The Rockets of Hamas in 2014

a reply to: _Del_

I dont really have an "angle".

Assuming this is all factual, you listed 12 or so deaths due to "rockets" since 2005 or over a 9 year period when there was no "Iron Dome"...

I think it would make sense that they may have had something more substantial before the blockade and before Egypt's new ruler closed the tunnels and even then they could only manage slightly over 1 casualty per year (not discounting those lives, ALL loss of life is regrettable).

But now the "rockets" would be that much more crude and ineffective.

Posting pics of missiles and rockets doesnt really prove anything. What we know is that for the "thousands upon thousands" of "rockets" being fired, they are doing very little or no damage.

To me, the "rocket" hype seems more like propaganda on the part of the israelis to try and justify their actions.

a reply to: gladtobehere

"They are doing very little or no damage" if you're not one of the people affected.

All those "Rockets", yet I'd still rather be in Israel then Gaza when the firing starts....what say you !!!

originally posted by: gladtobehere
a reply to: _Del_

I dont really have an "angle".

Assuming this is all factual, you listed 12 or so deaths due to "rockets" since 2005 or over a 9 year period when there was no "Iron Dome"...

Again, the reason there are not more deaths has less to do with the rockets than it does with Israel building bomb shelters and having a warning system - And now Iron Dome...

I think it would make sense that they may have had something more substantial before the blockade and before Egypt's new ruler closed the tunnels and even then they could only manage slightly over 1 casualty per year (not discounting those lives, ALL loss of life is regrettable).

But now the "rockets" would be that much more crude and ineffective.

Posting pics of missiles and rockets doesnt really prove anything. What we know is that for the "thousands upon thousands" of "rockets" being fired, they are doing very little or no damage.

To me, the "rocket" hype seems more like propaganda on the part of the israelis to try and justify their actions.

I experienced these rockets first hand in 2008-2009 before Iron Dome was active and again for the last 2.5 years I've been here with Iron Dome active. There is definitely a reduction in the damage since Iron Dome came online. Even with Iron Dome, rockets do still make it through. Did you not see the video I posted earlier? A couple weeks ago a rocket hit a gas station in Ashdod that I used every once and a while - it caught fire and is no longer there...

You can keep on saying that they do very little or no damage, but that doesn't make it true. I've seen the damage many times. The MSM doesn't report the whole story here at all, so the rest of the world has a very inaccurate image of the situation. If you cared to look, you could find plenty of pictures showing the damage that has been caused by these rockets.

Something had occurred to me to check out and after a bit of work I finally found what I was looking for. Amazing what effort it can take sometimes....for a relatively simple answer. How much actual explosive (payload) is in a standard US/Nato Artillery round and just how far do those go?

I want to first note something very important. In no way can a conventional, modern, production artillery round be properly compared with an MLRS or even large rockets like the M302 used in the recent conflict here. Modern artillery rounds are computer designed, produced, controlled, aimed, fused and whatever else may be a variable for the kind of ammunition being fired to put an explosion right where someone wants it to be. It's a science, not an art IMO.

Having said that...it can be magic with Scotty beaming it to appear right on a bad guys holiday dinner table for all the difference one of the most important factors will change. How much actual explosive can be sent there? The data here shows the artillery shell payloads.


(Data Source)

Also, from Wikicommons, come two pictures to give context for how valuable modern militaries think it is to put a 10kg warhead on a target.

The Paladin M-109 155mm Artillery System


The XM2001 Crusader Artillery System

(It must be noted that the Crusader was killed in development by Rumsfeld)

Hopefully that helps add to overall perspective. There is also quite a debate and has been for years it seems, regarding which is better. Cannons or Rockets. I mean between national military type guys. It gets rather spirited at times by what I was looking through before getting to the data on this.

originally posted by: ken10
All those "Rockets", yet I'd still rather be in Israel then Gaza when the firing starts....what say you !!!

Same. The Israelis are much better at both warmaking and civil defence.

Just wanted to add to the conversation since it wasn't mentioned anywhere and it seemed somewhat pertinent.

