Pentagon asks Congress to increase military aid to Israel by $647M with aim of replenishing IDF munitions following recent Gaza campaign
The Pentagon has appealed to Congress in a bid to increase the United States’ military aid to Israel by $647 million, Ynet learned Tuesday.
According to a Bloomberg report, in wake of Operation Pillar of Defense, the Pentagon wants to arm the IDF with a tail kit system used to convert free-fall bombs into satellite-guided ordnance, as well as with missiles that can be mounted on F-15 and F-16 fighter jets and are capable of penetrating underground or fortified targets.
The military aid includes 1,725 JDAM tail kits together with BLU-109 bombs, also dubbed “bunker-buster” and weighing in at more than 900kg. According to the Bloomsberg report, the bombs are intended to “defeat an enemy’s most critical and hardened targets such as protected weapons storage sites, and penetrate as much as six feet of reinforced concrete.”
According to Jeff White, a military analyst with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the aid package is partly motivated by Washington’s desire to assist Israel in replenishing its munitions stockpile which was diluted following November’s campaign against Gaza Strip’s terror groups.
During the campaign , Israel dropped numerous bombs on Gaza in an attempt to halt rocket and missile fire. The IDF also targeted smuggling tunnels, rocket firing pits, weapon mills and munitions warehouses.
“Hamas and the other groups had lots of underground targets that were attacked,” White said, further speculating that the additional weapons “”Could be an effort to give the Israeli Air Force a capability for more extended or more extensive air campaigns than before.”
However, he was quick to add that the weapons are “Not suitable for the really deep underground facilities,” but rather for command posts, shelters and air defense facilities.
Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East analyst for the Congressional Research Service, said that the move “Does not appear intended to transfer any new capability that Israel could use against the most hardened sites of Iran’s nuclear program,” located deep underground under many layers of fortified concrete.
@ yamit82:
Yeah; that seems pretty much a given.
That latter is hard to visualize. Probably have to be part of something bigger by way of a deal.
@ yamit82:
Hadn’t noticed that before; got it.
My thanx.
@ dweller:
Pilots receive all data from sensors and video as well as Awacs which have real time Satellite pics available to compare Sat. pics have high resolution and can send pics essentially at ground level. If it’s a fixed stationary target there are many ways to determine whats what if the target is mobile like scuds then we have today an answer for that as well.
I would not rule out a commando strike against certain difficult sites.
Remember also that a tactical nuke even if it cannot penetrate certain defenses can bury them under radio active mountains rendering them for all practical reasons ineffective. Just say sites implanted deep under mountains are vulnerable just the same. They are also vulnerable to chemical and bio attack.
The big problem as I see it is that it is probable that Iran already has some nukes and delivery systems and the challenge is to know where they are and put them out before they can be used in retaliation. It makes no difference if America attacks Iran or Israel they will try to retaliate against Israel in any case.
It’s my opinion that the primary targets therefore would be their retaliatory capabilities even more than their nuke program. So I wouldn’t rule out use of EMP attack as the initial element in any attack.
In the end I don’t see BB doing it but Obama might.
@ dweller:
Future Weapons Israel special part 6 – Delilah missile
Turn on captions in English.
Can be launched from land sea and air, including Drones!!!!
Remember: we do have some subs and Jericho’s
@ yamit82:
No sound here & no titles there, so I couldn’t follow.
So the cruise missile would also be air-launched? — like this?
@ yamit82:
How smart are these camera-augmented bombs at this point? — I noticed that the article (or this version of it) was written 2-1/2 yrs ago. If the enemy were to create a mock-up of the actual target as a decoy, could the ordnance at its present stage of sophistication detect the fakery and not be deterred from going for the gold?
Why America Stores Bombs In Israel
Israel wants to buy more JDAM GPS guided bombs from the United States. Quantity was unspecified, but some of the JDAMs headed for Israel won’t be owned by Israel, but by the United States. This is because, starting last year, the U.S. began storing weapons and military equipment in Israel. These emergency supplies serve a dual purpose. The primary purpose of this gear is to be quickly flown to American forces in the region in need of it. But the more likely use of this stuff is for Israeli troops, if Israel got involved in an intense war and needed rapid resupply. In this situation, the United States could simply release the ammo and spare parts to Israel. Because of this dual purpose, all the weapons and spare parts in the warehouses and bunkers are material in use by both the U.S. and Israeli forces.
Currently, there’s about $600 million worth of stuff in the emergency stores, and more is being added, because the plan calls for $800 million worth to be in those warehouses eventually. Israel wants that ceiling raised to $1.2 billion. The stores include JDAM bomb kits, missiles, other ammunition, spare parts, armored vehicles and electronic equipment.
