The Israeli-made Arrow 3 air defense system will be sold to Germany. August 17, 2023 (Ministry of Defense)
The huge deal with Germany and the Arrow system itself owe their existence to a large extent to the stubbornness of one man: former Air Force Commander David Ivri, who more than 40 years ago persuaded the Americans to fund the Arrow as a research project, and later the acquisition, in the face of fierce opposition from the IDF General Staff. "The defense establishment did not want the Arrow at all, the assessment was that it was necessary to concentrate on the attack and that no one would dare attack civilian targets in Israel." Ivry previously said that he was later appointed chairman of IAI, director general of the Ministry of Defense, president of Boeing Israel and vice president of Boeing International, which manufactures components for the system.
The Arrow began as a research project for President Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" program against Soviet nuclear missiles. "In 1985, I invited General James Abramson, who was the head of the program, to a conference at the Technion and I knew from previous positions he held in the US Air Force," Ivri said. "We presented him with the Scud threat and the concept of an anti-missile missile, and the idea began to brew. It was agreed that we would embark on a feasibility study, and then build a prototype. Abramson agreed to finance 80% of the increases, and IAI financed the remaining 20%, because the defense establishment refused to finance it itself."
After the 1991 Gulf War, in which 41 Iraqi Al Hussein missiles were launched at Israel and the Patriot system failed to intercept any of them, it was a little easier to move the project forward. "Only after Moshe Arens was appointed defense minister did he back the project and we began developing the radar with Israeli money. The Americans offered their radar, which was more expensive, but we preferred an Israeli radar, which could both locate targets and guide the interceptor to them," added Maj. Gen. (res.) "Until then it was common to use two separate radars for this, it required a slight decrease in performance, but it was worth it. We are also a small country, two or three radars were enough for us."
Arrow 3, the huge deal with Germany, August 18, 2023 (Photo: Walla!, Photo: Ministry of Defense)
Arrow 3, the huge deal with Germany, August 18, 2023 (Photo: Walla!, Photo: Ministry of Defense)
But the Arrow was no longer a missile, and before the Americans poured the money they demanded to see proof of capability, so the Arrow-1 was born: a system developed only for tests, in order to convince that Israel really knows how to build an anti-missile missile. "We didn't invent the technology," explained Uzi Rubin, who was the first to be appointed head of the Defense Ministry's Homa Administration, which is responsible for the Arrow, and was one of the recipients of the Israel Prize for the Arrow-2.
"In the 60s, the Americans deployed a ballistic missile interception system as part of the Cold War and the Russians. The difference was that both used missiles with nuclear warheads, because the radars were less accurate and wanted to ensure destruction from a greater distance. It was crazy even then, and even more so today when the Russian system is still operational in batteries stationed around Moscow," Rabin continued. "We came to the conclusion that we could build a non-nuclear interceptor that would reach the target, identify it using an optical sensor, and at the appropriate moment detonate a destructive IED that would dismantle it. The Arrow-1 was an unsuccessful missile, but one successful interception test was enough to show the Americans that we are capable and open the way for the development of the operational Arrow-2."
In 1998, the delivery of the missiles and systems to the IAF began, and in 2000 the Arrow was declared operational. The nature of the operation remains the same as in the tests: a radar that identifies the Scud from hundreds of kilometers away, and at the right moment the control system fires a missile from one of the launchers, which accelerates rapidly to Mach 9. Within a few seconds, the rocket booster drops out, designed to accelerate the two-stage interceptor. The interceptor continues rapidly towards the target, until it explodes near it, destroying it with shrapnel from the warhead.
Arrow 3, the huge deal with Germany, August 18, 2023 (Photo: Walla!, Photo: Ministry of Defense)
Arrow 3, the huge deal with Germany, August 18, 2023 (Photo: Walla!, Photo: Ministry of Defense)
After Arrow-1 and 2, thoughts of Arrow-3 soon arrived. "In 2004, we brainstormed the project," said Boaz Levy, now CEO of IAI, who was then head of the company's Arrow project, and one of the recipients of the Israel Defense Prize for the Arrow-3. "At the time, Arrow-2 was an operational system that had begun thinking about it 20 years earlier, but we began to think about where the threat was going. It wasn't economic thinking, how to create a new project, but national thinking. The Arrow-2 was built against the Scud threat, but already at that time we knew that in the future we would have to deal with more advanced missiles. Arrow-2 could have intercepted them as well, but we came to the conclusion that we needed another layer of interception above it. That meant starting to plan how to intercept outside the atmosphere."
"Boaz came to me at the time with an idea that seemed completely imaginary at first, to build a new rocket that would intercept missiles in space," Moshe Fattal, then head of the development department at the Homa Administration and now head of the Secretariat, said in the past. "It seemed science fiction at the time, but the future threat was no longer the same old Scud, but faster missiles, coming from a longer range, with a much more dangerous payload. What later became Press-3 was born from the very beginning to deal with an Iranian nuclear threat. A system designed to ensure the existence of the State of Israel."
The Arrow-3 is shorter than the Arrow-2, weighs almost half its weight, is cheaper, and still reaches a higher altitude and intercepts at a greater distance from Israel's borders. According to Levy, "The great innovation is the missile, or interceptor as it is commonly called. Here, too, as in the Arrow-2, there is a more advanced radar and command and control system, but the missile is completely different. It is launched into the air and within seconds the first stage accelerates it to a speed several times greater than the speed of sound. Then the second stage kicks in, which takes it out of the atmosphere, and then the space interceptor is revealed, which looks like a small satellite, because after you've already reached space you don't need an aerodynamic shape. The space interceptor has an electro-optical seeker, which sees the heat of the target missile and directs itself to hit it directly."
