Hassan: [Reading from a laptop] Mahmoud, listen to this:
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel is using nanotechnology to try to create a robot no bigger than a hornet that would be able to chase, photograph and kill its targets, an Israeli newspaper reported on Friday.
That’s wild!
Mahmoud: Hassan, I can’t believe that Reuters— and you—fall for the propaganda of the Zionist entity! Now that we have rearmed, we will resume our attack and…
BOOM!
Mahmoud:
…
…
Hey, did you hear what happened to Mostafa Taser?
Where the hell are my 72 virgins?
What? My virgins are on their way and their names are Helen Thomas. Who is Helen Thomas?
Is it hot here or is it just me?
I think Israel should spend its research dollars on mastering the relavtively easy problem of stopping homemade rockets first…
Relatively easy? It is douche bags like you that claimed for 20 years that missile defense was impossible. Now that is on the verge of becoming reality, you call it relatively easy?
Are you and actus having an intellectual dishonesty contest ?
I think Israel should spend its research dollars on mastering the relavtively easy problem of stopping homemade rockets first…
Posted by monkyboy
There ya go. Workin’ without tools again.
Ummm,
Those aren’t ICBM’s the Palestinians are firing into Israel.
A simple dirt berm would stop them.
Where could Israel get enough dirt to build this wall o’ peace?
Maybe it could dig a tunnel between Gaza and the West Bank…solving two problems at once!
A twofer!
Nah…let’s just fight another 60 years…
A simple dirt berm? Where? what the fuck are you talking about?
Let me guess, you think Israelis are letting innocent civilians die on purpose to fuel blood lust.
I am going to puke,BBIAB.
Ignore the threadjacker. When you pay attention to him, you just make him more likely to return.
Yeah sit,
Why should the Israeli government take steps that actually protect its citizens?
Maybe because they would end the political theatre and juicy defense contracts they can milk?
Stay the course!
Against the good advice of cranky-d, I am going to try one last time, to engage you. Do you honestly suggest putting a Dirt berm on the north side of every playground, every building, every park, every road in all of Israel as a fair and strategically reasonable response to hezbollah’s rockets?
Go ahead. Say it.
No, just along the north end of the Gaza strip…
Ballistics can be your friend!
And maybe one day; Geography, yours.
The Berman Heights.
Alright, who’s the wise-acre parodying monkybrain?
Come on, parody has to be a little believable, and not even monkybreath would be so stupid as to come up with a dirt wall to stop missiles!
You’ve gone too far smart-alec…
That was Katrina monk, you are getting your notes all mixed up again.
Oh there is a simple defense against Hezballah’s rockets.
Blow them, and any Hezballah twits nearby, up prior to launch. Then blow up any fools trying to resupply them with more rockets. Then blow up the fools who build them rockets.
You got a problem with that? Then come up with an alternate solution that doesn’t involve surrender and slaughter of Jews.
Ummm,
Those aren’t ICBM’s the Palestinians are firing into Israel.
A simple dirt berm would stop them.
Where could Israel get enough dirt to build this wall o’ peace?
Maybe it could dig a tunnel between Gaza and the West Bank…solving two problems at once!
A twofer!
Nah…let’s just fight another 60 years…
Ummmmmmm. Like I said………………………
Will somebody please lock the computer lab door? Students keep getting on the internet.
Folks, folks, folks:
So monky has a knee-jerk distaste for pointing out a top Muslim cleric defending gang-rape. So he cites a story about an erroneous missile firing to suggest that Israelis “slaughter” civilians. So now he suggests the Israeli government lets its own people be killed to milk defense contracts, i.e., to make money.
It’s not like there’s an obvious pattern here. And its not like we haven’t seen plenty of others with the same monkifesto.
Ooo!!
Ooo-ooo-ee-ee-ee!!!
Oo-ah-oo-ah-oo-ah!!
Ooo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-aaaaaaah!!
—
“Look, Mabel, he’s doing it again. Disgusting little creatures, aren’t they?”
“Just keep walking, Ralph. If you stand there and watch, he’ll do it all day.”
