We must pay tribute to those who planned and carried out a targeted strike on the territory of Saudi Arabia. All risks and consequences were meticulously calculated. First, it was the infrastructure for preparing oil for further transportation and sale that turned out to be the most vulnerable in the kingdom. Abkaik and Khuraisu are quite compact, accumulate huge reserves of hydrocarbons and their shutdown, in fact, blocks the operation of both the Gavar field and all further oil transportation routes. We will learn thoroughly about the consequences of the blow in a few weeks, but so far the opinions of experts differ. Someone says that the destroyed equipment will have to be ordered in full from the United States, and for a lot of money, while others claim that the damage was mainly caused by oil sedimentation tanks, which the Saudis themselves are able to restore.
Relative difficulties can arise only when repairing systems for electrical desalination, desulfurization and oil dehydration. In any case, now the failure in oil supplies to Saudi Arabia can be leveled out only due to the previously made reserves, which will last for 25-28 days. Will Saudi Aramco manage to restore Abkaik and Khuraisu during this time? In addition, the operators quite soberly calculated the potential capabilities and training of the country's air defense forces. And not only air defense. The Saudi Arabian army is simply bathed in petrodollars and expensive foreign military equipment, but it cannot do something intelligible either in the air or on the ground. The aggression in Yemen showed the shamefulness of the kingdom's offensive potential, and the attack on Abqayk and Khuraisu - defensive. There are a lot of reasons for this state: here is the lack of motivation of the army personnel, since the military service does not bring tangible bonuses in comparison with the civil service, and the fragmented command and control system.
The ruling regime is openly afraid of a military coup, so it has seriously dispersed the command and control centers of the army, which negatively affects efficiency, coherence and planning. The army is selected not on the basis of education and level of training, but on the basis of belonging to a particular clan. Further more. The low level of school education entails poor technical literacy even among officers. The third country in the world in terms of the wealth of the defense budget actually produces nothing for its army - only 2% of all equipment is assembled within Saudi Arabia. And even this is limited to primitive equipment such as armored cars based on the Toyota Land Cruiser. And high-tech weapons purchased abroad do not have enough strength to maintain themselves. Profile magazine cites the paradoxical facts of the permanent presence of 6,300 British technicians in Saudi Arabia. They show soldiers and officers not only how to fight, but also how to maintain the weapons systems in a combat-ready state. Here a natural question arises: will the Saudis be able to independently cope with the air defense systems proposed by President Putin? Or will they have to be handed over together with combat crews?
Tactical failure
The Houthis, or, as the Saudis and the Americans claim, Iranian specialists, attacked the Saudi Aramco plant with the involvement of at least 18 drones and 7-10 cruise missiles. According to the Houthis, the percussion vehicles traveled more than 1000 km over the desert before striking the world's largest oil refinery with dagger precision. According to the newspaper "Expert", the fighters from Yemen could use the Samad-3 UAV, which they had already tested in May at the Saudis' oil pumping station in the Yanbu region. Then the destruction was minimal (work stopped for a couple of days), but the attack showed that the Patriot PAC2 defense system was not able to track and shoot down drones of this type. It is enough to approach the targets of attack at heights not exceeding 60 meters. Now the most important thing is that the removal of the Yanbu region to the place of deployment of the Houthi partisans is approximately 980 kilometers. That is, this strike can be viewed as a rehearsal of the September 14 attack on the main targets of Saudi Aramco. The question remains: where did the Houthis get the cruise missiles capable of flying such significant distances? Yes, there are ballistic missiles - of the Burkan type, but their accuracy is poor. In the arsenal of the Houthis, you can also find Quds-1 cruise missiles, but their flight range does not exceed 700-750 km. Abha airport in June of this year was successfully attacked by one such missile, but it is located almost on the border with Yemen. It is clearly seen that external supplies were attracted to strike with cruise missiles.
