From AI to electronic warfare: Three aspects of Israel's strikes on Iran

Israel rapidly overcame Iran's air defences on Saturday using some of the latest innovations in air warfare

An Israeli fighter jet departing a hangar at an undisclosed location in Israel. AFP

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As the dust settles from Saturday’s Israeli air strikes on Iran, analysts were assessing a new military reality in the war between the two foes.

Factors previously thought to limit Israeli capability to hit sites deep inside Iran proved surmountable, including limited air-to-air refuelling – Israel was long thought to lack enough modern tanker aircraft for the strike over vast distances. It was widely expected they would need to rely on US fuel tankers.

Iran’s dense air defence network was quickly overcome, despite some analysts warning Israel could lose jets in the operation. This has overturned much prior analysis.

One defence think tank previously warned that “only the US has enough of the specialised equipment and weapons required”, to defeat Iran’s powerful S-300 PMU2 air defence batteries. With that in mind, here are three things we learnt from Saturday’s strike.

Iran might be almost defenceless

The S-300 system was the pinnacle of Iran’s air defences. Its 30N6E2 radar is said to be able to track 100 targets at once at ranges of about 200km, including large, non-stealth aircraft like Israel’s F-16I and F-15I that took part in the raid, but also small targets such as cruise missiles and ballistic missiles.

The system’s command centre is said to be able to allocate two missiles each to up to six targets simultaneously – a serious threat to non-stealth aircraft. Complicating attack efforts, the 30N6E2 radar can rapidly change operating frequency to resist jamming of its transmission.

On paper, anyone attempting to jam the system will automatically have their aircraft located by the S-300. But Israel has obviously found critical vulnerabilities to the system – reportedly striking it at four sites.

Iran is said to operate four battalions of S-300s, comprising about 24 launchers capable of firing a combined volley of 96 missiles. In theory, that would be enough to disrupt the reported 100 Israel planes that struck Iran. This clearly did not happen – although we do not yet know if any Israeli jets came close to being hit.

Images of booster sections of Israeli missiles that have fallen in Iraq appear to confirm Israel fired very long range air-launched ballistic missiles such as ROCKS and Blue Sparrow outside of Iran’s airspace.

Performance of these weapons is closely guarded, but it is likely they travel to the target at considerable speed, as air-launched ballistic missiles, fired in thin air at high altitude with powerful boosters, and already travelling at the speed of the jet on launch.

For example, Russia’s air-launched ballistic missile, the Kinzhal, is believed to reach speeds of up to Mach 10, or 10 times the speed of sound and has successfully penetrated Ukrainian air defences that include S-300s, although Ukraine says the more modern Patriot system has shot them down.

In addition to S-300 radars, Iran also has the powerful Resonance-N radar, which has a claimed ability to detect stealth aircraft, with a detection range of more than 1,000km. One of these radars was reportedly targeted by Israel, positioned on a mountain in Ilam, about 200km inside Iran, to extend its range far into Iraq.

To defeat some of Iran's radars, Israel likely used Scorpius jamming “pods”, which attach to aircraft wings and can quickly locate enemy radar signals and jam them across a broad range of frequencies.

Scorpius uses Digital Radio Frequency Memory (DRFM) technology, which re-sends the enemy radar’s signal back to the radar with a delay, to create a false impression of the aircraft’s location.

AI defeated Iran’s GPS jamming

Many modern weapons rely on the US Global Positioning System or other Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receivers in their on-board electronics to strike targets with pinpoint accuracy.

Modern electronic jamming sends a false signal on the same frequency as a satellite transmitting to the GNSS receiver, which is then picked up by the weapon, causing it to lose track of its position and miss the target.

This has caused huge problems in Ukraine, where costly US-supplied weapons relying on GPS have been rendered inaccurate. Unsurprisingly, Iran tried the tactic on Saturday morning, when several analysts, including Wayne Metcalf, a British analyst who tracks GNSS interference, noticed “heavy GPS disruption”, over Tehran.

But Israeli missiles such as ROCKS – at least according to maker Rafael, have “a unique scene-matching algorithm”, which means they do not need to rely on GNSS for navigation.

An Israeli F-16I technician checks an air force fighter jet at Ovda airbase near Eilat, southern Israel. AP

This form of computer vision guidance is not new: US Tomahawk cruise missiles used what was called a Digital Scene Matching Area Correlator – which used a database of images of the terrain en route to the target, as well as GPS guidance, and another system, Terrain Contour Matching, which evaluated the route based on the height of the ground.

It was first used in the 1991 Gulf War, and modern computer vision is far more advanced, presenting a new problem for Iran’s electronic warfare efforts.

Rafael does not disclose the Artificial Intelligence enabled guidance of the ROCKS missile, but claims another one of its systems that uses computer vision, SPICE, can hit targets with an accuracy of two metres.

Israel’s ability to strike will improve

The strike is ominous for Iran because Israel was able to overcome what was widely thought to be a limiting factor, the fact that its aerial refuelling Boeing 707 tankers – one of which is 42 years old – were thought to be a liability due to maintenance and safety challenges.

In the absence of new tankers, Israel purchased a 707 from Brazil in 2017 to “cannibalise” spare parts for the aircraft. Yet the tankers, taking part in a mission to bomb fuel and energy infrastructure in Hodeidah, Yemen, had previously demonstrated they were up to the task.

Smoke rises from the site of Israeli air strikes in the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, Yemen. Reuters

In 2026, Israel will take delivery of four Boeing KC-46A Pegasus tankers, state of the art aerial refuellers with a demonstrated ability to fly up to 36 hours – an important step if Israel wants to escalate to attacking Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, which could require repeated strikes to “dig” into underground bunkers with bombs.

Later this decade, Israel will also start taking deliveries of a new F-35I squadron, taking their inventory of the stealth jet from nearly 50 to 75. The jets were reportedly used in Saturday's strike.

Also inbound are new F-15EX fighters, a revamp of the F-15 which Israel has operated since the early 1980s. The new F-15EX can carry more bombs over longer ranges compared to the legacy aircraft, and comes with new Active Electronically Scanned Array radars capable of jamming enemy radars as well as detecting aircraft – another setback for Iranian defences.

In other words, Israel’s ability to strike Iran at scale will only increase.