– Yeh Karl…Don’tcha just hate the thinly veiled Zionist ploy of throwing their evil bodies in front of all those Palestinian peace rockets…
– We have to come to the conclusion that monkey-shit is either a America-hating Kiwi, or one of Greenwalds sock puppets….
Just suggesting a quick, cheap and simple way the people of Israel can protect themselves from primitive rockets, BBh and Karl.
Feel free to apply your special brand of paranoia to it…
– No, no, no monkey-splat. we don’t do paranoia. We piss in your SecProgg cornflakes….It’s called urinalism….
Don’t forget ineffective, monk! Meanwhile, we should all protect ourselves from jihadis with a necklace of cornflakes and garlic. Quick, cheap, simple!
Again, on the premise of taking you seriously, where did you get the idea that a dirt berm would stop ballistically launched missiles? (I guess this means a fence or wall is OK now, BTW.)
I don’t think you understand the problem. Ballistic missiles, put simply, go up before they go across. I mean, are you imagining 500’ high dirt berms? 5000’? 50,000’? This is non-trivial.
If you can’t explain by yourself, how about a link?
What was your major in college?
A mile high barrier around Gaza ought to protect cities like Sderot from anything fired from Gaza, nichevo.
Those Qassams look pretty flimsy…a simple reinforced chain-link fence would probably destroy them on inpact….then just replace the panel the rocket hit.
Alternately, a net or grid could be suspended from helium ballons, so the barrier could be easily lowered in times of “peace.”
It’s kinda old tech, but those rockets are over 70 years old, too.
See the barrage ballons England used to defend London during the blitz to get an idea about what I’m talking about.
Something like this:
http://tinyurl.com/ydtdgx
…with nets strung between them.
Did mb just suggest a mile high barrier?
How about Denver?
Just suggesting a quick, cheap and simple way the people of Israel can protect themselves from primitive rockets, BBh and Karl.
Feel free to apply your special brand of paranoia to it…
I can tell physics wasn’t your best subject.
oooooh, blimps!
If you doubt the physics of my plan Rusty,
I’d welcome some suggestions.
Helium balloons can provide a tremendous amount of cheap lift.
If you borrow a page from the internet and construct the barrier out of panels that have their own lift…there is no limit to the size you could make it…
A rail line along the Gaza border would make the barrier easy to transport on flat cars.
I don’t see any physics problems.
Done properly (multiple layers, etc.), it could even stop Iranian warheads…
The only problem I see is convincing the IDF to part with a rather small fraction of their funds to build something that actually increases the security of the people of Israel.
Judging by the U.S. defense budget…that is no easy task.
Monkyballs,
THAT, is truly brilliant!
Please, immediatly forward your highly plausable plan to the authorities that be.
You’re going to be rich!
And to think we wasted all that money on those worthless patriot missles.
I just hope no one thinks to shoot down a blimp before firing the rockets.
Not blimps, lee…millions of small helium ballons.
The internet…remember.
Have people forgotten it was designed to function even after a Soviet nuclear strike?
please provide a link, I haven’t heard about it, much less forgotten it.
OK, monkyboy. I appreciate you leveling with me. Yes, I agree that a chain-link fence (I believe the trade name for that is cyclone fence, btw?) would stop most any ballistic missile that hits it just fine, though as you say, it might have to be repaired.
What you have perhaps not considered is the implications of the “mile-high” dimension (allowing that a mile-high barrier would suffice). Do you know how many mile-high man-made structures there are in the world, or ever have been?
Zero.
Frank Lloyd Wright, the 20th Century architectural genius, did come up with a design for a mile-high building, but it has never been built. It would be very difficult and very expensive.
The tallest buildings now in existence are less than a quarter-mile high. They are very difficult and expensive to build. They would be much easier to destroy, of course, with things like truck bombs.
Also, they would be fairly wide at the base, which would take up a lot of land, whether in the very tiny Gaza Strip if you built them there, or in only pretty-tiny Israel.
If you are thinking of the usual sort of cyclone fenceposts holding up a mile-high fence, just forget it. I have never heard of that type of construction getting much over 50’ high. Remember the chainlink is just dead weight, only the posts hold it up.
