. Israel has about a 3 year window of vulnerability before Safeguard can defend against the 8-inch and 5-inch rockets.