What is so unique about the David’s Sling Missile defense System?

In the shooting north of Tel-Aviv a week ago, the question arouse as to why Israel’s most mysterious, and probably most advanced, missile defense system – the David’s Sling – wasn’t activated especially since its those exact ranges which it is intended for (and the the same system which successfully completed a test a week before and which we reported about).

So why is David’s Sling so revolutionary at all? First, its a Surface to air missile against for planes, UAV’s, medium range missiles, and At present the only Missile in the world which destroy cruise missiles and probably the best, and fastest and most maneuverable, surface to air missile in the world except the S-400 (Its breakthrough technology and design is so revolutionary that they won the Technology Pioneer award in 2017 in Boston).

The Russians claim Pantsir S-1 n 2017 can down incoming cruise missiles, and in fact they claimed that in Syria they succeed in intercepting US missiles, although offered no proof but at least twice Israeli CRUISE missiles…destroyed the Pantsir S-1. Additionally it is NOT known of any test where it reportedly downed a actual cruise missile, whilst David Sling there are recorded tests.

Video of the Pantsir S-1 being destroyed by Israel 2 months ago.

The system development actually started in 2006 to counter medium range Chinese and Russian Missiles which the Syrians and Hezbollah possessed and some were actually used by them in the 2006 Lebanon war. The first test was in 2012 and the interception test was in 2013 and became operational in 2017 and til date was used once operationally.

Video of the missiles launching operationally to intercept Syrian missiles in July 2018

The system itself is an engineering genius although mostly classified. The Missile, called “Stunner” and which costs 1 million USD per unit (the whole system 175 million), is the one of the fastest in the world – at 7.5 mach (the Patriot, by comparison, is  4.1 mach) – has double seekers , a radar for general directions and the infra red for proximate homing in maneuverability and that is a big breakthrough with these seekers is because both have to be at the top of the nose cone of the missile because if either one is blocking the other  than it does NOT work effectively – hence that is one of the reasons it has an asymmetric “skewed head” (more beneath).

Stunner Missile with “Dolphin” shaped asymmetric head and with fins to make it ultra maneuverable. On the nose tip are the 2 seekers: radar and Infra red although that is one of their secrets how did they put them there. (photo: rafael)

The missile is made of solid fuel rocket motor booster, and includes 3 pulses, to make it as fast as possible because the objective of the Stunner missile is to hit the incoming missile as early as possible and as close as possible to its launch point, preferably still over enemy territory, to prevent collateral damage over Israel. For example, in its first and only operational use so far in July 2018, 2 Syrian Russian made SS-21 missiles were launched towards supposedly Israels direction – and so the David’s Sling they were fired INTO Syria  – however the calculations, after the launch showed the missiles were NOT going to land inside Israel hence there was no interception.

The missile is also by far the MOST maneuverable, because of special fins along its body and unique asymmetric head (as mentioned on top) meant to allow it to actually physically hit the incoming missile and not just the usual close-proximity detonation as with other missile defense missiles. Additionally, one of the reasons the missile has such an asymmetric head and another  of the breakthroughs of the system is its extreme flexibility in its target acquisition – because it is so fast , maneuverable and smart, if a barrage is fired towards Israel, for example, the Stunner can home in on the incoming missile which is most likely to hit a strategic target (settlement, military base and etc.) while ignoring the ones that will hit in open terrain. This unique “update” capability exists only in ATGM’s like Spike and etc – and now, for the first time, it’s also in missile defense missiles. Another thing we know of the missile is that it can distinguish between decoys and the actual warhead (although the arrow and also probably the Iron Dome have the capability) and that, even though this was not discussed AT ALL in any of the publications on the system, is that its Multi Mission Radar is also a breakthrough because cruise missiles are VERY hard to detect because they fly so low so when a radar “points” low it has many signals to detected like tree tops, hills, buildings and etc.

Here too is no doubt a breakthrough because cruise missiles are very hard to detect because they fly so low, although there was nothing on the radar in the publications about the system.

Our analysis: And back to the only operation use of the system – one of the fears that arouse in the attempted interception is that one missile self destructed and the second probably fell in tact in Syrian territory and the fear was that its secrets would be revealed. First, when designing such systems, the Engineers put safe guards against reverse engineering, like the highest level of encryption possible and etc. And also, the secrets of this the David’s Sling are system wide, and NOT just the missile itself – the Radar, launcher, command and control, algorithms and etc, and if anything the Russians (assuming Assad gave them the missile in tact) only got a piece of it, which is a shame if it is true but certainly not the end of the world even though they can get some vital info from tearing up the missile itself.  Actually, statistically it is not possible to avoid an arms systems  which will eventually be used to fall some time into enemy hands (although a full missile defense system intact there is almost NO chance it will ever fall into the hands of Syria, Russian or Chinese engineers).

Part of the stealth Helicopters used in the Bin Laden raid which crashed when attempting to land. Chinese engineers took a look at the remaining pieces after the raid, although there is less of a worry in Davids sling case possibly falling in tact in Syria because the secrets of the system system wide and NOT just in the Stunner missile.