If you are thinking of barrage balloons (which in WWII did not have nets, just the cable, which were supposed to strike the German planes’ or missiles’ wings), then you have to ask yourself, for a mile’s length of fencing, how much a square mile of chainlink weighs (many tons).
No, let me give you an example. Say your high quality cyclone fence weighs, oh, say, a pound – no let’s say 1/2 pound – per square foot.
A square mile is 5,280 ft. by 5,280 ft. That’s 27,878,400 square feet. That’s about 13,939 short tons.
Then how many Goodyear blimps (GZ-20A size) you would need to hold it up. Each one lifts about 6 or 7 tons – the biggest ever, the German Zeppelins, lifted a total of maybe 250 tons (which included its own weight, fuel, etc), but that was filled with hydrogen and we all know what happened to the Hindenberg (oh, the humanity!).
So sticking with Goodyear-sized blimps, you would need about 2000 per mile, in other words about 2 1/2 feet apart – they wouldn’t fit next to each other.
If you went with Hindenbergs, you would only need about 58 per mile, and at 135’ wide, you’d only have to stack them two high – but think of the shadow on the ground! And people complain about mere hundred-foot buildings in New
York blocking out the sunlight!
Don’t forget how much the cables would weigh, too. And again, the ground stations would be very vulnerable to attack. Or the balloons, as in your picture could be blown up too. I’m not sure how high they could even fly; the largest current commercial airship, Spirit of Dubai, is rated for a max altitude of 3000 feet, which is of course not high enough for a mile-high fence.
On the bright side, either mile-high fenceposts or balloon-suspended cables, while impossible, would (if possible, by magic or force majeure) take up less area on the ground that dirt (sand?) berms, which as I’m sure you realize, would be more than a mile thick (the base of such a pile is at least as wide as the top is high, probably wider).
In short, what you propose really can’t be done without, say, several lamps with extremely ambitious genies. And if it were, unless you kept the genies on retainer, the Pals could just blow it up again.
Angels might get better results but if you believe in angels, you believe in the Bible, so really all the Palestinians should just leave ;>
But I thank you for this reasonably civil conversation.
I see your new reply. Small balloons, like they sell in the park? They can hardly lift themselves. As per my math, you would need, like, billions and billions of them. And they would go flat in about three days. Please provide any relevant links such as ones on these “panels that have their own lift.”
Just look at the math I have tried to present and see how your commendably imaginative idea, unfortunately, just doesn’t add up. But even if you want to cling to “possible,” monkyboy, please don’t try to suggest that it would be cheap and that the IDF could do it for “a rather small fraction of their funds.”
I won’t even get into protecting Israel from Iranian missiles. The warheads would come in almost vertically, right over the top of even a ten-mile-high fence. Or are you going to build the fence around Iran? Same diff, except that Iran is bigger than Israel and it would be *really* expensive to build.
So, you agree it could be done, the only drawback being the shadow the balloons would cast?
I think most people would swap a little shadow to be free of the threat of rockets.
Think instead of millions of smaller balloons. There would be some shadow, but no place would the sun be blocked completely.
Each panel of the barrier provides some of its own lift…no need for cables of much stength.
During WWII, governments could knock out a project like this in a fairly short period…it’s no Manhattan project.
Even just an attempt at a project like this would give Israel some much-needed positive publicity.
And the government of Israel could use more options than airstrikes, shelling and incursions of largely civilian areas.
Nichevo,
I thought about going into the weight thing, but I’m not nearly as ambitious as you, so I settled for just pointing and laughing at poor monkyballs comic book world.
That banging sound?
Oh, that’s just Nichevo, hitting his head against his monitor…
Hehe, lee.
The people rubbing the genie lamps are the ones who think you can send an army into a civilian population and achieve something other than death, destruction and the hatred of the civilized world.
My plan may need a few tweaks, but you could probably build it for around the same amount of money Israel pays the U.S. for a couple of our obsolete fighters…and it would work just fine…
Against? Oh no, lee, right through. A big glass bottle too. I look like one of those extras in Band of Brothers right now…at least in my mind.
