On the evening of April 13 into the morning of April 14, the night sky above the Middle East was rent by streaks of sunshine and explosions as an unprecedented air and space battle raged. First, roughly 170 kamikaze drones filled with explosive payloads—mostly Shahed 136s, already used extensively by Russia to bombard Ukraine—lifted off from Iran, and upon ditching their rocket-assisted takeoff boosters, proceeded towards Israel propelled by their buzzing piston engines at car-on-the-highway speeds.
Because the drones neared the top of their roughly nine-hour journey, the launch flashes of dozens of rocket boosters in Yemen and Iran set the infrared sensors on SBIRS early-warning satellites aglow. Around 120 ballistic missiles rocketed upwards before arcing towards Israel at supersonic speed.
Rounding out the mixed barrage of very fast and really slow death machines were 30 cruise missiles that streaked towards Israel at subsonic velocity and significantly lower altitudes, posing a more insidious threat than the fast but obvious ballistic missiles and ponderous drones.
Meanwhile, Iran-allied Houthi rebels in Yemen (even further away from Israel) contributed additional missiles and drones approaching from the south.
Whilst this orchestra of destruction converged on Israel, a complicated (and highly expensive) multinational air defense apparatus leapt into motion to combat it.
The run-up to Iran’s attack on Israel
Despite being separated by over 600 miles and multiple international borders, Israel and Iran have violently (and only somewhat covertly) clashed ever because the Iranian Revolution. Iran has armed and trained various factions combatting Israel and orchestrated sabotage and terrorist attacks, while Israel has bombed Iranian forces in Syria and assassinated Iranian nuclear scientists.
But on April 1st, 2024, an Israeli airstrike blew up a consulate constructing adjoining to the Iranian embassy in Syria, killing eight officers in Irans’ Revolutionary Guard Corps (including two generals). Afterwards, Iran’s leadership made clear that they saw the direct attack on an embassy compound as going too far—and intended to exact payback.
In fact, Iran’s intentions for the strike it codenamed True Promise appear to have been mixed. It was clear that the country’s leaders believed that they had to showily retaliate to keep up domestic and/or international credibility. But additionally they don’t appear to have wanted the strike to be so deadly as to trigger a wider and potentially protracted war with Israel and, possibly, the U.S. Two days prior to the strike, Iran forewarned diplomats of Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates of the approaching attack that might fly over their air space, surely knowing the word could be relayed to the U.S. and Israel.
This gave the U.S. and other Israeli allies time to deploy additional air defenses to the region. Hours prior to the strike, the Israeli government canceled leaves for all military personnel, shifted its aircraft, closed Israeli airspace and turned off GPS access to stop its use for drone/missile targeting.
Perhaps Iran hoped for a repeat of its much smaller scale 2020 missile strike on U.S. bases in Iraq, made in retaliation for the U.S. assassination of a outstanding general. Though lacking ballistic missile defenses, early warning sensors gave U.S. troops time to shelter underground when the missiles hit, leading to 0 fatalities (though many U.S. personnel did suffer Traumatic Brain Injuries). The dearth of deaths likely kept the U.S. from retaliating in kind with strikes on Iran.
But even with Iran intentionally relinquishing the good thing about surprise, the roughly 320-350 munitions launched by Iran on April 13 were no symbolic pinprick. Quite, they made up a ballistic missile and drone attack of unprecedent scale, mustering greater than 85 tons of high explosive warheads. Stopping all of those flying weapons before they reached their goal would prove a challenge.
What weapons did Iran use for its April 13 strike?
The first drone deployed by Iran was the long-range Shahed-136 kamikaze drones—a sort Russia began essential from Iran in 2022, and has extensively used against Ukrainian cities. Iran was likely in search of to overwhelm and exhaust Israeli defenses with low cost but still dangerous drones, creating chaotic conditions it hoped would allow deadlier cruise and ballistic missiles to evade interception. Iran employed the same drone/missile team-up on a smaller-scale for its infamous Aramco oil field attack in 2019.
More commonly used against fixed targets and cruising at just 75 miles per hour, the Shaheds are estimated to cost between $20,000 and $40,000 apiece, making them less expensive than virtually any missile-based anti-aircraft weapon.
Some reports claim that Iran also employed some Shahed-238s—a jet-powered evolution of the 136 that flies at speeds exceeding 310 miles per hour.
