Dr. Yehoshua Kalinsky recalls when he fought in the 1973 Yom Kippur War as a young officer, the Israeli soldiers were using batteries with M61 machine guns attached to them to shoot down low-flying KELT missiles from Egypt.

Kalinsky, a senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) who specializes in military weaponry, says those outdated batteries would have been pretty useful now against the increasing threat of Hezbollah’s unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones.

But Israel put those batteries out of commission decades ago, believing they would no longer need defense tools against “WWII-type weaponry.”

“Israel was preparing for the wars of the 21st century, for missiles that fly faster than the speed of sound and UAVs with jet engines,” Kalinsky tells ISRAEL21c.

The new old threat

Kalinsky explains that these Iranian-made UAVs are a result of reverse engineering of Israeli and American drones that crashed in the enemy territory in the past.

Therefore, they are outdated and quite primitive. Ironically, these qualities make them the ultimate weapon because Israel’s counter-drone solutions are designed for the new generation of UAVs, which is far superior.

The latest example of the drone threat is a UAV that was fired last week at the residence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Caesarea. Although no one was hurt, the drone was not intercepted.

The drone that hit Caesarea was equipped with 8 kg (17 pounds) of explosive material. However, these UAVs are capable of carrying up to 40 kg (88 pounds) of explosives.

Earlier this month, a Hezbollah drone hit a dining hall of a military base in northern Israel, killing four soldiers, wounding more than 60, and creating enormous damage. The military later said that the drone was picked up by radar, but disappeared and could not be intercepted.

“These drones mostly have test engines and fly at a very slow speed, from 120 to 300 km/h [75 to 186 mp/h], and at very, very low altitude,” notes Kalinsky.

Detecting and intercepting

All of this creates a problem detecting and intercepting these UAVs.

Kalinsky explains that Israeli radars do not pick up these drones because they are small, fly low, and are made of non-metal materials, often confused for birds.

“In order to change that you’d have to reprogram the entire radar system, but then you would get constant false alerts because the majority of the detections will be actual birds,” he says.

The Iron Dome anti-missile defense system, which is so useful against missiles, cannot intercept objects that fly at an altitude less than four kilometers from the ground.

Israel has tried utilizing fighter jets to shoot down the drones, but planes with jet engines fly three to four times faster than the Iranian UAVs, making such interceptions very difficult.

Kalinsky says that downing the drones from combat helicopters is the most realistic option at the moment. However, this method also does not provide hermetic protection.

In fact, an Israeli Air Force Apache helicopter was deployed to neutralize the drone launched at Netanyahu’s house, but missed the target.

“We can try what the Ukrainians are doing, which is utilizing slow, test engine planes that can fly at the same speed as the drone, making it easier to down it,” explains Kalinsky.

Going the distance 

Ukraine has been dealing with the exact same threat since the start of the war with Russia in February 2022. The UAVs used by Russia are the same Iranian Shahed drones as the ones deployed by Hezbollah.

“There is one aspect here that plays to Ukraine’s advantage, which we lack, and that’s distance,” adds Kalinsky.

The chances of detecting and intercepting the drones increase the longer they have to fly to reach the target.

“For instance, the drones launched from Yemen, Iraq or Iran are easily detected because they initially fly at high altitude, until they begin approaching the target, which allows for enough time to engage with them,” he explains.

“This was evident on the night of the Iranian attack in April, when none of their 160 drones even reached Israel.”

Kalinsky says the drones launched by Hezbollah from Lebanon only fly on average for about 50 kilometers (31 miles) before they reach the target. “There’s no time to engage with the object,” he adds.

Potential solutions 

Despite the challenges brought upon by the drone threat, Israel’s success rate at intercepting the devices stands at 82 percent, at least according to official military figures.

“Of course from the perspective of the victims of the drone attacks it’s not 82% success, it’s 100% failure; still, it’s not a bad success rate,” says Kalinsky.

Kalinsky adds that besides continuing the work on improving detection and interception, Israel should utilize its intelligence resources.

“You don’t launch a drone like that by chucking it over the border, you need a launching pad that is normally the size of a truck, equipped with electricity and other resources; it’s a whole operation,” he says.

“Good intelligence should allow us to neutralize the launching capabilities.”

Lasers and microwaves 

Looking at long-term solutions, Israel and the US have actually been working on laser-based anti-drone systems for a while.

“The Americans have already successfully tested it at a small scale,” says Kalinsky.

Kalinsky himself has a PhD in chemistry and physics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, specializing in laser technology.

“The Americans are also developing a microwave cannon specifically for drones,” he says, referring to a directed-energy weapon with highly focused energy, such as microwaves and sound beams.

Although Kalinsky admits the implementation of these solutions on the field may take well over a year, he believes it will happen sooner rather than later.

“These drones are a problem for the entire Western world, and Americans and Israelis are hard at work, trying to adapt modern technology to primitive weapons.

“At the end of the day, these drones are not a game changer.”

Originally posted at israel21c.org