Monkyboy, let me make it very simple: No, a mile-high barrier, that will deflect even the crappy short-range ballistic missiles, is not practicable.
Let me try to explain very simply. This site:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/systems/mexico-wall.htmhttp://www.globalsecurity.org/security/systems/mexico-wall.htm
shows a cost per mile of the US-Mexico fence between $3 and $10 million per mile. Obviously they have farther to go, which is why their (our) fence will cost billions.
So you think: The Gaza border is what, let me pull a number out of my ass, 40 miles long. Wowee! This fence will cost only $120-$400 million! Yes, that would be the price of maybe 3 fully modern F-16s (~$40MM ea) at the low bid, or 5 top-flight F-15s (~$80MM ea) at the high bid.
Except:
The US-Mexico wall will be like 10, 14 feet high.
The Monkyboy Gaza Missile Shield will be 5280 feet high. (We have agreed for purposes of discussion. Really it should probably be higher.)
So the Gaza fence will cost 528 times as much as the Mexico fence per mile. In fact, it will cost more, as it is not simply multiplying the materials by 528, but using all new technologies, having high maintenance costs, etc., but let’s use 528x as the difference.
Please accept that there are no discounts and no free lunch wven with your self-lifting panels (which I cannot attempt to take seriously until you provide a link to what you mean). So,
$120MM x 528 = $63.36B = appx 1600 modern F-16s
$400MM x 528 = $211.2B = appx 2600 modern F-15s
For comparison, from the online CIA World Factbook,
for Israel (2005):
GDP (official exchange rate): $114.3 billion
Budget (expenditures): $58.04 billion
Military expenditures (% GDP): 7.7% (=$8.8B)
for the USA (2005):
GDP (official exchange rate): $12.49 trillion
Budget (expenditures): $2.466 trillion
Military (% GDP): 4.06% (=$507B? $478B?)
Economic aid – donor: $6.9 billion (1997)
So the low bid for the Gaza fence is 8x the Israeli defense budget, or half the entire GDP, or greater than the entire national budget. It would be ten times the US’ foreign aid budget.
The high bid is about 24x the Israeli defense budget, 4x their national budget, or 2x their entire GDP. It is near half of the US’ entire military expenditures (this during a hot war!) or over 30x our foreign aid budget. It is equal to the EU’s ENTIRE military expenditures.
Do you understand now? For comparison, missile defense (the THEL laser system would work fine for them if they had enough of them) for Israel would cost on the order of maybe $200MM each THEL, which would protect about ten kilometers of border (6 miles).
Accordingly, it would be about $1.4 billion, maybe less as the tech improves, to defend a 40 mile Gaza border with radar and lasers, vs. $65B to $210B for the fence.
If you don’t like to admit that missile defense can work (i.e. Reagan was a poopy head and all that), realize that the tactical missiles faced by Israel are much simpler to stop; they travel slower than ICBMs.
…
But hey! You’re saved again! The Gaza border is more like 20mi than 40mi. Cost is cut in half!
OK, I think it wouldn’t, I think the fence would cost MORE than the same price per pound for the Mexico fence. But for chucks, let’s cut the costs in about half for Gaza.
So only $40B-$120B for the Gaza fence (vs $800MM for the lasers).
However: Gaza is a teeny tiny teensy border in comparison to the other borders.
The northern border with Lebanon is about the same size as Gaza and would cost at least the same to build, more if the terrain is worse.
Border with Syria, a little bigger.
Border with the West Bank wherever that line may be drawn (or with Jordan) is far larger, maybe 3x Gaza.
Border with the rest of Jordan, other size of the Negev, also about 3x.
Border with Egypt across the Negev, also about 3x.
We’ll leave out the Mediterranean coastline entirely since we think no Arabs have SSBNs or SLCMs.
So, the total cost to wall off all of Israel from cheapo tactical ballistic missiles would be about 12x the Gaza border.
12 x $ 30bn = $ 360bn. Three times Israel’s entire GDP. About equal to the US military budget before 9/11.
