The Defense Ministry on Monday announced an $80 million purchase of more advanced self-protection systems for its fourth-generation F-16 fighter aircraft just as top Israeli and IDF officials have increased in recent months their discussion of striking Iran’s nuclear program.
Further, it has been widely reported that the F-16s took part in strikes on Iran and Yemen in recent months, including the devastating attack on Iran’s S-300 air defense systems and ballistic missile production systems on October 26.
The move has multiple major strategic consequences and indications, given that Israel has also committed to growing its fifth-generation F-35 and third-generation F-15 squadrons with no purchases from US defense companies spread out over the coming years.
The ministry also said that many of the changes regarding the systems related to producing more components related to the aircraft in Israel as opposed to by foreign companies. Top Israeli officials, including the state commission of former national security council chief Yaakov Nagel, have concluded from the current war that reliance even on stalwart allies, such as the US, can leave Jerusalem vulnerable to being pressured on national security decisions in order to receive already purchased weapons systems.
Purchased in the early 2000s, the F-16s were meant to be an upgrade for Israel to the F-15s, which were purchased decades earlier.
Major commitment
Public information indicates that Israel purchased over 100 F-16s.
However, by the mid-2010s, the F-35 became the most advanced Israeli aircraft, relegating the F-16s to being Israel’s second top aircraft.
Spending $80 million to update the F-16 systems is a major commitment to keeping the F-16s a significant part of Israel’s long-range attack capabilities, even as it is investing large sums of money into more F-35s and upgraded F-15s of the F-15-EX model.
Neither the IDF nor the Air Force has unlimited funds, and a decision to invest $80 million in an aircraft model created 40 years ago, with Israel’s specific models purchased 25 years ago, means channeling minds in that direction as opposed to others also important priorities.
Although Iran’s S-300 anti-aircraft systems were destroyed by the combined strike of the F-16s, F-35s, and F-15 attack on October 26, seeking to improve the F-16I’s self-protection systems indicates IDF concerns that other anti-aircraft systems or a repair of the destroyed systems could threaten the F-16I’s in the future, just as a Syrian anti-aircraft system shot down an F-16I in 2018.
According to the ministry, the advanced protection suite being provided by Elbit includes: 1) Electronic Warfare (EW) systems providing advanced threat disruption capabilities; 2) Infra-Red (IR) Missile Warning and Launch Detection System for early identification of airborne and ground threats; and 3) Advanced chaff and flare dispensing system for protection against guided missiles.
The ministry did not provide further details, yet many or all of these items, in some less advanced form, were already present on the F-16.
Foreign reports, including Air Force Technology, have previously given significant information about the F-16’s existing self-protection capabilities.
For example, the F-16I fighter countermeasures have already in the past included an electronic warfare suite, supplied by Elisra, which included radar warning receivers, missile approach warners, and jamming systems, including the Elisra SPS 3000 self-protection jammer, which is installed in the large spine.
Rokar supplied the chaff and flare dispenser.
Regarding the F-16I radar, the aircraft has had the Northrop Grumman AN/APG-68(V)9 multi-mode radar, which has five times the processing speed and ten times the memory capacity of the previous APG-68 radars on the F-16, which themselves were an improvement on the earlier APG-66 radars.
Elta has been involved in the co-production of the radar.
The modes of operation of these radar systems have included high-resolution synthetic aperture (SAR) ground mapping and terrain following.
Already, these radars have included autonomous, all-weather, and stand-off precision weapon delivery.
Air-to-air modes for the radar have included range during searching, air combat mode, multiple target track during scanning, cluster resolution, single target tracking, and target illumination pulse Doppler tracking.
All of this means that the radar had increased the air-to-air detection range by 30% compared to earlier generation systems.
