{"id":94752,"date":"2026-05-02T21:04:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T21:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/94752\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T21:04:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T21:04:12","slug":"iron-beam-laser-saw-limited-use-in-iran-war-due-to-lack-of-batteries-idf-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/94752\/","title":{"rendered":"Iron Beam laser saw limited use in Iran war due to lack of batteries, IDF says"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Iron Beam<\/a> laser defense system was used less in this year\u2019s war with Iran because the system requires 14 batteries to have a significant enough impact, the Israel Air Force said on Friday.<\/p>\n

Previously, on March 12, the IDF had acknowledged<\/a> that it was not using the Iron Beam laser regularly during Operation Roaring Lion. This admission came despite the fact that various forms of Iron Beam were used to shoot down around 40 Hezbollah drones in the fall of 2024.<\/p>\n

Also, this admission came despite the fact that the Defense Ministry\u2019s December 2025 disclosure that the Iron Beam had been rolled out in the field.<\/p>\n

At the time, the IDF did not explain the discrepancy between the Iron Beam\u2019s past use and the many announcements about its readiness, to much fanfare, versus the statement that it was not being used in the war \u2013 and was not mature enough to be fully utilized.<\/p>\n

Then, Rafael \u2013 the lead company of multiple defense tech companies involved, such as Elbit<\/a> \u2013 had refused to comment on any problems the defense system might be encountering, referring questions to the Defense Ministry, which did not explain the discrepancy. However, on Friday, the IAF clarified the issue regarding the need to build a sufficient volume of platforms.<\/p>\n

Back in June 2025, the ministry and Rafael had broadcast that Lite Beam, a smaller relative of Iron Beam, was operational. The ministry also disclosed that Israeli laser defense systems had shot down around 40 Hezbollah drones in October 2024.<\/p>\n

In mid-September 2025, the Defense Ministry announced that Iron Beam was operational and that a full series of batteries would be fanned out across the country to provide cutting-edge air defense capabilities within the upcoming months.<\/p>\n

If and when Iron Beam is finally ready, it will have more power and a longer range than Lite Beam \u2013 a shorter-range version of the system \u2013 and will be able to defend against a wide array of threats, specifically not only to shoot down drones (a relatively slow-moving threat), but also missiles, rockets, and mortars, making it far more formidable.<\/p>\n

In 2025, the ministry and the IDF had expected the Iron Beam to immediately begin to reduce the cost of shooting down aerial threats, an issue that got out of control for Israel during the war in which tens of thousands of threats were launched through the air at Israel on six fronts.<\/p>\n

Whereas firing Arrow interceptors can cost millions of shekels and firing Iron Dome interceptors can cost in the tens of thousands of shekels, firing the Iron Beam is as cheap as turning on a light.<\/p>\n

Some sources have said that for Iron Beam to truly move ahead of Iron Dome<\/a> as the lead short-range air defense system could still take a number of years. Using lasers to defend against long-range threats, such as Iran\u2019s ballistic missiles, could even take much longer, some projecting a minimum of five to 10 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Iron Beam laser defense system was used less in this year\u2019s war with Iran because the system…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94753,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[6310,6312,2090,423,34,1754,2344,215,92,6313],"class_list":{"0":"post-94752","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-iran","8":"tag-defense-ministry","9":"tag-elbit","10":"tag-iaf","11":"tag-idf","12":"tag-iran","13":"tag-iron-beam","14":"tag-iron-dome","15":"tag-israel-iran-war","16":"tag-operation-roaring-lion","17":"tag-rafael-advanced-defense-systems"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116507014784567095","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}