It has been the reality of modern warfare for decades that hype, promotion, myth, and ballistic missile accuracy have coexisted. Commentators and policymakers are equally too hasty to worry about figures—e.g., circular error probable (CEP) of a missile—without really understanding what those figures will mean if indeed the missiles will ever actually be fired under actual war conditions.
Iran’s recent missile strike on Israel’s Nevatim Air Force Base provides an unusual insight into how these systems truly work in the real world and provides a better understanding of their true accuracy.
CEP, or circular error probability, is the usual measure of missile accuracy. It is the area where half the missiles fall on the target. The trick to what most folks get wrong is that a 30-meter CEP missile will not necessarily strike within 30 meters—just 50% of the time. The other 50% can strike way off. Fudging CEP makes dangerously rosy assumptions and strategic mistakes.
Even advanced missiles sometimes fail. Look at, for example, the Pershing 2. Of 28 planned tests, 4 missiles exploded on the pad and 5 others suffered partial or complete subsystem failures. Despite radar-guided warheads, the missile never really achieved its much-publicized 30-meter CEP during field testing. The moral: performance usually lags behind the hype.
For the Iranian attack at Nevatim, analysts calculated impact points and tried to match them with likely targets, like major installations like F-35 hangars and shelters. Impacts were elliptical rather than circular in shape, depending on missile launch and flight angles. Running standard deviation in both axes, the actual CEP of such missiles varied around 900 meters, and even under best conditions, to only the order of 500–600 meters.
In the real world, such precision is infuriating. Iranian missiles would not be designed to hit hard, tiny targets like F-35 shelters. The one-time nature of blowing up an F-35 shelter with a 10-meter kill zone is extremely low, less than 0.01%. Iran’s highest estimates won’t even come close to changing things.
Others might counter that systems such as David’s Sling, Israel’s missile defense, would skew results by shooting down the most accurate missiles. It isn’t that easy. The majority of the interceptors are airborne, and it’s difficult to identify which of the missiles hit critical infrastructure. Iranian missiles are doing re-entry maneuvers, so it’s all relative. Even after considering possible interceptions or failure, the CEP is not drastically changed.
Electronic warfare adds to the complexity again. Israel has spoofed GNSS to provide fake navigation information to enemy drones and missiles. Analysis describes that it “shook the defense and cyber-defense communities,” both the potential and the scope of electronic countermeasures, demonstrating capability and scope. Successful against missiles, spoofing has a civilian impact on air traffic and shipping, inducing operational risk.
Strategically, this places a scenario in perspective: Iran’s present missile capacity can’t strike the widely scattered, hardened weapons efficiently. Their best chance is behemoth, soft targets—cities, administrative buildings, or inhabited bases. This restricts their deterrents and does little to render Israel’s conventional and nuclear holdings comparatively well protected, except perhaps Iran might construct a colossal, saturation-level attack.
This can be seen as a reflection of the stability-instability paradox. Because Iran cannot credibly threaten Israeli military targets with moderate violence, missile exchanges could continue unabated with no effective results. If Iran were to acquire truly accurate strike weapons, the power balance would change, creating tension and a regional threat.
For now, the lesson is uncomplicated. Iranian ballistic missiles are not yet sufficiently precise to plausibly be presented as counterforce or even as a coercive tool. Their applications continue to be limited mainly to high-level escalation, and rivalry for Middle Eastern missile accuracy and electronic warfare is just beginning. In the future, issues will be resolved neither on paper nor even in test and battle performance.