Hezbollah Unveils Missile System Designed To Defeat Israel’s Newest Ta…
Hezbollah has unveiled an anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) system that was especially designed to defeat Israel’s newest main battle tank.
The military media of the Lebanese Shiite armed group released footage showing a successful live-fire test of the new system, dubbed “Tharollah,” on August 11. The man-portable system features a dual launcher for Russian Kornet missiles and can be used in day or night operations.
Tharollah was designed to launch two Kornet missiles in succession with a few seconds in between. The purpose of this is to defeat the Trophy active protection system (APS) installed on the newest main battle tank of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), the Merkava Mark 4M.
The use of two missiles ensures that the tank will be hit. If the first missile was intercepted by the Trophy APS, the second one will still make its way to the tank as the system will not have enough time to detect it or even to load a new interceptor charge.
Hezbollah first received large quantities of Kornet missiles from Syria in the early 2000s. The basic export version of the missile, the Kornet-E, has a range of 5,5 kilometers and can penetrate up to 1,200 mm of armor.
Later on, the group received the Iranian version of the Kornet, which is known as Dehlavieh. The missile has a range of six kilometers and can penetrate up to 1,000 mm or armor. The group is also said to be in possession of the missile’s newest export version, the Kornet-EM. This version has a range of eight kilometers and can penetrate 1,300 mm of armor.
The Kornet is guided by laser-beam riding which not only provides high accuracy, but also makes the missile nearly impossible to jam.
Hezbollah’s military media said that Tharollah first entered service with the group in 2015 and had been since successfully used in combat.
The group unveiled the ATGM system to commemorate the war of 2006 with Israel. During the war, Hezbollah fighters destroyed or damaged more than 20 Israeli tanks, including a number of Merkava Mark 4s, using Kornet missiles. These heavy losses pushed the IDF to speed up the development of the Trophy APS.
It’s worth noting that the unveiling of the system came amid high tensions between Lebanon and Israel over recent attempts by the latter to solidify its occupation of the Shebaa Farms.
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