The 5 Deadliest Weapons That Saudi Arabia Has In Its Military

On May 22, 2017

YemenExtra

Y.A

The backbone of the Saudi air force is the F-15 fighter: a platform that the United States itself has used for generations and a plane that is capable of carrying out the kinds of short and long-distance air sorties that may be required for a mission to succeed. According to public sources, Saudi Arabia possesses about 238 F-15 fighter planes—including a 2010 U.S. sale to Riyadh consisting of 84 F-15SA’s, Boeing Corp’s newest F-15 variant. This particular model is especially helpful for the Saudis, who are now engaged in two conflicts simultaneously. The plane’s range of 2,400 miles is particularly impressive and allows the Kingdom’s aircrews to travel to and from northern Iraq and southern Yemen without having to rely upon mid-air refueling aircraft to arrive at a target. There is no question that Saudi pilots appreciate this type of capability as they search for Houthi targets in Yemen and ISIL targets in Syria.

For Saudi Arabia, the conservative Gulf kingdom whose number one priority in the region is to keep the status quo, it’s hard not to come to the conclusion that the entire Middle East is on the fire. Indeed, if Saudi Arabia resembled a giant mansion in the middle of the neighborhood, the rest of the street would be littered with abandoned houses and empty lots. In other words, the neighborhood outside the Kingdom doesn’t look good at the moment, and King Salman bin Abdulaziz knows it.

With Syria largely split among what is left of the Assad regime and dozens of Islamist factions, Iraq in the middle of its own large-scale war with ISIL, Yemen in a state of civil war, and ISIL launching sporadic terrorist attacks on mosques and police officers in the Kingdom itself, King Salman’s number one job is ensuring that the Saudi armed forces have the equipment and support that they need. To that effect, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques is doing his job quite well.

Here are the five deadliest weapons that Saudi Arabia has in its arsenal:

1. The F-15/F-15A/F-15SA:

(Note: This first appeared in 2015)

2. The Paveway IV:

This 500-pound, precision-guided munition is perhaps one of the most accurate and lethal bombs that the Saudis possess. Thanks in part to a defense relationship with the United Kingdom, the Saudi Royal Air Force has been able to acquire the Paveway IV and use it in active hostilities—particularly in Yemen, where the Saudis are at the forefront of an Arab coalition seeking to pound the Houthi movement into submission.

The UK military describes the Paveway IV as “an advanced and highly accurate weapon that provides the RAF’s strike force with a state-of-the-art precision guided bombing capability.” The bomb is equipped with the most advanced precision-guided, GPS technology to cause maximum impact on the target, and it’s durable enough to be used effectively in bad weather.

The bombs are light enough for the F-15 to carry more of them, which naturally increases the ability of the pilots to destroy multiple targets without having to return to base and rearm. How often the Saudi Air Force has used this specific munitions on the battlefield in Yemen is impossible to clarify without specific information from the Defense Ministry, but it’s safe to say that it’s had a significant impact on Houthi formations that are operating in the open.

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