"Military Sub-plane" author: Big Ivan
Recently, news about the arms purchases of Saudi Arabia, a famous Middle Eastern dog giant, has circulated on the Internet again. On March 29, according to the US "Tactical Report", the Saudi Arabian Air Force is negotiating with the Chinese side on the project to introduce the Air Police -200 AWACS aircraft.
In addition, there are rumors that the Saudi Arabian Air Force has taken a fancy to our long-range early warning radar, such as a certain radar with a huge front, multiple launch units, advanced overall design architecture, and long perception distance displayed at last year's Zhuhai Air Show. Coupled with the Type 052DE destroyer displayed at the Abu Dhabi International Maritime Defense Exhibition at the beginning of this year, which is said to be of great interest to both the Saudi and Algerian navies, and the tactical missiles that Saudi Arabia bought from us at last year's Zhuhai Air Show, this is probably the third very hot news about Saudi arms purchases from last year to this year.
Is this reliable?
So, what do we think of the news that Saudi Arabia intends to purchase Chinese-made early warning aircraft, or Chinese-made remote warning radar? Big Ivan's feeling is not very reliable, but we are still speaking from the feasibility and necessity of exporting weapons and equipment.
Chinese Air Force Air Police -200
In fact, some foreign trade radars follow normal arms trade procedures to export to Saudi Arabia, which is of course no problem, and we are happy to do so, but the news from the United States says that we want to export air police-200 early warning aircraft, which is obviously not quite right. Air Police-200 AWACS aircraft for us, is a relatively old model, as early as 2009 National Day 60th anniversary parade appeared, because the AWACS aircraft uses a special long strip double-sided antenna array design, then known as "balance beam", according to relevant media analysis, "balance beam" design relative to the three-sided array design, in the airspace monitoring capability has certain deficiencies. Therefore, at present, we have in fact no longer developed models such as the Air Police-200, but turned to the development of advanced three-sided array models such as the Air Police-500, and even the ZDK-03A AWACS aircraft exported by our military trade to the Pakistan Air Force did not adopt this fixed double-sided array design.
Chinese air police family (picture from the Internet)
What about necessity? Big Ivan believes that with the current equipment status of the Saudi Air Force, and the equipment development trend in the future period, it seems that there is no need to purchase radar and early warning aircraft, in terms of the C3I system of the Saudi Air Force, Saudi Arabia has a complete set of C3I system, codenamed "Peace Shield", designed by the United States for Saudi Arabia in the eighties of the last century, and upgraded to the "Faclon Eye" program after the nineties. The main goal of this program is to highly integrate the air situational awareness data received by AWACS aircraft with ground C3I systems, and have the ability to guide multiple batches of fighters to carry out air defense interceptions in multiple directions.
Saudi Arabia's own radar warning system
At present, the confirmed Saudi Peace Shield system consists of two parts:
The first part is the ground near and far surveillance radar network, and Saudi Arabia is equipped with at least 17 AN/FPS-117 distant surveillance radars. This is a three-coordinate radar using a phase-sweeping system, manufactured by Lockheed Martin, with a situational awareness range of more than 400 kilometers for fighter-sized targets, and has the ability to perceive distant air emotions;
AN/FPS-117
In addition, Saudi Arabia is also equipped with some older AN/TPS-43 radars and some improved AN/TPS-70 radars, which also have a situational awareness range of more than 400 kilometers for fighter-sized targets, mainly deployed along the coast of the Persian Gulf and around Riyadh and Mecca;
AN/TPS-70
In addition, because the Saudi army is also equipped with a large number of "Patriot" and "HAWK" series air defense missiles, the Saudi army is also equipped with fire control radars of air defense systems, such as the AN / MPQ-46 radar used by the HAWK surface-to-air missile, the AN/MPQ-53 radar used by the "Patriot-3" missile, etc., these radars are mainly used to guide local guide companies (battalions) to carry out air defense interception operations, and can also take into account the situation awareness of the near air situation.
AN/MPQ-53
The second part is more frightening, Saudi Arabia is equipped with the U.S.-made E-3A AWACS aircraft. These AWACS aircraft were sold to Saudi Arabia in the 80s, a total of 5 aircraft, and they still seem to be in use, and Saudi Arabia seems to have received technical support from the United States at the beginning of this century to upgrade all these E-3A.
Early Saudi E-3A
The upgraded E-3A early warning aircraft has improved its ability to perceive the situation in the distant air, and the AN/APY-1 vigilance radar can detect targets of fighter size at a range of about 400 to 600 kilometers, can process 600 batches of targets at the same time, and guide fighters to engage 100 groups of targets. More importantly, as we mentioned earlier, these E-3A AWACS aircraft can be connected to Saudi Arabia's own "Peace Shield" C3I system to participate in air defense campaign command, and the level of air defense combat automation is quite high. In addition, the Saudi Air Force also tried to order a batch of Swedish Saab-made "Ericeye" AWACS, but for various reasons it seems that this did not happen, and these aircraft were later transferred to the Pakistan Air Force for use.