When it comes to ballistic missiles, wreckage suggests that Iran used a minimum of a few of its Emad medium-range ballistic missiles, which each have a spread of 1050+ miles. These liquid fueled rockets released a maneuverable reentry vehicle (MARV) that may adjust course through the terminal plunge to enhance accuracy—including potential to lock-on to naval targets using an infrared seeker.
Launch footage released by Iran also suggests the usage of three other forms of MRBMs.
The 6-ton Kheiber Shekan (AKA Khorramshar-4) saw its combat debut targeting rebels in Idlib, Syria in January of 2024. Its name, “Destroyer of Kheibar’, refers to a fort captured from Jewish defenders in 12 months 628. Product of weight-saving composites, Kheiber is estimated to have an efficient range exceeding 900 miles and its MARV suposedly achieves a hypersonic (Mach 5) terminal velocity. Fins on the weapon allegedly aid it in maneuvering to avoid interception and improve precision.
The Dezful, meanwhile, has shorter range of 620 miles but is alleged to be highly precise (average error inside 5 meters of targets), and may achieve Mach 7 speeds.
There may be also footage of Ghadr-110 missiles being launched. This weapon is available in variants with ranges of 839, 1025 and 1219 miles, and is boosted by liquid-fuel first stage rocket and solid-fuel second stage booster.
Iran’s long-range Soumar cruise missile family is derived from the Soviet Kh-55 missile. Per Iranian state sources, the variant utilized in April of 2024 is known as the Paveh-351. Distinguished by each its turbojet engine and pop-out wings on the upper fuselage, Paveh reportedly boasts a spread of 1,050 miles and a typical flight altitude of fifty meters.
The Iranian weapons were targeted primarily at Nevatim Airbase (home of the IAF’s F-35I stealth fighters), and a listening post on Mount Hermon. Other targets included downtown Tel Aviv and the Dimona nuclear reactor. Iran had employed Kheiber-Shekan, Emad, and Ghadr-110 missiles for a mock strike on an Israeli airbase just two months earlier.
There are also indications that a considerable variety of Iranian missiles failed at launch or crashed while transiting to focus on over Iran, Iraq, and Jordan. An Iranian school was struck by a faulty missile, and one other is thought to have exploded at launch (possibly causing casualties). A U.S. military source told The Intercept that American intelligence estimated 50% of the Iranian weapons “…failed upon launch or in flight because of technical issues.”
Missiles, drones and jets battle within the clouds-and in space
Long-range radars afforded relatively good visibility of the approaching armada of missiles and one-way drones as they streaked westward towards Israel over the airspace of Iraq and Jordan, or northward from Yemen over Saudi Arabia and the Red Sea.
Saudi and Emirati early warning radars reportedly forwarded real time tracking data to a U.S. command center in Qatar which was used to forewarn ground defenses and orchestrate an air defense gauntlet that might destroy many of the attacking force before it could reach Israeli airspace.
U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle fighters reportedly destroyed over 70 of the pokey kamikaze drones. Pilots from the service’s 335th and 494th Fighter Squadrons deployed to Al Azraq airbase in Jordan were commended by President Biden for his or her actions that evening.
Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet pilots from the carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower were also reportedly energetic, and U.S. strikes preemptively destroyed on the bottom in Yemen a Houthi vehicle-mounted ballistic missile and 7 kamikaze drones while they were preparing to launch.
Each the Royal Jordanian Air Force and 4 two-seat Rafale-B fighters from France’s 4th Fighter Wing based at Prince Hassan airbase also reportedly engaged drones and missiles flying over Jordanian airspace. The RJAF is provided with F-16A/B jets and MIM-23B I-Hawk surface-to-air missiles, and allegedly downed 20% of the Iranian drones (implying around 34.)
British Royal Air Force Typhoon fighters based in Cyprus also downed “quite a lot of drones” (per Prime Minister Sunak) while flying over Iraqi and Syrian airspace.
Roving Israeli F-35 stealth fighters, F-15s, and F-16s scored additional kills, claiming the destruction of 25 of the 30 detected cruise missiles, in addition to quite a few drones using each short-range Python-5 and AIM-9L heat-seeking missiles and older, radar-guided AIM-7 Sparrow medium-range air-to-air missiles. They were assisted by Israel’s Gulfstream G550 Airborne Early Warning aircraft.
Meanwhile, two U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class destroyers within the Red Sea—already battle hardened from battling months of Houthi drone and missile attacks—fought their very own unprecedented battle. The destroyers Carney downed three medium-range ballistic missiles, and Arleigh Burke downed a fourth. The ships may have also downed two additional missiles.
