How Did Israel's Air Defenses Fair Against Iran's Ballistic Missiles?

Forbes

2 days ago

HEBRON, WEST BANK JUNE 15: Streaks of light from Iranian ballistic missiles are seen in the night ... More sky above Hebron, West Bank, as Iran resumes its retaliatory strikes against Israel. The renewed wave of attacks follows heightened regional tensions and comes in response to previous Israeli operations targeting Iranian territory. (Photo by Wisam Hashlamoun/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The twelve-day Israel-Iran war this June saw two unprecedented air wars take place in parallel. One pitted Israeli fighters and their long-range munitions against Iran's large but dated air defense system. The other tested Iran's arsenal of medium-range ballistic missiles against Israel's advanced and battle-tested air defense system.
This article looks at the latter conflict, primarily waged between the missileers of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force and the Israeli Air Force's Air Defense Command.
Ballistic missiles appeal militaries lacking the air superiority or aircraft to reliably execute long-range strikes with manned aircraft. And unlike slower, lower-flying cruise missiles or kamikaze drones, ballistic missiles are practically immune to fighter interception, and difficult to down with all but the most advanced air defense systems.
Since the 1990s Iran focused on developing medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) that can reach Israel with reduced time to launch and greater precision. Iran's MRBM inventory remained modest for years but exploded in size by the 2020s to an estimated 2,000 to 2,500 MRBM-class missiles. Notable Iranian MRBM series include the Emad, Ghadr, Dezful and Khorramsher-4 (AKA Kheiber Shekan), as well as the older Shahab-3 (essentially bulked-out Scud) and the newest Fattah-1 and -2 missiles able to maneuver during the terminal phase. Some Iranian MRBMs appear capable of releasing cluster payloads too.
Iran's ballistic missiles are complemented by a modest inventory of cruise missiles like Soumar and its Paveh subvariant, numerous long-distance kamikaze drones, and missile-armed combat drones.
However, ever since Iraq attacked Israel with Scud missiles back in 1991, Israel has invested in a multi-layered integrated air defense system capable of missile defense co-developed with the United States. Because Israel is geographically small, it proved comparatively easy to densely blanket the country in overlapping air defense layers.
This system's famous bottom-layer, Iron Dome, is primarily (but not exclusively) optimized for interception of cheap, short-range artillery rockets and drones launched by Hamas and Hezbollah. Technically the Iron Beam laser weapon and other systems reinforce the bottom layer.
The medium-to-long-range layer, David's Sling, has replaced Patriot batteries supplied by the United States, defending against both aircraft, cruise missiles, and short-range ballistic missiles using a missile called Stunner. Israeli warships and ground launchers also employ the medium/long-range Barak air defense system, which compared to David's Sling is fully-indigenous, cheaper and slightly shorter-ranged. (This June, Barak was employed against Iranian drones.)
Israel's upper layer defense comes from the older Arrow-2 capable versus medium-range ballistic missiles, and Arrow-3 effective against intermediate- and even intercontinental-range missile. These benefits from huge Green Pine-series radars for early warning and to help cue fire control sensors towards incoming threats.
Israeli air defense is currently supplemented by one each U.S. Army Patriot and THAADS batteries, the latter specifically designed for MRBM-interception.
Israel air defense performance versus MRBMs, cruise missiles and drones was first tested by two large-scale Iranian raids in April and October 2024. Supported heavily by the U.S. and other allies, upwards of 80% of Iranian missiles were shot down, with minimal damage incurred (notably including cratering of the tarmac of Nevatim airbase.)
When Israel surprise attacked Iran on June 13, Israeli warplanes particularly sought to target Iran's MRBM force in two ways: by hunting down furtive ballistic missile launcher trucks, and bombing the stocks of missiles the launchers drew from—either through direct destruction, or by caving in tunnel accesses needed to withdraw missiles from their fortified subterranean cells. It's much cheaper to destroy missiles still on the ground.
Post-war, the IDF claimed it had destroyed 'hundreds' of missiles on the ground and '50%' of Irans launchers (which may imply 180 launchers, going by an earlier IDF claim).
