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Saudi Arabian Air, Land, Naval Forces & SANG

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---------- Post added at 02:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:00 PM ----------

F-15 is superior aircraft to f-16.. the only reason saudi didnt get f-16 is because they didnt wanted it..i think the reason Saudi get the f-15 in first place is that Israel didnt felt threatened..besides saudi Arabia has never engaged in any arab Israel wars

Saudi Arabia engaged in all Arab-Israel wars except for the 1967 war...
 
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well i should have been more specific ..i am talking of two decisive and most important wars the 67 and 73

the earlier wars may not have the impact on current situation as the 67 and 73 war has...besides the US-Saudi relation were not developed in 40s and 50s..

although we are talking about airforce..i still think Saudi arabia need some serious investment in navy sector for its submarines..it completly lack any sub..disel or nuclear!

what i am saying is that Israel seriously blocked the Egyptians weapon deal of f-15s but isnt much worried about saudi equipment..

lastly its essential that Saudi should team up with turkey or any other reliable aprtner to develop 5th gen aircraft..we heard turkey was trying to do so..
the muslim country are buying enough weapons to start up their own weapon systems but lack any uniform commitment in this sector
 
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and just to add sauid arabia air force is definetly the most powerful air force in muslim countries probably competed only by turkish air force..

regarding infrastruture..saudi arabi has nearly completly indigneoused its man power in its force..those who are left are relaible persons from countries like pakistan..
the real problem is there man power in other sectors..and more importantly their complete laack of other industries..saudi depend upto 95% on oil..its a little too much by now they should have improved in sectors of education..health etc..they should develop their own people instead of importing..i mean they have population of 2 crore why are they short of man power...
 
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and just to add sauid arabia air force is definetly the most powerful air force in muslim countries probably competed only by turkish air force..

regarding infrastruture..saudi arabi has nearly completly indigneoused its man power in its force..those who are left are relaible persons from countries like pakistan..
the real problem is there man power in other sectors..and more importantly their complete laack of other industries..saudi depend upto 95% on oil..its a little too much by now they should have improved in sectors of education..health etc..they should develop their own people instead of importing..i mean they have population of 2 crore why are they short of man power...

Oil now makes 86% of the country's revenue not 95% any more by the way there is an Industrial revolution happening in Saudi Arabia right now.

And we did participate in the 1973 war we sent thousands of soldiers into Cairo after we imposed the Oil embargo to take out the Israeli battalion that surrounded the Egyptian 3rd army but the ceasefire was brokered before they made their attack they were already in Cairo when that happened.

And after the war the Arab Military Industry was founded with Egypt KSA Iraq and the UAE to start Military production in Egypt for the entire Arabic world and Muslim world in general but then Camp David happened couple that with King Faisal's assassination by the CIA the program failed.

And about the Civil 95% foreign workers....It is really really complicated.
 
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Why Arabs Need Their Foreign Mercenaries




March 17, 2011: Saudi Arabia recently bought 72 Typhoon jet fighters from Britain. The manufacturer, BAE Systems, is energetically recruiting qualified maintenance personnel to keep these aircraft flying. Few Saudis will be recruited, most of these technicians will come from the West. Why is that?
The unemployment rate in Saudi Arabia is 12 percent, but many of those men are unemployed by choice. Arabs tend to have a very high opinion of themselves, and most jobs available, even to poorly educated young men, do not satisfy. Thus most Saudis prefer a government job, where the work is easy, the pay is good, the title is flattering, and life is boring. In the non-government sector of the economy, 90 percent of the Saudi jobs are taken by foreigners. These foreigners comprise 27 percent of the Saudi population, mostly to staff all the non-government jobs. This means most young Saudi men have few challenges. One might say that many of them are desperate for some test of their worth, and a job in the competitive civilian economy does not do it, nor does the military.

The Saudi employment situation is not unique. The UAE (United Arab Emirates) has foreigners occupying 99 percent of the non-government jobs. The unemployment rate is 23 percent, but only a tenth of those are actually looking for a job. A survey indicated that most of the unemployed are idle by choice. Kuwait is more entrepreneurial, with only 80 percent of the non-government jobs taken by foreigners. The other Gulf Arab states (which have less oil) have a similar situation.

While the thousands of aircraft, helicopters, armored vehicles and other high-tech systems Saudi Arabia has bought in the last decade look impressive, the actual impact of all this lethal hardware depends a lot on the skill of those using it. In this department, the Saudis have some serious problems. And it is generally very difficult to get Saudis to even discuss the situation.