The building code in Israel takes attacks into consideration by putting a "blast protection" requirement in their building code. All structures in Israel must conform to these code standards. I believe the US and other countries used Israel as an example to set precedents for their own code standards based on Israel's unique experience to these threats.(I'd list it, but I couldn't find an easy way to do that, so I'm sorry to make you all look it up to verify it.)
Personally, being an architect who has worked on Government buildings in the USA, there are different levels of protection that go up and down in grade according to circumstances and exposure.
That may explain away the 'lack of damage' many Israeli building hit appear to have. It's not inferior weapons only, there are also superior construction methods implemented to protect.

These codes do not carry over to structures in Gaza.

originally posted by: AnteBellum
Just wanted to add to the conversation since it wasn't mentioned anywhere and it seemed somewhat pertinent.

The building code in Israel takes attacks into consideration by putting a "blast protection" requirement in their building code. All structures in Israel must conform to these code standards. I believe the US and other countries used Israel as an example to set precedents for their own code standards based on Israel's unique experience to these threats.(I'd list it, but I couldn't find an easy way to do that, so I'm sorry to make you all look it up to verify it.)
Personally, being an architect who has worked on Government buildings in the USA, there are different levels of protection that go up and down in grade according to circumstances and exposure.
That may explain away the 'lack of damage' many Israeli building hit appear to have. It's not inferior weapons only, there are also superior construction methods implemented to protect.

These codes do not carry over to structures in Gaza.

They build pretty much EVERYTHING with concrete or stone here. I'd say the only wooden structures I've see are things like sheds, pergolas, and other decorative outdoor things... No wood framed houses here.

The law says that all structures built after a certain date must have a bomb shelter, so there are still many older buildings, homes, and apartments that don't have them. In those cases there is usually a community shelter nearby, or you just go to the nearest stairwell as that is considered a reinforced area and should provide protection.

originally posted by: CommandoJoe

A few days ago, this "firework" landed in the town where I work:

I'm not going to blame this on you, I just want to point out the fact that if this was a UFO video; it would be laughed at for days and the poster would be attacked.

I will just point out the immense coincidence of filming and then zooming in on the exact location of a rocket strike when there is absolutely nothing else going on in that scene.

a reply to: butcherguy

I'll agree with you here. You can make bombs with stuff you purchase at the store. The point I'm trying to make is, the grade of the explosives are very different. The explosive power of stuff built off the shelf doesn't really compare with the dedicated explosives.
I snatched this from wikipedia to demonstrate the process of making TNT.

In industry, TNT is produced in a three-step process. First, toluene is nitrated with a mixture of sulfuric and nitric acid to produce mononitrotoluene (MNT). The MNT is separated and then renitrated to dinitrotoluene or DNT. In the final step, the DNT is nitrated to trinitrotoluene or TNT using an anhydrous mixture of nitric acid and oleum. Nitric acid is consumed by the manufacturing process, but the diluted sulfuric acid can be reconcentrated and reused. Subsequent to nitration, TNT is stabilized by a process called sulfitation, where the crude TNT is treated with aqueous sodium sulfite solution in order to remove less stable isomers of TNT and other undesired reaction products. The rinse water from sulphitation is known as red water and is a significant pollutant and waste product of TNT manufacture.[5]

Control of nitrogen oxides in feed nitric acid is very important because free nitrogen dioxide can result in oxidation of the methyl group of toluene. This reaction is highly exothermic and carries with it the risk of a runaway reaction leading to an explosion.

In the laboratory, 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene is produced by a two step process. A nitrating mixture of concentrated nitric and sulfuric acids is used to nitrate toluene to a mixture of mono- and di-nitrotoluene isomers, with cooling to maintain careful temperature control. The nitrated toluenes are then separated, washed with dilute sodium bicarbonate to remove oxides of nitrogen, and then carefully nitrated with a mixture of fuming nitric acid and sulfuric acid. Towards the end of the nitration, the mixture is heated on a steam bath. The trinitrotoluene is separated, washed with a dilute solution of sodium sulfite and then recrystallized from alcohol.

Link to TNT Wiki

I really wish I had the ability to give you and everybody else an exact comparison of the explosive power from one of these homemade rockets to a stick of TNT.

