The Rampage Missile Might Be Israel's New Super Weapon

David Axe

Security, Middle East

According to aviation journalist Babak Taghvaee, on April 13, 2019 Israeli air force warplanes fired, for the first time, at least one Rampage air-launched ballistic missile at a missile factory and weapons warehouses in Masyaf, Syria.

If Taghvaee’s reporting is accurate, it seems Rampage works as advertised.

Israel reportedly used in combat for the first time a new kind of fast, long-range missile.

(This first appeared last month.)

According to aviation journalist Babak Taghvaee, on April 13, 2019 Israeli air force warplanes fired, for the first time, at least one Rampage air-launched ballistic missile at a missile factory and weapons warehouses in Masyaf, Syria.

The Israelis chose to deploy Rampage “due to the danger of Syria Air Defense Force's S-300PM-2s,” Taghvaee tweeted. The S-300 surface-to-air missile, in theory, can intercept aircraft flying as far as 120 miles away.

The Israeli air raid succeeded in striking the target facilities and “destroying multiple artillery rockets and ballistic missile launchers,” according to Taghvaee. He tweeted commercial satellite imagery that appears to confirm damage to the site in Masyaf.

Rampage first broke cover in the summer of 2018. Israel Aerospace Industries and Israel Military Industry Systems announced they had tested, from an F-16, the 15-feet-long, 1,200-pound, GPS-guided Rampage — and had already inked a sale contract with one customer, presumably the Israeli air force.

With Rampage, the Israeli air force joined a slowly growing number of air arms developing ALBMs for non-nuclear attacks. Russia has introduced its own, much larger ALBM. China reportedly is working on one, too.

Among leading powers, only the United States apparently doesn’t see the value in an air-launched ballistic missile. America’s existing cruise missiles — which already are available to U.S. forces in very large numbers — are capable of striking, in large salvos, a wide range of distant targets.