Tel Aviv: According to military analysts the attack that destroyed the Iranian Russian made S-300 air defence system’s radar was performed by an upgraded version of the Rocks missile developed by Israeli company Rafael.
Israel has not claimed responsivity for the attack but it is clear that it was performed as a very pin point retaliation for the Iranian attack on Israeli targets by 350 cruise and ballistic missiles and armed drones.
According to an official Rafael release, the Rocks is a new generation extended stand-off range air-to-surface missile designed to strike high-value stationary and relocatable targets in a GPS-denied arena.
Equipped with either a penetration or blast fragmentation warhead, the missile can destroy above-ground or well protected underground targets in heavily surface-to-air defended areas.
According to the Israeli company, the pilot allocates a mission for the missile before release. The mission includes target coordinates, impact angle and azimuth, topographic imagery data, and fuse delays.
Rocks is released well outside of the surface-to-air defended area, and performs a high-velocity trajectory to minimise attrition of both launching aircraft and missile, providing high target kill success.
The missile uses its INS/GPS for conducting its midcourse trajectory. Homing, up to target destruction, is performed by using its scene-matching technology or anti-radiation capability, overcoming any GPS jamming scenario.
-The writer is an Israel-based freelance journalist. The views expressed are of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of Raksha Anirveda