As for my comparison of their warheads to a fertilizer based mixture, that is what many of them are because of the blockade Israel and Egypt has set up. That is why we have pictures of them sticking out of the ground or why we have seen some put a tiny hole in a paved road with little black scorch marks around them. Most of these rockets are crap and Israel knows this, which is why leaders have said they are more psychological than physical threats. Some of them though are the real thing but those are few and far between. That is why we fund Israels iron-dome system; which I'm ok with.

a reply to: rockn82

I'm glad I wasn't the only one to catch that!(I didn't want to say it though)

It doesn't occur at a T street location or anything. Why is that camera there?
It's like they were talking to Hamas waiting for the rocket to fall. . . . . actually that is ridiculous, we all know Hamas can't hit sand if they fell off a camel!


Your right to a degree with the explosives, btw. You can compensate by using more of it but then your adding weight/size.
Timothy McVey bomb was homemade but he used a van or small truck.

a reply to: rockn82

I believe that it is a fair thing to say the little Qassams aren't packing much of a punch. However, there is a point no one can talk down or try and make into less than what is actually happening over there. For all the "home made" nature to these weapons of war? They aren't failing for one thing. Range.

No Western "model rocket" outside perhaps the highest dollar classes (??) are going to make a 10-20-100 kilometer distance in a way reliable enough to be worth all the time to make or smuggle depending on which model we're talking about here.

In that way, even that Qassam 2 isn't THAT primitive. It's throwing up to 20 lbs of explosive material out to 9 Kilometers away. They seem decent about judging their fuel to range ratio with dropping them where they want by now too.

So we can talk about how the rockets and larger ones (more properly classed as rocket artillery than anything else) rely on what they smuggle in to use. Fair enough, and they do make use of what is available or smuggled.......but in that way? 20lbs of ANFO is simply fertilizer with fuel oil and far more than you'd want to be anywhere close to when it explodes. It's a very effective explosive...if they are relegated to using such simple solutions. I doubt they are, personally.

I imagine, just as they've always found a way to come up with suicide vest explosive, they manage to scrounge up what they need here.

a reply to: AnteBellum

Why is that camera there? 

Home security camera?

a reply to: butcherguy

Possibly?
But only if it is a dead end street. . .

a reply to: AnteBellum

Could be a dead end street. The entire ME seems to be a dead end street sometimes.
Maybe it was a dashboard camera?

a reply to: butcherguy

I thought that too, but it looks like it's high up on a pole or something.
I wish there was a way to get an exact coordinate of it but still, I guess it doesn't really change all that much if we know it's location.

a reply to: Wrabbit2000

do not kid yourself they have people with degrees in chemistry who can make explosives just as good if not better than a manufacturer. Companies will not make high explosives unstable but they could make much bigger explosions.

Why do folks, resist pointing fingers...


Why hasn't the tried and true method of extending a hand, sitting down and accepting folks with a different point of view?


From my front porch, I can accept other points of view... without trying to eliminate them off the face of the Earth...


Come on .. we share this marble for our brief time ... why should we spend it hating?

a reply to: JacKatMtn

Had to star your post but it seems people look for differences more than they look for similarities. And i dont think there is a way to change that its just the way we are.

originally posted by: rockn82

originally posted by: CommandoJoe

A few days ago, this "firework" landed in the town where I work:

I'm not going to blame this on you, I just want to point out the fact that if this was a UFO video; it would be laughed at for days and the poster would be attacked.

I will just point out the immense coincidence of filming and then zooming in on the exact location of a rocket strike when there is absolutely nothing else going on in that scene.

Except it is not a UFO, and I think most people don't doubt that rockets have been raining down on Israel recently which makes it pretty believable... As to the camera being right there, Israel is a VERY wired country, and cell service is dirt cheap (I have unlimited minutes, unlimited sms, 6 gig of data, and 1000 minutes international for less than $30 a month), and everyone has at least one cell phone and many have 2+ (I have a personal cell, work, and a backup I use for data tethering to my laptop), so everyone has a camera on hand. When the air raid siren goes off, many people will whip out the phone and start recording on the off chance they might catch something on video...

Here's the aftermath of the impact area if you need more proof: