Iran’s decision to launch about 180 high-speed missiles at Israel indicates that Tehran sought to inflict serious damage with Tuesday night’s attack, in contrast to the well-telegraphed drone and missile attack in April.

Their tremendous speed makes ballistic weapons difficult to intercept, but initial reports of no fatalities in Israel and one in the West Bank suggest that despite the number of missiles launched, it was a military failure, although some weapons or fragments appear to have been smashed. the ground.

Tehran’s Emad and Ghadr missiles, deployed earlier this year, are estimated to travel six times the speed of sound on impact or more, and take 12 minutes to fly from Iran. That would be more than 4,600 km/h. But Iran said it has deployed the even faster hypersonic Fatteh-2, with a maximum speed estimated at 16,000 km/h.

It is estimated that Iran has an arsenal of around 3,000 ballistic missiles, although the original calculation was made by the US two and a half years ago, so the number could well be higher. Tehran will want to retain the vast majority of its shares in case the conflict with Israel escalates further into an outright war.

Firing so many ballistic missiles in a few minutes also represents a serious attempt to overwhelm or deplete Israeli air defenses. Because they are advanced, the interceptor missiles are expensive – and their supplies uncertain.

Stopping ballistics in flight is primarily the job of the US-Israeli long-range Arrow 3 and Arrow 2 systems, first used during the Israel-Hamas war, and supported by the David’s Medium Range Sling System. The better known Iron Dome is used for short-range interceptions, often of rockets fired by Hamas from Gaza.

In April, a former financial adviser to the IDF chief of staff said an Arrow missile typically costs $3.5 million (£2.8 million) per launch, and David’s Sling interceptors cost $1 million (£800,000). Eliminating 100 or more missiles could easily save hundreds of millions of dollars – although the missiles themselves would have cost Iran £80,000 each or more.

At the time, Tehran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said he had given neighboring countries 72 hours’ notice of a planned attack – which took place a fortnight after Israel bombed the Iranian embassy in Damascus. This time, Iran acted within days of Israel killing Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday.

Nevertheless, about a few hours before the missiles were launched, warnings from American sources began circulating that an attack would occur on Tuesday. It is unclear how the information would have been obtained, but it could have come from satellite images, intercepted communications or a diplomatic message. There were unconfirmed reports that Iran had informed Russia before the attack.

It is not immediately clear how many Iranian missiles hit the ground; In the April attack, only nine of 120 ballistic missiles fired by Iran succeeded, causing minor damage to two air bases, meaning in strict military terms that attack was also a failure.

Iran had used more than 300 drones, cruise missiles and ballistics in April, but on Tuesday refrained from using slower-moving drones – indicating they are not considered effective against an opponent with an advanced air defense system. The country may also not have used cruise missiles.

Shahed drones, which are also used extensively by Russia in Ukraine, are relatively slow and can easily be shot down by fighter jets. Cruise missiles rely on maneuverability to evade air defenses, but are also slow compared to ballistic weapons: Iran’s Paveh cruise missile travels at about 800 km/h.

Ukraine, which has been under constant attack by Russian missiles and drones since the start of the large-scale invasion, released its own interception figures in August. The success rate would be lower than Israel’s, in part because the duration of the war has left the country without short-range interceptor missiles of any kind.

Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said that while 63% of drones were intercepted and 67% of cruise missiles were stopped, this percentage dropped to 4.5% when it came to Russian ballistic missiles.