235: Chapter 235 Iron Dome, Ineffective

"An armed force possessing anti-ship missiles has taken control of the southern shore of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait." He turned and addressed the room full of staff officers, "What does this mean, gentlemen?"

Silence.

Then, a young intelligence officer whispered, "Does it mean... the Red Sea shipping route is no longer safe?"

"More than that." Vice Admiral Malloy walked to the nautical chart. "It means someone has lit a new fuse next to the powder keg that is the Middle East. And the person who lit this fuse..."

He paused, not saying the name, but everyone present understood perfectly.

The man who had just whipped up a storm in Southeast Asia, beat Bharat into the ground, and was now extending his reach into the Middle East—Zhang Cheng.

"Orders," Vice Admiral Malloy's voice echoed in the command center. "The USS Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group is to conclude its exercises in the Arabian Sea and immediately maneuver toward the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The Arleigh Burke-class destroyers USS Lassen and USS Preble are to advance to the northern mouth of the strait for 'Freedom of Navigation' patrols."

"Simultaneously, contact the navies of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt to coordinate joint patrol matters."

"Tell Washington," he added finally, "we need a higher level of authorization. If necessary... this newly lit fuse must be snuffed out before it ignites the entire powder keg."

At dawn, at a military base in the south of the Squid Nation, a row of dark green square launch boxes fanned out, pointing diagonally toward the sky.

This was the latest deployment site for the 'Iron Dome' air defense system.

Each launch box contained twenty Tamir interceptor missiles—small missiles weighing ninety kilograms and measuring three meters long, designed to intercept rockets, mortar shells, and even drones coming from four to seventy kilometers away. Its core was an advanced radar and fire control system developed by the Squid Nation's defense giant, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, capable of completing target detection, threat assessment, locking, and intercept launch within seconds.

"Our Iron Dome is like a precise scalpel," Colonel Eitan Barak, the base commander, spoke eloquently to a group of reporters visiting for an interview, standing beside a command vehicle. "Since entering service in 2011, it has intercepted over three thousand incoming rockets, maintaining an interception success rate of over ninety percent. Yes, the cost per launch is about fifty thousand dollars, but compared to the casualties and destruction that could be caused if a rocket hit a city, this investment is worth every penny."

He pointed to the town of Sderot in the distance, located on the border of the Gaza Strip. "Last week, Hamas fired thirty-seven rockets from Gaza toward that town; the Iron Dome intercepted thirty-four, and only three landed in unpopulated areas. Our civilians can continue their daily lives, and children can go to school in peace—that is the significance of the Iron Dome."

Reporters took photos one after another, their flashes strobing. A confident smile beamed across Colonel Barak's face.

However, what he didn't tell the reporters was that over the past seven days, in the direction of Gaza, they had lost an armored patrol, an MQ-9 drone, and fifty of their most elite 'Yamam' special forces soldiers. Those rockets fired from Gaza were far more accurate and lethal than Gaza's homemade rockets.

And just yesterday, the Minister of Defense, General Lavitz, personally ordered that one-third of the Southern Command's Iron Dome systems be urgently transferred to the Gaza front.

"I don't care about the cost," Lavitz roared at Barak over the phone. "I want a one hundred percent interception rate! I want the whole world to see that no matter where those rats crawl out from or what rockets they use, our skies will always be safe!"

Thus, six Iron Dome batteries, totaling seventy-two launchers, were deployed in an arc-shaped position on the outskirts of Gaza. The radar coverage of each system overlapped, forming a theoretically impenetrable air defense net.

Colonel Barak personally oversaw the central command vehicle. On the screen, six green fan-shaped areas covered the entire eastern sector of Gaza—the detection range of the system's radar. Any flying object rising from this area, as long as its speed exceeded fifty meters per second and its altitude was below ten thousand meters, would be instantly captured, analyzed, and classified.

"All units, report status," Barak said into the communicator.

"Battery A in position, radar on, system self-check complete."

"Battery B in position..."

"...Battery F in position, interceptors fully loaded, ready to fire at any time."

"Very good," Barak looked at the blue dots on the screen representing his own positions and the red blocks marked as high-threat representing the Gaza area. "Stay alert. Intelligence indicates those rats might attempt a rocket attack today or tomorrow—let them come; we'll give them a lesson in what 'modern air defense' means."

The technical officer behind him said softly, "Colonel, our radar can indeed capture all targets, but the Iron Dome system's fire channels are limited. Each battery can only guide twenty interceptors to attack twenty targets simultaneously. If the number of targets exceeds..."

"I know the theoretical limits," Barak interrupted him. "But are you trying to tell me those rats hiding in the ruins can launch more than a hundred and twenty rockets at once? Do they have that production capacity? Do they have that organizational ability?"

The technical officer fell silent.

Colonel Barak's confidence was not without reason. Since its inception, the greatest challenge the Iron Dome system had faced was Hamas firing rocket salvos of a dozen to several dozen at a time from Gaza. Those crude, homemade rockets had unstable flight trajectories and large dispersion; the Iron Dome could easily prioritize intercepting those that would fall into densely populated areas.

As for launching over a hundred at once? That required a complete industrial system, precision timing fuses, and professional launch units—whereas the Resistance Organization in Gaza, in the Squid Nation military's propaganda, was just a bunch of "terrorists with AK47s and RPGs."

"Get ready," Barak patted the technical officer on the shoulder. "Today, we are going to show the world what a 'Steel Firmament' looks like."

What he failed to notice was that thirty thousand meters above him, a miniature reconnaissance satellite belonging to a certain unknown power was quietly passing by, accurately recording the deployment positions of the Iron Dome batteries, the radar activation times, and even the orientation of every launcher.

The data link transmitted the encrypted information, reaching ten thousand miles away in an instant. Zhang Cheng looked at the deployment map on the screen and tapped his finger lightly.

"Iron Dome? Then let's have a rainstorm of steel."

In the night of Gaza, hundreds of launch units raised their heads simultaneously, and the ignition command was activated in the same microsecond.