What Air Defense has Saudi Arabia and How Efficiently it Is effective
All through the huge iranian air attack on Israel right away April 14th, 2024, Saudi Arabia’s air protection products served in repelling the onslaught of drones and missiles. Whilst the political final decision of Riyadh to get to out to Jerusalem is the most important aspect in this article, the particulars of Saudi involvement ended up not described. Thus, we can only presume what type of air defenses could be taking pictures down drones and/or missiles probably launched from the territory of Yemen.
Versus this background, let’s find out what in normal constitutes the air protection ability of Saudi Arabia, a region spending about 30 billion bucks a year on its protection funds.
In accordance to The Military Stability 2023 guidebook, an estimated 16,000 servicemen serve in the air defense units of Saudi Arabia (for comparison, 75,000 troopers provide in the floor forces). As for devices, those units wield 108 M902 launchers of the Patriot PAC-3 long-array anti-missile defense program, divided into 6 battalions. To complement them, there are 400 M1097 Avenger short-assortment anti-plane units.
In addition, the Saudi air protection has 128 MIM-23B Enhanced Hawk launchers, structured into 16 battalions, and 40 Crotale air protection systems moreover 141 units of its localized model called Shahine, structured into 17 battalions.
This guidebook, compiled by IISS, also implies the presence of 90 M163 Vulcan self-propelled anti-plane artillery devices and 128 Oerlikon GDF 35-mm anti-aircraft guns. In the portable missile department, an unspecified selection of FIM-92 Stinger and Crotale MANPADS is current at the disposal of the ground forces.
Speaking of the aviation part, the picture looks even extra intriguing. According to the exact same resource, the Royal Saudi Air Force has a whole of 302 fighters, like 231 F-15 plane in modifications C (56 units), D (25 units), S (66 units) and SA (84 units), and also 71 Hurricane fighter jets.
Saudi Arabia also features a whole of seven airborne early warning systems, which includes five E-3A Sentry and two Saab 2000 Erieye.
That said, we ought to also mention the mega-task of Saudi Arabia to get 7 batteries of THAAD anti-missile units and deploy the infrastructure for them with a overall charge of USD 15 billion, scheduled to enter procedure by 2028. A different project, although much less bold, aims to invest in Cheongung-II air protection procedure from South Korea for $3.2 billion, the aspects of the deal are not disclosed.
At the very same time, no significantly less critical than the sheer number of obtainable forces and gear is to think about the usefulness of their use. For the reason that, for example, for the duration of the strikes by Yemen’s Houthis on the electricity infrastructure of Saudi Arabia, the performance of air protection was at very best 50%.
