Footage Appears to Show ‘Iron Beam’ Laser System Use 100 kW Beams to Shoot Down Ballistic Missiles

Good evening and right before we dive in, I'll quickly mention that very obviously right

now we are in the very thick of the fog of war.

I mean, I'm skeptical of everything I'm seeing right now, I just assume instinctually that

everything I'm reading, everything I'm seeing is propaganda from one side or the other.

Even seemingly raw footage on X, I just have to keep reminding myself that

every one of the belligerent nations, Israel, Iran, the US, they have huge social media teams

who are working to shape the narrative, skew the discourse, just flood the zone with as much

disinformation as possible for their side, right? And so with that as the caveat, I'm going to

present to you two points that I believe are worth highlighting from the last several days

that I think are interesting and that I would like to share with you.

The first one being the question of why exactly the US chose Sunday, February 28th to launch

the offensive. And to that point, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is on his way to brief

Congress on the state of the war, when he paused for a moment to speak to a gaggle of reporters

and answer some questions. And one of the surprising things to come out of that exchange was the

revelation of why exactly the US chose to attack Iran on February the 28th, meaning the proximal

cause to the start of the war. Take a listen. There's two reasons why now. The first is it was

abundantly clear that if Iran came under attack by anyone, the United States or Israel or anyone,

they were going to respond and respond against the United States. The orders had been delegated

down to the field commanders. It was automatic and, in fact, it'd be true because, in fact,

within an hour of the initial attack on the leadership compound, the missile forces in the

south and in the north, for that matter, had already been activated to launch. In fact, those

had already been creeped position. The third is the assessment that was made that if we stood and

waited for that attack to come first before we hit them, we would suffer much higher casualties.

And so the President made the very wise decision. We knew that there was going to be an Israeli

action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces. And we knew that

if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer

higher casualties and perhaps even higher those killed. And then we would all be here answering

questions about why we knew that and didn't act. And so essentially, according to Secretary of State

Marco Rubio's statement right there, the U.S. launched our attack on Iran because we knew

that the Israeli military was about to launch their attack on Iran. And Trump at that point

had to make a choice, whether to join them or to not join them and deal with the blowback.

Now, of course, that could be the case. But again, with the fog of war currently in place,

it's hard for me to believe anything like that. For instance, even prior to February 28th,

the U.S. military build up around Iran was huge with two aircraft carrier strike groups already

in position. And so obviously, going into February 28th, there was already that potential.

And so now when you have the Secretary of State saying that we had to do this because the Israeli

military was already going to do it, that could be true. But it could also just be a good way to

say that our hands were tied. And also, if it wasn't on Sunday, maybe we're just going to be on a

different day regardless. I mean, all of our assets were already in place. But I just try to think

of it from a broader three-dimensional, four-dimensional chess perspective because Marco Rubio, he's a

great statesman. He knows how to think about things multidimensionally. And so it could be the case,

I'm not saying it is, but it could be the case that if many months from now, this whole thing

winds up going sideways three days after hostilities began. Marco Rubio made that statement saying that,

hey, our assets were in position, but they were only in position as a force posture during our

nuclear negotiations. We were not planning on using them. And it was only when the Israeli

military launched their attack that would basically had to do it because our hands were tied.

I'm not going to speculate, by the way, I'm just going to tell you exactly what the official said.

And according to him, according to the Secretary of State, the proximal reason, not the grand

strategic reason, but the immediate reason for the February 28th attack was because the Israeli

military was going to do it on that date and Trump believed that we either had to join them

and deal more damage to Iran or deal with the Iranian blowback that such an Israeli attack

would result in. And so that was all the first point. All right, just a pause here for a super

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They also have the screen in the back that's perfectly timed with the dancers. So sometimes it

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different show dates and cities. It'll be down in the description box below. The second point

that I wanted to mention has to do with money. One of the financial difficulties of conducting a

war like this is the asymmetry that exists between the price of the drones that are launched from

Iran versus the price of the interceptors that are used to knock them out of the sky.

