Saudis buy 84 new F15s, upgrade 70 they already have, other stuff

[dead0man]

link

You must be logged in to read this quote.

That's a lot of air superiority fighters.  A lot more than they'd need with any fight with Iran, even if they get no help from anybody outside the Arabian peninsula and nowhere near enough to defeat Israel (though it would be a lot tougher now).  What other enemies do they have or could potentially have?


Other than their own people subjects of course, but F15s aren't super useful fighting your own people.

[dead0man]

They're probably paranoid about Iran. I doubt they want to mix it up with Israel, and probably view it as a partner against Iran, albeit one they want no direct involvement with. Still, it's pretty clear that the Saudis hate the Iranians a lot more than they hate the Israelis.

Agreed, but it seems like an awful lot of planes to have to go up against Iran's band aid and duct taped fleet of 30 year old air frames.

[dead0man]

Possibly, but probably not very many, and they will be piloted by second class pilots with little training.

[dead0man]

and now the boomers to go with the birds

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[dead0man]

and now 15,000 anti-tank missiles

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[dead0man]

They're probably paranoid about Iran. I doubt they want to mix it up with Israel, and probably view it as a partner against Iran, albeit one they want no direct involvement with. Still, it's pretty clear that the Saudis hate the Iranians a lot more than they hate the Israelis.

Agreed, but it seems like an awful lot of planes to have to go up against Iran's band aid and duct taped fleet of 30 year old air frames.

If the Saudi's and Irani's fought a war I would still put my money on those duct taped 30 year old planes.

Explain why you would say that.

Like Europe 400 years ago, to be an officer you have to be from money and tribal affiliation, not skills, smarts or Allah forbid, leadership abilities.  They treat the enlisted men like garbage and they don't do NCOs (the backbone of any military).  They don't train properly.  They are horrible at maintenance.  Nobody wants to be blamed for why they lost the war, the bird, the ship, the platoon, so mid level officers in the field won't EVER make a decision on their own and sometimes won't even do what the higher ups tell them.  Just Google "why arabs lose wars".  A lot of this comes from the culture and some of it is from the soviet era which had a lot of the same problems.