Examples are widely available, and seen daily by the thousands of Western technicians, specialists and trainers hired by Saudi Arabia to keep their high-tech gear operational. For example, Saudis, and Arabs in general, don't care for the Western custom of establishing minimum standards for, say, fighter pilots. It's long been known that it is very difficult to wash out a Saudi pilot who is well connected (especially a member of the huge royal family). There are some very good Saudi pilots, but they are a minority. The rest get by. As long as they can take off and land, they can stay in a squadron. During combat exercises, especially with American squadrons, it's understood that the low overall performance of Saudi pilots is not to be discussed with the Saudis, or anyone else. Junior American officers get irked by this, but it's career suicide to disobey orders on this point. The Saudis do spend a lot of money on training and letting the pilots fly. For this reason, they are considered marginally better than other Arab air forces. But against the Iranians, who more enthusiastically accepted Western training methods, they would have problems. Iranian aircraft are older and less well equipped, but pilot quality would make up for a lot of that.

The problem extends to ground crews, who don't take responsibility seriously and have to be constantly hounded by their foreign advisors and specialists hired to make sure the aircraft are flyable. And when something goes wrong, the foreign experts are expected to take the blame. That's what the foreigners are there for.

Many Saudis are aware of the problem, especially those who have studied in the West, or spent some time there. As a result, there are some very competent Saudi doctors, scientists and bankers. But this minority knows they are up against an ancient and well entrenched culture that does not seek out innovation and excellence as it is done in the West. The more insightful Saudis seek ways to work around these problems. For example, the royal family established the National Guard in the 1930s, as a private, tribal army, that is now almost as large as the regular army and considered more dependable and effective than the regulars. That's because the National Guard troops follow traditional rules of military leadership, and have a personal relationship with the king. Only men from tribes that are known to be loyal to the Saud family may join, and they are expected to make their family and tribe proud. Saddam Hussein, and other Arab leaders, form similar forces. Saddam had his Republican Guard. Despots the world over tend to have a guard force recruited more for blood ties and loyalty, than for anything else.

The regular forces (army, navy and air force) are just government jobs, run by another government bureaucracy. There are lower standards because there are none of the family or tribal ties that demand better. Only in the West do most people give the same devotion and respect to non-family/tribal institutions.

It comes down to a different cultural attitude towards taking responsibility for your actions. It's human nature to avoid failure, or taking responsibility for a mistake. Thus we have the concept of "saving face." One reason the West has made such economic, cultural, military and social progress in the last five hundred years is because they developed a habit of holding people responsible for their actions and giving out the rewards based on achievement. In the West, this sort of thing is taken for granted, even if it is not always practiced.

But in much of the rest of the world, especially the Arab world, things are different. Most Arab countries are a patchwork of different tribes and groups, and Arab leaders survive by playing one group off against another. Loyalty is to one's group, not the nation. Most countries are dominated by a single group that is usually a minority, as in Bedouins in Jordan, Alawites in Syria, Sunnis in Iraq (formerly) and Nejdis in Saudi Arabia. All of which means that officers are assigned not by merit but by loyalty and tribal affiliation.

Then there are the Islamic schools, which are so popular in Moslem countries, which favor rote memorization, especially of scripture. Most Islamic scholars are hostile to the concept of interpreting the Koran (considered the word of God as given to His prophet Mohammed). This has resulted in looking down on Western troops that will look something up that they don't know. Arabs prefer to fake it, and pretend it's all in their head. Improvisation and innovation is generally discouraged. Arab armies go by the book, Western armies rewrite the book and thus usually win.

All of this makes it difficult to develop a real NCO corps. Officers and enlisted troops are treated like two different social castes and there is no effort to bridge the gap using career NCOs. Enlisted personnel are treated harshly. Training accidents that would end the careers of US officers are commonplace in Arab armies, and nobody cares.

Arab officers often do not trust each other. While an American infantry officer can be reasonably confident that the artillery officers will conduct their bombardment on time and on target, Arab infantry officers seriously doubt that their artillery will do its job on time or on target. This is a fatal attitude in combat.

Arab military leaders consider it acceptable to lie to subordinates and allies in order to further their personal agenda. This had catastrophic consequences during all of the Arab-Israeli wars and continues to make peace difficult between Israelis and Palestinians. When called out on this behavior, Arabs will assert that they were "misunderstood."

American officers and NCOs are only too happy to impart their wisdom and skill to others (teaching is the ultimate expression of prestige), but Arab officers try to keep any technical information and manuals secret. To Arabs, the value and prestige of an individual is based not on what he can teach, but on what he knows that no one else knows.

