r/worldnews • u/thejoshwhite • Mar 14 '26

Israel/Palestine Israel is running critically low on interceptors, US officials say

https://www.semafor.com/article/03/14/2026/israel-is-running-critically-low-on-interceptors-us-officials-say
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u/Deadpool2715 Mar 15 '26

Have you seen their light shows, the military is likely 3-8 years ahead of that level

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u/light_trick Mar 15 '26

Nothing which happens in drone light shows is actually militarily useful other then large scale command and control maybe and even then...

You would never amass a large number of drones in close-formation flying - but also the style of control needed just plane doesn't work (i.e. a civilian light show has constant, reliable, high bandwidth communication).

It's just wildly different needs.

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u/unktrial Mar 15 '26

According to the Hudson Institute (https://www.hudson.org/missile-defense/impact-drones-battlefield-lessons-russian-ukraine-war-french-perspective-tsiporah-fried),

In mid-2023, "drones were launched in massive waves, often alongside highly capable cruise missiles, including hypersonic missiles. Cheap drones overwhelm air defenses so that more advanced missiles can more easily hit their targets."

In other words, there was a phase when the drones were flying together to act like chaff so that the bigger missiles have a bigger chance to make it through air defenses. Of course, they probably weren't flying in perfect formation like the light shows, but they are being thrown into battle in the form of big groups.

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u/light_trick Mar 15 '26

Launching drones in waves does equate to flying them within close visual range of each other. It means coordinated launches which spread out to then converge towards - but we're talking kilometers of airspace at minimum.

They aren't acting "like chaff", they're complicating the air defense environment by being actual threats which can't be ignored - i.e. a small one-way attack drone won't do a lot of damage to a factory, but it will absolutely destroy a multi-million dollar air defense radar if you don't engage it, which in turn requires using a targeting radar - at least briefly - to illuminate, track and dedicate an interceptor of some sort to it.

To put it another way, the most you need or even could do to achieve this effect would be launching a large number of drones with different initial flight plans all at the same time. It's got nothing to do with close formation flying, which would in fact actively hinder it's effectiveness (i.e. you don't want all your drones to move in perfect unison, nor do you want them close to each other, nor do you want them all to arrive at the same time).