And the difference in the cost is truly substantial. One of those Shaheed 136 Iranian drones,

they might only cost something like 20 to $50,000 to produce. But to intercept them,

the Patriot air defense system, it might spend upwards of four to five million dollars per

missile to shoot them down. And it's the same thing for the other systems, like David Sling,

which intercepts mid-range missiles. You have the THAAD system for high-altitude missiles,

the Arrow II and Arrow III systems that defend against ballistic missiles. And especially when you're

dealing with barrages that have a mix of both missiles as well as drones that come out of Iran,

the ratio might be upwards of 30 to one. Meaning it takes 30 million dollars to knock out a million

dollars worth of drones and missiles. Which is, I'll mention an estimate. I've seen a range of

estimates as I've been reading about this. But whether it's like 30 to one or 10 to one,

it's unsustainable in the long term. When you have to use four million dollar Patriot missiles

against a $20,000 drone, you can really only keep that up for so long. Especially when,

just to be safe, you have to use multiple interceptors for a single missile. For instance,

in this video here that you see up on your screen, to the naked eye, I mean, it looks like 11 Patriot

interceptor missiles were used to take down a single ballistic missile. And so that kind of

asymmetric warfare is just hard to maintain, which is a reality facing some of the Gulf states

already. Here's in fact what the Wall Street Journal recently reported after hostilities began.

Quote, Persian Gulf nations targeted by Iran have so far managed to limit damage by deploying

sophisticated U.S. made air defenses against the hundreds of drones and missiles that have

rain on their cities. With costly interceptors and radar, all integrated with the U.S. military,

the oil-rich Gulf Arab states have fielded some of the most advanced air defenses in the world,

despite their small populations and militaries. A crucial variable in this war, however, is whether

these monarchies start running out of interceptors before the Iranian regime runs out of projectiles.

A current burn rate, it could be very soon. And so it's amidst this backdrop, this reality,

that this footage here blew up online. It was posted by the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation,

so take it for what it's worth. And it allegedly shows missiles getting fired out of southern Lebanon

by Hezbollah. However, those missiles they explode shortly after being launched one after the other.

And the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation, which by the way, just for your reference, is

wholly owned by the Israeli government, they explain in that post that those missiles were not just

misfiring. Instead, they were getting shot out of the sky by a new type of weapon, the Iron

Beam laser system. Now, we discussed that new weapon late last year when it was first rolled out

into use. But basically, it's a system manufactured by a company called Raphael Advanced Defense Systems,

and it uses a 100 kilowatt high energy laser beam to shoot down aerial threats, things like rockets,

mortars, as well as drones. Back in September, when that system was first rolled out,

they published a promotional video showing what the system actually looked like in action. Take a look.

Laser system ready. Three, two, one. Target launched.

Target engaged. Laser interception and progress.

Successfully intercepted. Target successfully intercepted.

Target launched. Target launched.

Target engaged.

Laser interception and progress.

Successfully intercepted. Target successfully intercepted.

Iron Beam. High power laser weapon system.

The Iron Beam 450, as it's called, it claims to be a near zero cost solution for air defense.

And that's probably true. I mean, firing a laser like that might cost thousands of dollars in

electricity, but that's really just a rounding error when you comparing it to tens of millions of

dollars worth of interceptor batteries having to be fired off. There is a big caveat, though,

to that system, as reported by the Times of Israel back in September when it was first rolled out,

quote, the main downside of a laser system is that it does not function well in low visibility,

including heavy cloud cover or other inclement weather. However, judging from that footage that

allegedly just came out of southern Lebanon under the cover of darkness that laser system still

is able to shoot down missile shortly after launch, saving potentially millions of dollars worth

of aerial defense patriot systems. If you want to see either the footage from earlier this week or

that demo footage from September of last year, I'll throw those links down into the description box

below this video. And then lastly, I would just honestly really want to know your thoughts.

What do you think about this war? Do you agree with it? Do you agree with the kind of grand

strategic vision of knocking out Iran in order to bring more stability to the region and to be able

to have the U.S. shift their focus more to the Pacific theater? Do you think that Trump is right

that this could just take four to five weeks, I believe you said, to topple the regime and to

implement something more more friendly to the U.S. in Iran? Or do you think it's just a quagmire

that would just open up another can of worms and that this is like a year slash decades long

affair that our kids and maybe even grandkids will have to deal with in the future.

And so yeah, so I know I'd love to know your thoughts, leave them in the comment section below,

smash those like and subscribe buttons so that the algorithm picks this video up and shares it

with ever more people. And then until next time, I'm your host Roman from the Epic Times,

stay informed, and most importantly, stay free.