12 x $120bn = $1440bn = $1.4 trillion. Over half the entire US GDP. Three times the US defense budget.<i>
Oh, in comparison, enough THEL sites for all would be 12x $800MM = oh about $9 billion. Less, I think, since you would get more economics of scale.
Monkyboy, are you getting it now?
PS: Ammunition for the 105mm howitzer is around $500 a round. $1B = 2,000,000 shells. Gaza’s square area is 360km. Lethal blast radius of one 105mm shell appx 50 meters. Somebody else do the math for me on how many shells it would take to kill every man, woman and child in Gaza, assuming the population is evenly distributed, and what the cost would be at $500 per round.
I bet it’s under 50,000 shells, under $25 million to solve the problem (or that piece of it) once and for all.
PPS: CIA World Factbook: Gaza-Israel border: 51km (about 30 mi, not 20mi). So cost would be more than half the original estimate, call i three-quarters of that estimate. So multiply all our final wall costs by half. So:
The new low Monkyboy Fence estimate, all borders: $540 billion, more than the entire US military budget.
High estimate: $2.16 TRILLION. Very close to the entire US budget.
Nice calculations, nichevo, but…
The point is to deny rockets shot from the urban areas of Gaza a ballistic path to the urban areas of Israel.
Rockets being what they are, you would only have to “block” a very small portion of the sky to do that.
BTW, re: “a few old fighters”
US Inventory of F-16 models: Active force, F-16C/D, 738; Reserve, F-16C/D, 69; and Air National Guard, F-16C/D, 473
All F-16s Produced Worldwide: 4,426
# of the Very Latest and Greatest F-16I (with every bell and whistle, at $70MM) You Could Afford For the New High Estimate: 30,857
For the New Low Estimate: 7714
PS This is without your “multiple layers” scheme. Obviously, we then double or triple the costs.
PPS Re: the low cost of 105mm shells: I don’t really want to kill every man, woman and child in Gaza. But can you see how much trouble the IDF is going to in order to avoid this, when it would be so very easy?
Why “urban areas?” Can’t you launch from the suburbs? Can’t you kill people in the sticks? Do you think missile defense is OK for NY and LA but not flyover country?
Monkyboy, you make me feel I am wasting my time with you. Why don’t you give me some counterestimates? How small is “very small?”
Your objections are honestly approaching the “Are we there yet?/Why is the sky blue?” of integrity and value.
Put it more simply yet: The Mile High Fence will cost $1.5B-$5.3B per mile of border. How many miles will you need for whatever result you seek? Feel free to indicate relevant areas on a map.
PS If you think a lot of short stretches of fence (100 yards wide?) will do, you should kick up the per mile costs. From $6-$10bn/mi. But again, I have no idea what your coverage scheme is.
Uh. Barrage balloons are to stop bombers. Not ballistic missles. Physics.
You’re finally starting to see the light. Everyone who engages the poo-flinger eventually feels that way, because it’s true.
You aren’t thinking in three dimensions, nichevo…
The “window” that rockets shot from Gaza have to pass through to hit Sderot is quite small…
The “window” that rockets shot from densely populated areas in Gaza have to pass through to hit Sderot is smaller still…
If Israel “closed” that “window,” it wouldn’t have to shell, bomb or occupy that area of Gaza to stop rocket attacks from it…
I reject this hypothesis. Gaza-Sderot is hardly the only threat corridor. Have you considered that as with Lebanon, they will just get bigger missiles in Gaza? That they are doing so right now?
To defend cities from Ashdod to Beersheba, not to mention Dimona and Jerusalem, from missiles with a 20-30 mile range, you have to cover all of Gaza with your miracle fence. The latest Qassam increases range to 12 miles, and there is a missile they getting in Lebanon, from Iranian tech, ranging 125 miles.
In one of Orwell’s essays he reminds us that the eternal fallacy of the tyrant, and those who worship tyrants, is to assume that present trends will continue.
PS Rusty, you’re not telling me that, right? ;>
PPS crank-d, at least we have been polite, which is at least a third of the battle. It does remind me of an I Love Lucy though.