While Western officers thrive on competition among themselves, Arab officers avoid this as the loser would be humiliated. Better for everyone to fail together than for competition to be allowed, even if it eventually benefits everyone.

Western troops are taught leadership and technology; Arabs are taught only technology. Leadership is given little attention as officers are assumed to know this by virtue of their social status as officers.

In Arab bureaucracies, initiative is considered a dangerous trait. So subordinates prefer to fail rather than make an independent decision. Battles are micromanaged by senior generals, who prefer to suffer defeat rather than lose control of their subordinates. Even worse, an Arab officer will not tell an ally why he cannot make the decision (or even that he cannot make it), leaving Western officers angry and frustrated because the Arabs won't make a decision. The Arab officers simply will not admit that they do not have that authority.

This lack of initiative makes it difficult for Arab armies to maintain modern weapons. Complex modern weapons require on the spot maintenance, and that means delegating authority, information, and tools. Arab armies avoid doing this and prefer to use easier to control central repair shops (which makes the timely maintenance of weapons difficult). If you can afford it, as the Saudis can, you hire lots of foreign maintenance experts to keep equipment operational. All this is taken for granted inside Saudi Arabia, but looks quite strange to Westerners who encounter it for the first time.

Source: Murphy's Law: Why Arabs Need Their Foreign Mercenaries
 
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Quoting another article....This article deals with the Saudi purchase of leopard tanks....

For its part, Israel has been noticeable for its silence on the sale. In the past, Israel has protested similar arms deliveries to the Saudis or issued cautionary warnings. The German publication Der Spiegel, which broke the story, said the deal was actually cleared by both Israel and the United States before Germany would proceed. For the United States, the long-desired tank sale could also be serving as means “to placate the Saudis,” who were furious when President Obama withdrew his support for Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, allowing a long-time ally to fall.

The probable reason for the lack of Israeli objections to the Leopard purchase is that Israel has become a silent associate of Saudi Arabia’s against the looming Iranian threat to both countries. In Israel’s view, any weapon that strengthens the Saudi kingdom and does not jeopardise Israeli security, such as 200 modern German tanks, also indirectly adds to its strength in regard to the Iranian danger. Besides, the Saudis have never represented a direct military threat to Israel, having taken only a very limited role in the Arab wars against her.

Source: German Panzers Return to the Desert | FrontPage Magazine
 
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This guy sounds a bit frustrated...but i feel his points are quite valid.

The Royal Saudi Air Force - A Paper Tiger, Minus the Tiger

The Royal Saudi Air Force couldn't fight (or fly) it's way out of a wet paper bag. They spent a whole lot of money on 72 new F-15S's, but have a pilot corps that are "fair-weather" flyers (both figuratively and literally). But even if they had pilots that would fly under all conditions (particularly combat conditions), too bad - they don't have any maintenance capability. All of that are done by American ex-pats (for F-15's) and British (for Tornado's). A side note here: There may be only 4-500 Americans servicing the F-15s, but nearly 3000 Brits to service half that many Tornado's. The joke at Dhahran AB is that the static display of a Tornado on a pedestal at the main gate is the only Tornado that they can keep in the air. You also have to understand how the money flows to get an even better idea of RSAF readiness (or total lack thereof). All Base commanders usually are members of the Royal family (or married into it) - and it is a money cow. The greatest number of personnel on an RSAF base is TCN's (third-country-nationals), thousands and thousands of Bangladesh, Indian, Philippine workers. Contracts are written up that provide millions in kick-backs - some of course goes to the base commander. But that doesn't even touch the billions of dollars into the purchase of all those aircraft - it's for the kickbacks, not national defense (what do you think the U.S. Air Force is there for?). Now American defense contractors make a killing, why should they care either? For example. first Boeing and then Raytheon made billions on putting in a highly sophisticated air command and control system called "Peace Shield", but it was and remains flawed. One example: The system is suppose to identify friendly vs. hostile aircraft so the Royal Saudi Air Defense Command (that's right a service totally separate from the RSAF)can fire. The RSAF has a control command which is suppose to tell the Air defense people to "hold fire". But what really happens is that when the RSAF pushes the button to command "hold fire" the Air Defense consoles light-up with the command to "fire". As if this minor technical flaw wasn't enough, billions in billing were added to give all these command centers filtered air systems for protection against NBC. Great on paper to make the billing statement, but non-existant in reality. I could go on-and-on about lack of training as well. One example has Saudi maintenence personnel towing a "hot" (just landed) F-15 into a hangar. Plane catches fire, burns up with the hangar. What happened? Well no discipline from the Saudis, but their training records were pulled and numerous ex-pats sent home because they had signed off on training them. Since the training obviously did not stick, it was obviously an ex-pat trainer who was to blame. Not there Saudi NCO or Officer chain-of-command, but ex-pats. The only time a saudi maintenence troop is allowed anywhere near an aircraft with any tool in his hand is when Saudi VIPs are on a tour - it would be funny if these senior RSAF officers knew enough to ask their troops what they maintennce was being done - but they don't. Don't even get into the sub-levels of tribal allegiences that totally disrupts any concept of chain-of-command or military discipline. If you are from the right tribe you get the works, guick promotions (get the answers to your SKT and promotion tests),and other perks - even out-of-Kingdom training (like in the U.S.), even if you just burnt down a hangar on top of a $50M F-15 (oh yes folks the Saudi payment for each aircraft is about double for all those kick-backs to Prince Sultan, Minister of Defense and Aviation (he owns/oversees Saudi Arabian Airlines as well). But if you are one of the few motivated, intelligent members of the RSAF and happen to be from the wrong tribe - well if you were ever a first yearman at VMI/Citadel you sorta get my drift. To wrap this up, the RSAF is the most efficient branch of the Saudi military (with the exception of it's internal intelligence network) - so you can imagine the horror stories from ex-pats working with the Saudi Land Forces, Naval Forces, or Saudi National Guard. So that leaves us with the question of who protects all those vast oil fields - that's right, our good old Uncle Sam. .Well the Royal family has our military protect their entire country, but they have a fine cadre of ex-CIA, ex-FBI, ex-Navy Seals getting paid very well to be their own private security arm (not unlike Saddam's Republican Guard).


