About rockets hitting Haifa

Shahid said:

Obviously Hizbullah doesn't mean to make a lot of civilian casualties, and anyway this is less likely to happen since every time a rocket launch is detected in south Lebanon Israelis have all the time they need to blows alarm sirens and take shelter in bunkers. Thoses rockets are far from powerfull enough to breach into hardened shelters and usually they only scratch the streets and blow some windows.

But the objective being to paralyse the activities of a major city like Haifa, it is fully accomplished since almost half of the population have already fleed to safety.

And we most not forget that Hizbullah still has one powerfull card to play : The big chemical facilities of the harbor of Haifa.

Nasrallah officially announced that Hizbullah will not hit these facilities to avoid extended civilian casualties. But some big rockets into the big tankers and the whole city and it's surounding will be a no-go zone for some time. That would also destroy most of Israel's shipping capacities, a great blow to it's economy.

But it appears that, unlike Israel, Hizbullah believes in "balanced retaliations".

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Whit all due respect mate stating that Hezbollah doesn’t attack civilians or implying that Hezbollah is conducting “balanced retaliations” is pure BS…

There are few reasons why there weren’t more civilian casualties in Israel and none of them is Nasrallah’s unwillingness to attack civilian population…
You could say that casualty rate is small because of great job Israeli civilian defenses are doing, you could say that its small because Israel has build enough civilian bomb shelters and you could say that casualties are low because of threat of Israeli bombers and UAV’s because of which Hezbollah fighters doesn’t have enough time to properly aim there rockets… But stating that Hezbollah is reluctant to attack civilian population?

The reason why Hezbollah launches it's rockets towards haifa is rather simple...where else should they aim them? Artillery rockets, like all other artillery needs target information, co-ordinates to aim and hit to the designated targets. There is no Hezbollah forward opservation corps, satelite positioning nor artillery recce planes and UAVs...So Hezbollah has no realistic means to hit agaisnt any israel military targets becosue they simply doesen't know accuretly enough where they are. So only option is to fire against well know targets, targets that don't move anywhere...Haifa and other Northern Israeli cities. The reason why there is so few civilian victims is the fact that Katyusha-type rockets aren't really that big, and as Hezbollah is forced to fire them in small quantityes, effect/damages are relatively small.

But neither the participants gets clean papers form attacking civilian targets...Form Hezbollah, being terrorist organisation and all, it is as cynical you might be, expected. But Israel in other hands should be acting far more responsible...

I totally agree that both sides are getting their hands dirty by purposely targeting civilians. My point was that usually Hezbollah only fired Katyushas rockets at the IDF outposts and the colonies (the colonists cannot be really considered as civilians since they are well trained, well armed and live in bunker-like houses) located inside the controversed territory (the Shabaa fields). And nobody ever expected they could hit so far inside the borders of Israel. But it is obvious that to that day Hizbs have spared some very sensitive targets, like the chemical tankers in Haifa's harbor. Officially, they say it's to avoid civilian casualties, but most probably they want to keep their "victim" profile. It suppose they keep this move for some big occasion,... maybe a masive bombing of Beirut by Israel air force?

Finn McCool said:

So are they still operating those chemical facilites? Surely they aren't that foolish? Unless they are needed to provide Israel with gas-in that case they would have no choice.

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The facility itself is no more operated but they cannot empty the tankers that fast. It would require some tanker ships and a lot of manpower, knowing that the facility could be hit anytime.

FreeAsia2000 wrote:

Ahem. A rocket is a type of Missile. Generally anything that is thrown is a missile
so therefore it's quite correct to talk about missiles.

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I really don't want to get into an academic discussion, but in military terms a propelled unguided projectile is a ROCKET, while a propelled and guided projectile is a MISSILE. End of story.

Shahid wrote:

the colonists cannot be really considered as civilians since they are well trained, well armed and live in bunker-like houses

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Cut the BS, you know very well that EVERYBODY in Southern Lebanon has at least one AK in the closet and all the men in the family know how to use it - so they also can't be considered civilians if we go by your judgement.

Cut the BS, you know very well that EVERYBODY in Southern Lebanon has at least one AK in the closet and all the men in the family know how to use it - so they also can't be considered civilians if we go by your judgement.