Israel does not have to buy JDAM from the United States, because Israeli firms have developed similar gear. Three years ago, an Israeli firm developed a variation on the JDAM. SPICE (Stand-Off Precision Guidance Munition) is similar to U.S. JDAM kits, that turn dumb bombs into GPS guided smart bombs. But SPICE adds a camera in the nose, where you can store several digital photos of the target (a building, radar antennae, or a moving target, like a missile transporter). When SPICE gets close enough to see what’s down there, it’s guidance camera compares what it sees in front of it, with what is stored in its memory. If it gets a match, it heads right for it. If no target can be found, SPICE hits a GPS location, or just self destructs. SPICE equipped bombs can be dropped up to 60 kilometers from the target. SPICE costs about twice as much as JDAM kits, and is similar to earlier (pre-JDAM), and much more expensive, U.S. smart bomb designs.
Israel prefers to buy JDAM mainly because of the lower cost, and partly because Israel gets over a billion dollars worth of military aid each year, and most of it must be spent on American made ammo, equipment or weapons.
From experience what Israel is not publicizing openly will be more decisive that what has been made available till now. For example a bunker buster opening a large enough breech can be followed by precision guided tactical low yield nuke armed guided smart cruise missile into the hole made by bunker buster ahead of it.
Future Weapons Israel special part 6 – Delilah missile
@ yamit82:
Sounds sort of like a light-weight version of the satellite-guided BLU-109’s in the YNET story above.
But how deep underground can they penetrate?
Cheap Israeli invented stealth capabilities
An Israeli nanotech company is claiming that it has created a special paint that makes planes, missiles, drones, and other aircraft invisible to radar.
The company, called Nanoflight, says it has completed an initial test run and found that missiles painted with its proprietary nano-paint are very difficult to detect with radar. The paint doesn’t make aircraft disappear completely from radar instruments, but it is disruptive enough that it is very hard for equipment to register their signatures as incoming war craft.
Radar works by sending out electromagnetic waves and seeing what comes back. If those waves strike a solid object — like an incoming aircraft — these waves are scattered. But some of them return to the radar receiver, and a regular, repetitive returning of those waves produces a positive ID of an object. The nano-paint simply absorbs these waves and dissipates them as heat that scatters into the atmosphere. The radar might still pick up a few returning waves, but the signal is weak and irregular and generally wouldn’t register as an incoming object.
It’s not perfect, but it’s cheaper than buying a stealth aircraft and could produce a cost-effective means for entire fleets to add a layer or stealth to their tactical portfolios. Nanoflight officials also claims there are civilian uses for the stuff, like protecting buildings from radiation caused by nearby high-energy power lines.
Video: Israel Tests Its Own Bunker Buster Bomb
Israel has developed and tested its own bunker buster bomb, described as “a very credible military option,” to use against Iran.
Israel has developed and tested its own bunker buster bomb, that has been described as “a very credible military option,” to use against Iran.
The 500-pound “MP-500” bomb is laser-guided, and the video below shows it penetrating four reinforced concrete walls. Iran has buried several of its nuclear facilities, including a uranium enrichment plant, under concrete bunkers in mountainous areas.
The government-owned Israel Military Industries (IMI) developed the bomb, an upgrade of the U.S. Mk82 bunker buster.
“The lethality, precision … and relatively low weight enables its use against multiple targets in a single pass; an element that increases the operational effectiveness of attack,” according to IMI.
Israel is preparing to improve its capabilities to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities by enlarging its aerial refueling aircraft to carry enough fuel for F-15 and F-16 warplanes that would be used in an attack on Iran.
Analysts have questioned Israel’s capability of significantly damaging Iran’s underground nuclear facilities, but the new bunker-buster bombs may change the balance in Israel’s favor.
As the former defense official said in a closed session of the Institute for National Security Studies, “Just to remind you that the Israelis surprised the world in the past with capabilities that nobody [knew] that they could do.”
He was referring to the 1981 bombing of Iraq’s nuclear reactor and the bombing, in 2007, of a suspected nuclear site under construction in northern Syria with the help of North Korea.
@ Nigel Shaw:
Well, of course; surely that goes without saying. (How else to keep his own options open?)
The question is (or my question, anyway, is)
— what, specifically, is needed for Israel to be able to go her own way, irrespective of whatsoever His Anointedness or the DOS bureaucracy (or, for that matter, the man-in-the-moon) thinks?
Could it be that Obama doesn’t want to authorise giving Israel the means to defend itself against Iran?
These are certain to come with a price-tag designated in something other than dollars & cents.
What would it take for Israel to produce REAL bunker-busters, like Boeing’s 15-ton MOP? — carries a 5300-lb payload
— and makes a nice… deep… hole… (Fordow’s facility is 80 meters down…)
Is the sticking point developing the ordnance itself? — or the lack of a suitable delivery system (like the B-2 Stealth Bomber)?
Anybody know? — Yamit, SHmuel?