Saudi E-3A modification
More importantly, Saudi Arabia's current air radar network is on the eve of a large-scale upgrade, and when "Understanding Wang" came to power in 2017, Saudi Arabia signed a huge arms order of up to $15 billion with the United States, purchasing a large number of THAAD (THAAD) terminal high-altitude anti-missile interception systems from the United States.
THAAD missile launcher
It is said to include 7 missile battalions (companies), 44 launchers and up to 360 interceptor missiles, as well as 7 AN/TPY-2 long-range surveillance and fire control radars. The performance of these 7 radars can be said to be powerful to the sky, with the advantages of long detection range, high resolution, good maneuverability, and convenient deployment, when used as a warning radar, for targets of 1 square meter, the interception distance is more than 2000 kilometers, even for low detectable targets, the interception distance is about 700 kilometers.
THAAD AN/TPY-2 radar
When used as an anti-reconnaissance fire control radar, it can not only be used to guide THAAD interceptor missiles, but also use Far Engagement Mode (EOR) to assist other anti-missile interception systems in hitting targets. According to Lockheed Martin's plan, it is ready to deliver the first THAAD interception system to Saudi Arabia in 2023, and the first AN/TPY-2 radar will be delivered simultaneously, and the US Army Corps of Engineers will be responsible for building a permanent deployment position for THAAD for the Saudi Air Force, which is ready to be completed in 2026, which means that in three years, the Saudi Air Force's situational awareness will be more powerful than it is now.
Is it possible for Saudi Arabia to buy Chinese AWACS aircraft?
Therefore, from the perspective of necessity, the entire air situation awareness system and automatic interception command system of the Saudi Air Force are all American standards, and the radars used are all American radars, and the early warning aircraft are also American, and even this year a new round of upgrading will be started, replacing with more advanced American radars. If at this time the Chinese radar and AWACS aircraft are switched, and the AN/TPY-2 radar delivery does not appear due to the change in the US political situation and the cooling of relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia, then it is interesting why Saudi Arabia's intention to buy Chinese radar and AWACS aircraft is very interesting.
Pakistan ZDK-03A
After all, it is not necessary to buy a bunch of equipment that is difficult to integrate into your own system, or even buy the same type of equipment when you have or will have relevant equipment. For example, the ZDK-03A we sold to Pakistan is actually the result of Pakistan's existing AWACS aircraft being forced to import AWACS aircraft from us after they could not integrate with the FC-1 "Thunder Dragon" fighter. If Saudi Arabia wants to ask us to buy AWACS aircraft, the only explanation for the Saudi Arabian Air Force's current flood of American and European standard fighters is that Saudi Arabia is trying to add some Chinese-made tactical aircraft to its tactical air fleet.
Saudi AN/FPS-117
Most likely, if Saudi Arabia asks us to buy AWACS aircraft and then asks us to buy radars, the only direction is that Saudi Arabia is ready to rebuild its own C3I system based on our hardware equipment. If buying some fighters or buying some AWACS aircraft, buying some radars is all content that stays at the tactical level, then starting from scratch to build the C3I system is already a shift at the strategic level. Whether Saudi Arabia is ready for this, what is the internal consideration of this strategic turn, and how to deal with the large number of hardware facilities originally provided by the United States as an upfront investment cost, these are all problems, and they are absolutely incomprehensible at our level. So Big Ivan's perception, rumors that Saudi Arabia is preparing to build radars and AWACS aircraft from us, it seems that they did not understand what these two tactical equipment meant, nor did they understand how deep the water is in these rumors, anyway, from the point of view of Big Ivan, this water is too deep, so deep that we dare not think about it.
In fact, let's recall now that from last year to this year, judging from the rumors of arms and trade contracts between us and Saudi Arabia, many of them are such news that they cannot be called four or two, and they cannot be beaten by a thousand pounds. For example, the news of imported tactical missiles can be said to hit the front station, and then whether it is rumors about the 052DE destroyer, or this time about radar and early warning aircraft, as well as rumors including rumors that Saudi Arabia and China cooperate in the field of tactical aircraft, etc., there is a feeling that the mountain rain is about to come. To be honest, Big Ivan really does not know where these news come from, let alone what the purpose of these Western media rumors is all day long.
After reading so many reports, we have a more obvious feeling that with the successful handshake between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and the opening of the Middle East settlement and chess game, we and the Middle East countries led by Saudi Arabia must still be brewing some deeper exchanges and cooperation. At present, it can only be regarded as the wind that started at the end of Qingping, and maybe it will shock the world when it is made public one day in the future, and we are waiting for that day to come.