Source:The Royal Saudi Air Force - A Paper Tiger, Minus the Tiger
 
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We need a light strike aircraft with cheap flying and maintenance costs. The Gripen and jf-17 is in consideration.



Saudi RSAF should seriously consider both JF-17 and J-10B as part of its strike capability. There are two powerful arguments for this strategy:

1. It is a good idea not to put all your eggs in the same basket ( i.e. Western aircrafts ) because of the danger of Embargo from the West in case of hostilities with ISRAEL. Always a good idea to diversify your risk.

2. If RSAF have a few squadrons of JF-17 and J-10B and if ever they have a need, PAF pilots could assist in matter of few hours.


Cheers
 
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Saudi RSAF should seriously consider both JF-17 and J-10B as part of its strike capability. There are two powerful arguments for this strategy:

1. It is a good idea not to put all your eggs in the same basket ( i.e. Western aircrafts ) because of the danger of Embargo from the West in case of hostilities with ISRAEL. Always a good idea to diversify your risk.

2. If RSAF have a few squadrons of JF-17 and J-10B and if ever they have a need, PAF pilots could assist in matter of few hours. Also there have been rumors recently that the JF-17blkII won't be having the IRST and such and that is very disappointing considering that we were all anticipating all these goodies in the next block, but i hope these rumors are proven wrong.


Cheers

The RSAF has much better and more capable aircraft for strike and air superiority role. The Tornado's and F-15's (armed with AESA's) are for strike role while the Typhoons (Also equipped with AESA radar) are for air superiority role.

I'm not trying to undermine the capabilities of JF-17 or J-10 but JF-17 and J-10 are cheaper alternatives for countries that can't afford American, European, and Russian aircraft, and JF-17 has yet to receive upgrades like AESA radar, IRST, refueling probe, composites, and standoff weapons integration.
 
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what about gps or satellite guided ammunition and reconnaissance satellites to augment the airforce strike ability..
saudi should try to bring up a regional gps system that covers the saudi and neighboring countries..i dont think so it would take more than 8-9 billion dollars..it could be useful for other purposes as well. They can share the cost with close partners of gulf co operation organisation like UAE

china, japan are already having their own regional systems while india is planning to establish one..
 
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The RSAF has much better and more capable aircraft for strike and air superiority role. The Tornado's and F-15's (armed with AESA's) are for strike role while the Typhoons (Also equipped with AESA radar) are for air superiority role.

I'm not trying to undermine the capabilities of JF-17 or J-10 but JF-17 and J-10 are cheaper alternatives for countries that can't afford American, European, and Russian aircraft, and JF-17 has yet to receive upgrades like AESA radar, IRST, refueling probe, composites, and standoff weapons integration.


The point my myopic friend is F-15 is a superior strike a/c but in case of parts embargo it is a 15 ton of mettalic junk. Having aircrafts from non western sources mitigates some of that danger, Genius.

Capisch ?
 
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