Arrow 3, the huge deal with Germany, August 18, 2023 (Photo: Walla!, Photo: Ministry of Defense)
"It's like a motorcycle faster than a truck. Here there is relatively more fuel, more propellant than the other components of the missile. The new missile does not have its own radar that the Arrow-2 has, and its interception method is different," Levy explained. "Arrow-2 comes close to the target, activates its warhead, and destroys it with a stream of well-aimed shrapnel. The Arrow-3 hits it directly, so you don't need a warhead. This requires us to have very high accuracy and very sharp maneuverability in order to reach speeds that guarantee impact, but saves weight and complexity."
The brilliance behind the Arrow-3 is responsible for two veteran engineers at IAI who came up one day with an idea: to place the optical sensor, designed to identify the target and allow the missile to perform the final homing at it, on a gimbal, a stick like the one you put on a cell phone for action photography. One that keeps the camera stable in all conditions, and the missile guarantees stability and accuracy to the optical sensor, allowing it to scan much larger areas and much faster. "I laughed when I heard that, it looked like a toy," a former senior defense official admitted. "But then they took it to the lab and started working and I realized that they were serious, and that it really worked. It's something no one has done before."
The Arrow-3 turned from an idea into a project after a series of tests in the middle of the previous decade, which ended with the signing of a memorandum of understanding for its development with the US Department of Defense in 2008. The Pentagon agreed to fund the next generation of the Arrow after testing its performance against Raytheon's SM3, the U.S. space interceptor. An Israeli-American commission determined that the Israeli missile does the same job of designing much more simply and at about one-fifth the price. The head of the U.S. Department of Defense's Air Defense Directorate would later admit at a congressional hearing: "We don't have anything like Press-3, not even on the drawing boards."
Arrow 3, the huge deal with Germany, August 18, 2023 (Photo: Walla!, Photo: Ministry of Defense)
IAI is the main contractor for the project, in which Rafael, Elbit and Tomer also participate. IAI's ELTA supplies the radar, and Boeing manufactures 50% of the missile's components in the United States at the request of Congress in order to "stay at home" as much of the project's funding as possible and provide work for as many Americans as possible. To date, the United States has funded the development and equipping of the Arrow with more than three billion dollars, of which more than one billion Arrow-3 dollars. The same industrial division will remain in the deal with the Germans, in order to speed up the timetable.
Because of the large American involvement, the Arrow project is being conducted a little differently than other defense projects in Israel. Many documents and discussions are conducted in English, as are the debriefings after the launch. Working hours are also accordingly. The project often finds itself in the middle of the night in the office, in order to conduct discussions on classified channels with the Americans during their working hours. "They don't pass on knowledge to us, but they often ask us guiding questions, direct us and restrain the Israeli tendency to take risks," said a senior project official.
The idea of exporting the Arrow was for many years more science fiction than its technologies. "I took office when the cancellation of Lavi was still a fresh trauma," Uzi Rubin said. "I investigated what happened there and came to the conclusion that Lavi's biggest problem was that he pressured the American defense industries, which identified him as a potential competitor. So from the first moment I told the Americans that the arrow was meant only for Israel and would not be sold worldwide. Every time someone in Israel brought up the thought of exporting, I put their heads down."
Arrow 3, the huge deal with Germany, August 18, 2023 (Photo: Walla!, Photo: Ministry of Defense)
Indeed, the Arrow was met with a fierce campaign by Raytheon, which insisted that the Israelis use its radar and not develop one alone. American society exerted enormous pressure on the administration in Washington and on the Defense Ministry, but the administration did not give in this time. He refused to approve later export deals for the Arrow to South Korea and India, which showed interest in it, and settled for purchasing its radar, which was developed with funds from the Ministry of Defense and was not subject to American export approval.
The deal with Germany was not born now, nor in the war with Ukraine. Germany is a long-standing customer of the Israeli defense industries, has purchased missiles from Rafael and radars and UAVs from IAI. A few years ago, it repeated the same test that the Pentagon did before it funded the Arrow-3 and thoroughly compared its performance to that of the SM3. She, too, came to the conclusion that the Israeli missile was preferable.
"The Germans approached us about the arrow several years ago," Boaz Levy revealed. "If it weren't for COVID-3, they probably would have already purchased it before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but the pandemic consumed resources and delayed the process. For several years now, they have been presenting the missile defense system they are planning, multi-layered just like the Israeli, with the Arrow-600 as the top layer. To see a uniformed German officer make such presentations at professional conferences is a moment of thought. We didn't imagine it when we set out, neither did our grandparents."
So what now? An agreement is expected to be signed next month to transfer $2025 million down payment from Germany to IAI for the purchase of raw materials, and the deal is expected to be officially signed in November. "We have already begun purchasing raw materials from the company's budget because we estimated that the deal would be approved," said Boaz Levy. "Israel promised the United States that the deal would not disrupt the production of the Arrow for the IDF, and this is the promise I gave to the Defense Ministry, so we will move workers to the German project from other parts of IAI and recruit many more dozens of new employees. The Germans asked that as early as 4 they have an initial operational interception capability, and this is the very unusual time frame in defense procurement, in which we have to provide them with the Arrow and we will do it."
In the meantime, IAI is already working on future generations. "The Arrow-2 will replace the Arrow-20, whose first missiles are 5 years old, and we have already presented its design to the Defense Ministry and the Americans. But the Arrow is always developed with the next threats in mind, and we are already thinking about the Arrow-5, against faster threats and at higher altitudes," Levy said, referring to a solution to the threat that currently plagues the world's defense establishment and which the Russians have already used against Ukraine: hypersonic, maneuverable missiles that fly at speeds of over 000,<> kilometers per hour. Pressure already has a new challenge.
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