This advantage will accelerate in accordance with Moore’s Law and Ray Kurzweil’s Law of Accelerating Returns, which state that the performance of computer based systems increases exponentially over time. Now that the speed at which an interception system can accurately detect, track, and fire at an approaching weapon has substantially exceeded the physical approach speed of the weapon, no increase in the speed of the weapon can outpace the exponential increase in virtual speed of the interception system.
Nor can complex manoeuvring missiles outwit these interception systems. Firstly, the targeted missile cannot actively move to avoid the interceptor because it cannot “know” were the interceptor is coming from and when. Secondly, the essential requirement for a fast moving missile to hit its precise target very significantly limits its range of potential manoeuvre. Thirdly, the interception systems can instantaneously detect and adjust for any manoeuvre of the targeted missile, including in the last few seconds using steered interceptors and lasers.
Israel’s force shields have rendered obsolete not just the rocket and missile arsenals of Hamas and Hezbollah, but the missile, rocket, artillery and bomb inventories of every military on the planet. No matter how advanced the missile, shel,l or guided bomb, it can be destroyed exactly the same way as Hamas rockets and advanced anti-tank missiles.
Armoured vehicles equipped with Trophy (or its lighter-weight cousins) cannot be stopped by any missile or explosive shell, and Trophy equipped tanks will be impervious even to other tanks’ kinetic energy shells (e.g., APDS). Indeed, firing upon a shield-equipped vehicle will be both futile and suicidal because the same radar that detected the missile or shell launch will calculate the location of the launch platform and instantly respond with accurate and deadly return fire. Whether such an anti-armour platform is another armoured vehicle, a helicopter, or missile-equipped infantry, its attack will do nothing more than disclose its position, leading to its destruction.
The 1,000-year dominance of explosive, ranged offensive weapons is being overturned and the face of warfare will be irrevocably changed. The consequences are profound.
Distant forces will lose the ability to attack a shield-equipped enemy without committing ground forces for close-range kinetic energy combat. The missile barrage and air attack that is the basis of almost every Western military intervention will be ineffective against a shield-equipped opponent.
The tank is restored to its dominant position on the battlefield after being written off by many analysts. With a shield against all ranged explosive attacks, armor strong enough to defeat all but the strongest kinetic energy attacks, and kinetic energy and missile weapons able to destroy anything else on the battlefield, including helicopters and ground attack aircraft, only another shield equipped tank will threaten it.
This is a huge wake-up call for U.S. and EU militaries that rely heavily on missile and air power and have allowed their ground forces to shrink to pre-WWII levels. The UK has fewer tanks (320) than horses, and France only a few more. From 20 armoured divisions (6,000 tanks) in Germany during the Cold War, the U.S. Army has only two companies (29 tanks) in Europe and only 1,232 in service worldwide. By contrast, Israel fields almost 1,500 top line Merkava III and IV tanks and has 3,400 in service (more than all of the EU combined).
Already active combatants facing such interception systems have reverted to tactics from the pre-gunpowder age. Hamas’s attack tunnels are reminiscent of tunneling tactics used against walled cities in Roman times.
Militaries which seek to retain the ability to project force from afar against shield-equipped opponents will need to invest in completely new types of weapon systems that can penetrate shield systems. Likely candidates include directed energy weapons such as lasers and particle beams, and hypervelocity kinetic energy penetrators, including electromagnetic rail guns and orbital kinetic kill weapons. However, such systems are decades away from being operational replacements for current explosive, ranged weapons.