Non-Subscriber Extract
Israel revives plan for anti-rocket laser system
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| 01 September 2006 |
By Alon Ben-David JDW Correspondent
Tel Aviv
Days before the recent fighting erupted with the Islamic Resistance (the armed wing of the Lebanese Shi'ite Party of God - Hizbullah), Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz was presented with Northrop Grumman's Skyguard land-based air-defence system: a derivative of the Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL/Nautilus) project.
Begun in 1996 by Israel and the US, the Nautilus project was meant to counter Hizbullah's 122 mm Katyusha rocket attacks. TRW (now Northrop Grumman Space Technology) was awarded a contract to develop the THEL: a chemical laser gun designed to intercept short-range rockets and mortar bombs.
However, despite several successful tests, and although Israel has since been under repeated attack by rockets from Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, Israel and the US decided to abandon the THEL development in January.
"The THEL is the only system that has proven capability to defend us from rockets, since all other ideas are still immature," Uzi Rubin, former director of Israel's Missile Defence Organisation, told Jane's. "One of the reasons for cancelling the Nautilus project was the system's problems in meeting the US Army's mobility requirement," said Oded Amichai, former head of physical systems at the Rafael Armament Development Authority and one of the founders of the Nautilus project. "But Israel does not require a mobile system to defend its towns and villages."
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© 2006 Jane's Information Group
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