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Every single finnish man can handle Kalashnikovik so does a skill make you a soldier?? What comes to Shahids logic, I agree that it's bit slim, but one thing he got a point is the that the colonies are controversial and NOT supposed to be there...But lets just try to stick in the rockets shall we??

googeler said:

FreeAsia2000 wrote:


I really don't want to get into an academic discussion, but in military terms a propelled unguided projectile is a ROCKET, while a propelled and guided projectile is a MISSILE. End of story.

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Can you please provide some evidence for your claim because it seems
that it's a question of preference and not a hard and fast rule as such

In military terminology, the word missile is often preferred over rocket when the weapon uses either solid or liquid propellant, and has a guidance system. (This distinction generally does not apply to civilian or orbital launch vehicles.)

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and since Missile is the general term whereas rocket is particular then really
either is correct unless we want to be terribly pedantic

Can you please provide some evidence for your claim because it seems
that it's a question of preference and not a hard and fast rule as such

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Googeler is right, Missiles are in common english military termilogy for thos munitions that are guided and powered with their own properlant where as rockets are unguided. In finnish language the word ohjus means missile and raketti means rocket, the division is similar as in english termilogy. As the language is in this forum is english, in such a basic matters we stick to the proper terminology as much as possiple. Hence in here Hezbollahs ATGMs are missiles and those things fired to Haifa are rokects. end of story and this useless squarle about terminology ends here. ff ff

Gollevainen said:

Every single finnish man can handle Kalashnikovik so does a skill make you a soldier?? What comes to Shahids logic, I agree that it's bit slim, but one thing he got a point is the that the colonies are controversial and NOT supposed to be there...But lets just try to stick in the rockets shall we??

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Golly sorry but colonies aren’t problem here… Hezbollah attack all settlements in range and not only colonies…

Since you said that we should return to rockets could you please provide your opinion as ex. artilleryman about MLRS accuracy on maximum range, ability to hit specific target on maximum range or destructive power? Could such weapon be used for decently accurate attacks against specific targets only at max. range? What is CEP of decently aimed rocket barrage?

Golly sorry but colonies aren’t problem here… Hezbollah attack all settlements in range and not only colonies…

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I know, I just mentioned that in someways the colonies are not so bright and pure...

About yuor request I can give some obinion, tough as a tradditional tube artillerist, my quess is propaply as good as anyone elses.

Artillery rockets are far more inaccurate than tube artillery, due the shape of the ammunition. It's very tense to sidewind and the salvoes disperences to area of several 100x100 meters area (at least with the BM-21). Also there is no means to inflict the muzzle velocity by changing the charges like with tube artillery. The benefits of the MRLS are high rate of fire due the low weight of the launching system which enables multible launching tubes. Also the single warhead can carry much more heavier warhead than similar calibre howitser.

So basicly MRLS are usefull when fighting against large formations or target areas. It's noway decently accurate, and exspecially in Hezbollahs case where they lack the foward opservation and artillery recce units, the use of MRLS is quite innefective. Like I said they can only target the rockets towards big cities and cannot chose spesific targets like some particular building. Also as Hezbollah cannot use it's rockets in large concerations, it fails to use the force-multiblier effect of MRLS.

Basicly the Hezbollahs rocket forces effectivness is overrated in the western medias. They can inflict damage, but only to civilian infrastructure and in rahter minor scale. Against IDF the hezbollahs MRLS force is like shooting them with airrifles...If there were to be real artillery, even real and potent MRLS force fighting against Israel, the civilian casualities would be almoust as massive as it is in Lebanon, sadly tough

Thanks Golly I knew that but I have rather let you to explain this to others that don’t know limitations of Hezbollah rockets…

Whit such poor accuracy you simple cannot state that you are targeting specific targets… You simple must know that you can’t hit any specific target like port in Haifa or chemical factory… Out of dozen rockets you will be lucky if one hits target area… Hezbollah didn’t hit facilities in Haifa because they don’t won’t to target them but more because of inability to efficiently target and hit this facility whit sufficient number of rocket to cause damage to this facilities…

And I completely agree whit Golly that Hezbollah rockets can inflict only limited damage to civilian infrastructure… I only don’t agree about threat these rocket pose to Israeli civilian population…
Only reason why casualty rate isn’t higher is Israeli civil defenses and prepared bomb shelters and not Hezbollah unwillingness to attack them… Aimed or not aimed rockets pose same threat to Israeli civilians…
If Hezbollah would have ability to effectively use this force they would pose threat to IDF troop concentrations and facilities and then they could say that they are targeting specific targets…
Until they simple point launchers in general direction of Israeli towns they are targeting civilians and nothing more no matter what Nasrallah said…