Iran uses hypersonic missiles against Israel – here’s how they work

The Iranian regime fired hundreds of rockets at Israel on Tuesday evening. According to preliminary information, at least one person died from falling debris and two were injured (you can read all current developments in the stern news blog). The fact that there were no more victims is also thanks to Israel’s state-of-the-art “Iron Dome” missile defense system.

Iranian hypersonic missile unveiled last year

Iran is also relying on high technology in the escalating Middle East conflict. After the wave of attacks, those in power in Tehran boasted that they had used hypersonic missiles of the “Fatah” (“Conqueror”) type for the first time. The weapon system was only presented to the public last year.

The missiles, also known as “Fatah entry bodies,” are a building block in the expansion of Iran’s missile arsenal. “The precision-guided ‘Fatah’ hypersonic missile has a range of 1,400 km and is capable of penetrating all defense shields,” Amirali Hajizadeh, the head of the Revolutionary Guards’ Aerospace Force, claimed while unveiling the system. The missiles supposedly reach at least 13 times the speed of sound, i.e. around 16,000 kilometers per hour. After the shooting, people in the target region only had a few minutes to get to safety. State television hailed a “big generational leap in the field of rockets.”

However, the fact that hypersonic missiles cannot be intercepted – as the Iranian regime suggested – is not true. But defense is made extremely difficult by the high speed: it enormously reduces the effective area of ​​a defensive battery and squeezes it into a flat lens. Simply put, the defense can intervene if the hypersonic weapon moves towards them. When flying past on a tangent, the effective area shrinks significantly; if the weapon moves away from the defensive position, it becomes impossible to intercept the missile. Even if the hypersonic missile can be intercepted, it will be much more difficult to protect larger areas from it.

The maneuverability of the Iranian model also makes it difficult for air defense: The “Fatah entry body” is mounted on a medium-range ballistic missile that brings the head into the atmosphere. The “Fatah” glider is said to be able to maneuver and thus evade air defense systems.

This time, Iran’s missiles were significantly faster in Israel than in the attack in April. However, according to initial reports, they don’t seem to have caused much more damage. That evening, the US government described the attack as “foiled and ineffective.” There is “nothing known about any damage to aircraft or strategic military facilities in Israel,” said US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan in Washington.