These actions involved the first confirmed operational use of powerful RIM-161 SM-3 interceptor missiles, designed to reliably destroy medium and intermediate-range ballistic missiles (and possibly intercontinental range missiles too) while arcing high in space of their midcourse flight phase. Reportedly “4 to 7” SM-3s were launched, each costing a whopping $11.5 million per a 2021 unit pricing.
The SM-3 weighs 1.5 tons, and its three-stage rocket boosters allow it to realize ridiculous Mach 13 speeds (roughly 2.5 miles per second) before releasing a ‘kill vehicle’ (EKV) with its own infrared seeker and maneuvering thrusters to finish a ‘hit-to-kill’ kinetic intercept.
A U.S. Army Patriot air defense battery in Erbil, Iraq claimed a further ballistic missile kill.
Nonetheless, nearly all of the opposite ballistic missiles were likely downed by Israel’s sophisticated, multi-layered integrated air defense systems—notably including its Arrow-2 and Arrow-3 ballistic missile interceptors (the latter of which saw its combat debut on October 31), in addition to its medium-to-long range David’s Sling surface-to-air batteries. The intercept of 1 Iranian missile while outside the Earth’s atmosphere was captured on camera, leading to a blue-tinted donut ring blast.
Arrow 3s allegedly accounted for 110 of the 130 ballistic missiles, per the Israeli newspaper Maariv. The extent of the contribution by Israel’s shorter-range Iron Dome and David’s Sling batteries stays unclear.
Aftermath of Iran’s strike on Israel
When the dust had cleared, not a single drone made it into Israeli airspace. Nor did any cruise missile make it to focus on. But nine ballistic missiles did reportedly strike two Israeli airbases.
Five of those damaged a taxiway at Nevatim airbase, a close-by C-130E cargo plane (retired and non-flyable), and a number of other empty hangars, but didn’t impede the bottom’s continued operational use. Meanwhile, Ramon Airbase within the Negev desert (which houses F-16I fighters and AH-64D Apaches) was also assailed by 4 missiles apparently causing negligible damage.
The attack’s sole serious casualty was a 7-year-old Bedouin girl gravely injured in her home by fragments from an intercepted missile near Nevatim. One other 31 individuals suffered minor injuries or panic attacks.
The success of the combined air defense effort, nevertheless, had a difficult flipside—costs. A retired Israeli general estimated that the munitions expended cost the akin to $1.5 billion, before even making an allowance for fuel and other operating costs of the manned jets. One other Israeli estimate puts the value at $550 million.
Arrow 3 interceptors are priced at $3.5 million per shot, and David’s Slings at $1 million each. Shorter-range air-to-air missiles typically cost within the low-to-mid a whole lot of 1000’s of dollars. Iran’s ballistic missiles likely cost within the mid a whole lot of 1000’s of dollars or more.
If Iran can construct a sufficiently deep missile and drone inventory to sustain such salvos, it might risk exhausting the costlier weapons used to contain them. Exactly what fraction of Iran’s MRBM arsenal—and what number of Israel’s defensive missiles—was expended within the April 13/14 attack stays a pertinent X aspects when judging which side could outlast the opposite in a sustained war of missile attrition.
Alternatively, the 0% penetration rate of Iran’s drones and cruise missiles and apparent 7% penetration rate of its ballistic missiles solid doubt that Iran could reliably deliver a nuclear attack past Israel’s air defense systems without constructing a really large variety of nuclear warheads.
Nonetheless, some also argue that the attack might need inflicted considerably more damage had Israel not been aided by the U.S., Jordan, France, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and the UK, and been extensively forewarned of the attack.
The end result of the clash has been spun as a victory by either side, though this mostly bloodless fracas has highlighted strategic dilemmas facing each countries. It has also dramatically illustrated how improved, long-range missiles and drones are transforming 21st century warfare by making large-scale strategic attacks more viable than before. Likewise, effectively and sustainably defeating missile and drone attacks is growing more essential than ever.
Such complex missile and drone raids have played out day by day within the skies over Ukraine since 2022, and one would expect even larger scale drone and missile strikes within the horrible event of a China-Taiwan conflict—particularly as the gap across the Taiwan strait is far shorter than that between Iran and Israel, and China possesses a more extensive and capable arsenal than Iran.