Army Downed More Than 1,400 Iranian Missiles And Drones During Epic Fury And 12-Day War
During the
two most recent major
Middle East conflicts it has been involved in, the U.S. Army swatted down more than 1,400 Iranian missiles and drones, according to the officer in charge of the Army’s air and missile defense. The figures provided by Lt. Gen. John Rafferty, commander of the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command, Joint Functional Component Command for Integrated Missile Defense, and Joint Task Force-Gold, offer new context about the number of Army interceptions during these fights. His comments also come amid concerns about the
tremendous expenditure of U.S. interceptors that has
exacerbated the stress on America’s magazine depth of these high-end defensive weapons,
an issue that TWZ has raised frequently for years.
“For the last 14 months,” the 32d Army Air and Missile Defense Command (AAMDC), based at Fort Bliss, Texas, “has been in the largest air and missile defense fight in U.S. history,” Rafferty said during a panel at the
Space and Missile Defense Symposium (SMD) in Huntsville, Alabama, attended by
TWZ. “Over the 12-day war [between Iran and Israel], they successfully engaged 125 ballistic missiles, and
during Operation Epic Fury, over 1,200 ballistic, cruise and UAS threats have been neutralized.”
The 32nd AAMDC, which is responsible for all U.S. Army air and missile defense in the region, “adapted and innovated to overcome advanced threats,” Rafferty added. “The THAAD [
Terminal High Altitude Area Defense],
the Patriot, and
our counter-UAS systems are the envy of the world, and that’s due in no small part to some of the efforts of the organizations that are represented by the leaders in the front row here, but also by the contributions of many of our industry partners and industry teammates here.”
Though he didn’t mention how many interceptions were performed by the U.S. Navy’s ship-launched
SM-3 and
SM-6 missiles, or Air Force
air-to-air missiles and rockets, Rafferty’s comments added insight into the extent of the U.S. military’s defense of the region during numerous Iranian missile and drone barrages. It represented just a part of a much larger regional effort involving several nations that came under Iranian attack.
In May, Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM),
testified before Congress that Epic Fury “validated, at full scale and in actual combat, a combined
Middle East Air Defense (MEAD) network – a concept the region had exercised for years but never fully operationalized.”
“During OEF, for the first time in history, U.S. air defenders stood shoulder to shoulder with partner air defenders across national systems… Over the course of the operation, this integrated architecture intercepted over 6,000 one-way attack drones and more than 1,500 ballistic missiles aimed at U.S. forces, Israel, and our Arab partners.”
