AIR FORCE EFFECTIVITY IN LOW INTENSITY WARFARE

Low intensity combat (LIC) is a misleading name. Urban warfare is also not describing most of the wars fought these days.  Under any name, the wars that are being fought require special weapons. With these weapons a country like Israel can better deal with the threats.

Generally speaking, the weapons that are most needed are those that are in many ways related to homeland security. In this context, they are related to threats that are coming from just across the border and affect the lives of millions of people, this happened in the second Lebanon war and in the recent Israeli operation in Gaza.

While developing the tools to deal with far away enemies the Israeli defense industries have supplied the Israeli air-force (IAF) with unique tools to handle the special threats that characterize LIC. In such operations and warfare the operational need is to hit very precisely and cause as little collateral damage as possible.  One very good example is the multi-purpose air dropped bomb (MPR-500). The bomb is identical in size to regular Mk-82.

In the second Lebanon war Mk-82 bombs hit the targets and broke upon impact. The MPR-500 has a much better penetration capability. This improvement made the bomb attractive to many air forces and earlier this year, Boeing has approved the MPR-500 as compatible with its Joint Direct Attack Munition (J-DAM ) guidance kit.

Tests proved that the MPR-500 can penetrate more than one meter of reinforced concrete or punch through four 200mm thick walls or floors, it virtually eliminates the breaking of the bomb’s warhead on impact causing it to explode incorrectly.

The MPR-500 is only one example. The defense industry are allocating major R&D resources along these lines, and this has already resulted in very accurate rockets and some classified weapon systems that can carry the label “simple, affordable, effective” on them.

The homeland security in its wider context, has created an effort of the Israeli defense industries, to give the Israeli defense forces (IDF) the tools to react fast, precisely, effectively and hard against any attempt to remotely hit the populated areas in Israel.