Israel's targeting of Iranian launchers and command-and-control nodes apparently left Iran unable to replicate the large-scale coordinated surges of missiles it launched twice in 2024. Nonetheless, over the course of 12 days of hostilities, Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps managed to launch 530 to 550 ballistic missiles at Israel, of which at least 31 impacted near military targets or populated areas, and a few dozen more reportedly blasting unpopulated areas. It's unclear how many, if any, cruise missiles Iran launched during the June war.
An unknown number likely failed at launch or midflight, though likely a lower percentage than the very high failure rates of Iran's 2024 raids which some U.S. officials allege had a 50% failure rate (at launch or midflight.) The lack of similar observation may mean Iran learned from the April attack.
Sam Lair writing at the Arms Control Wonk blog states the video footage appears to confirm the expenditure of at least 34 Arrow-3 and nine Arrow-2 missiles, as well as 39 American THAADS missiles. The Arrow-3s were mostly observed in the first night of hostilities, while most THAADS were observed June 15-19.
Furthermore, a David's Sling Stunner and even more surprisingly Iron Dome were credited with kills of MRBMs despite not being built to defeat such faster, higher-flying missiles. The below video shows how Iron Dome's observably slower Tamir interceptors nonetheless managed to twist into position to blast a ballistic missile plunging to target.
Powerful SM-3 missiles were also apparently fired by U.S. Navy warships in defense of Israel judging by recovered debris.
As in Iran's April campaign, the drone assault—this time allegedly counting 1,100 drone, averaging just over 90 daily—proved ineffectual, with just one reaching a populated area. The remainder were shot down by fighters of several air forces and surface-launched missiles, or were neutralized through electronic warfare, or simply fell short of target. To be fair, the drone barrages may still have aided Iran by diverting attention from ballistic missiles and compelling expenditures of expensive missiles.
The IAF claims to have shot down 90% of missiles. Missile expert Fabian Hoffman estimated on his blog that between 420 and 470 missiles were intercepted on his blog, noting Israel seemingly improved its missile interception rate over 2024. He speculates this may have been due to the ability to conduct 'shoot-look-shoot' engagements, in which an initial failed attempted intercept provides data used for a second intercept attempt using a lower-layer interceptor.
Despite 10% or less striking targets, Iranian missiles caused more damage and killed more people than in 2024—28 dead, all civilian save for one-off duty soldier. Missiles combusted an oil refinery in Haifa and struck a hospital, a science institute and residential areas. They also landed on or near Israeli airbases and high-level command posts.
Exactly how Iran's missile targeting was allocated between military, economic and civilian targets remains unclear. In truth, most Iranian MRBMs are imprecise, on average deviating dozens or hundreds of meters from target, making it hard to distinguish between unintentional and deliberate attacks on civilians.
Despite Israel's qualitatively effective defenses, an underlying quantitative war attrition was at play that threatened to degrade Israel's position over time: Iranian stocks of MRBM-class missiles likely exceeded the number of anti-MRBM interceptors possessed by Israel (ie. Arrow-2 and 3).
Anti-ballistic missile interceptors are very costly—generally millions of dollars per shot, while produced in small volumes annually. Lair points out in his blog that the 39 THAADS observably expended exceed the annual production rate (32) per year. THAADS costs $12 million per shot, while Israel's Arrow are in the low-to-mid single-digit millions.
So, given enough time Iran might have eventually exhausted Israel's upper-layer interceptor stocks. A report by the Wall Street Journal on June 18 hints such a shortage was looming, causing the U.S. to scramble in more of its own resources.
Vigorous targeting of Iranian missile launchers bought Israel time—a strategy known as 'left of launch' defense. Holding fire against incoming missiles that were calculated as being unlikely to land near populated areas also preserved inventory.
That said, Iran would in theory would have wanted to wage its own 'left-of-launch' campaign targeting Israeli fighter bases and supporting logistics. While Israeli airbases were hit, there's yet to be photographic evidence of combat aircraft losses.
Ultimately, hostilities ended before the supply of interceptor missiles dead. However the 12 day war has highlighted yet again several key realities of ballistic missile defense: it is highly appealing to have ways of defeating ballistic missiles, very expensive to do so (and more so than the missiles it is defending against), and that there is insufficient production of interceptor missiles globally relative to the offensive arsenals they may be pitted against.