If the Saudis have been hit by cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and attack drones from the territory of a country that is backward in every sense for several years, why have they not taken any retaliatory measures? Because there is nothing. Patriot systems of various modifications and portable anti-aircraft missile systems do not create echeloned defense. In the army, there are no medium-range air defense systems at all capable of effectively dealing with low-flying cruise missiles. As there are no effective means of dealing with UAVs of handicraft and factory production. And after all, there is an excellent example of how to do this close at hand: the Russian airbase Khmeimim is currently fighting attack drones with almost 100% efficiency.
At the same time, Saudi Arabia's allies have a very wide range of means of active and passive protection of objects from uninvited drones. To detect UAVs, Saab can provide a stationary or mobile radar GIRAFFE AMB, the parameters of which are quite suitable for searching for small-sized aircraft. The effective dispersion area of the drone is usually in the range of 0.01m2 up to 0, 001 m2 and the system allows you to "see" such objects at a distance of up to 10 km. The Americans could deliver in a short time the SKYTRACKER system from CACI International, which track the electromagnetic radiation of drones, namely, the operation of radars, altimeters and control transceivers. Using the triangulation method, SKYTRACKER sensors determine the location of the intruder in the protected area and transmit information to the alarm system.
In addition to repelling a blow with small arms and cannon weapons, it is possible to use specific weapons, which the partners of the kingdom also have. For example, Drone Defender, which interferes with satellite control channels at 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz (and the "Houthi" cruise missiles and UAVs, obviously, were controlled via satellites). The range of such a gun is only 400 meters, but with massive use it is quite possible to create a kind of protective dome over important objects. A more serious weapon is the stationary jamming cannons of the AUDS (Anti-Uav Defense System) type from Britain. There is a radar, an optoelectronic module, and a radio frequency jammer. Working in the Ku-band, the locator allows you to determine the approach of objects with an effective scattering area of up to 0.01 m2 at a distance of up to 8 km. This definitely allows you to see a tactical drone flying 1000 km or more. The Americans have been using it for more than two years in Iraq - about 2000 forcibly planted quadrocopters and aircraft UAVs. In the United States, Departament 13 has developed the MESMER system, which not only interferes with control, but decodes control signals, allowing you to take control of the winged vehicle.
If the enemy uses jam-resistant control channels or machines with a high level of automation, then they can often be simply caught in a network. The Spreading Wings S900 hexacopter from the Chinese DJI Innovations is equipped with a 2 by 3 meter mesh fabric and has been successfully used by Japanese special services for several years. Modern developments not only make it possible to confuse the propellers of drones, but to carefully lower them with a net on a parachute. For more effective destruction of unobtrusive UAVs in the United States, projectiles and bullets (by Advanced Ballistic Concepts) have been developed, divided into fragments and fastened with a strong thread. In flight, the ammunition is divided into parts, increasing the likelihood of hitting the target.
More sophisticated drone defense systems are microwave and laser emitters. Phaser from Raytheon with its microwave emitter is practically guaranteed to burn all control units and on-board computers of aircraft. The system is located within the dimensions of a truck tractor and, in case of detection of aircraft, is capable of generating a beam that immediately strikes a group of UAVs. In October 2018, as part of the MFIX (Manuever Fires Integrated Experiment) exercise, Raytheon showed the work of a small-sized laser installation for tactical drones.
One laser, mounted on a light buggy, hit 12 drones in a short period at a distance of up to 1400 meters. Raytheon also offers to mount similar equipment on Apache helicopters. In the future, anti-drone lasers with a power of up to 100 kW should appear in the US Army, allowing them to reach the enemy at a distance of up to 5 km. From the ready-made versions of the Saudi Arabian army, it was possible to purchase Silent Hunter laser systems from China, the beams of which burn 2-mm steel at a distance of 800 m and 5-mm at a kilometer range. The key advantage of drone laser suppression systems is the unique low cost of single rounds. Ideally, only $ 1 is spent to destroy an attack tactical UAV. Compare that to the cost of one Patriot missile launch.
In total, 33 countries in the world are now actively working on the design and testing of new defense systems against quadrocopters and tactical aircraft UAVs. There are over 230 systems. And Saudi Arabia, I think, in the very near future needs to urgently purchase something from this arsenal. The threat of a second strike remains, and so far the Saudis have not seen adequate protection measures.
