Saudi soldiers abandon expensive American tanks at the first shots of the Houthis, and the Syrians are unable to master the Pantsir air defense missile defense system supplied by Russia. What are the problems facing the supply of modern and high-tech military equipment?
For many decades, the main manufacturers of weapons, primarily the United States and Russia, as well as some European countries, have developed their military technologies and sought to make all types of weapons more and more advanced. But in parallel with this process, the complexity of equipment in operation and, of course, its cost increased.
One of the main problems faced by high-tech weapons in the modern arms market is the mismatch between cost and duration (or conditions) of operation. A typical example - the Saudis acquire expensive American military equipment and immediately throw it into a local armed conflict in Yemen, where the well-armed Saudi troops are opposed by Houthi militias in pickup trucks and with hand grenade launchers.
For example, the M1A2 Abrams tank is fairly rightly considered one of the best main battle tanks in the modern world. But the Houthis successfully knock him out of the Iranian-made Towsan-1 ATGM. Crews, if they are lucky enough to survive, abandon expensive equipment on the battlefield. But gloating over the negligence of the closest American allies in the Middle East is not worth it, because the Syrian comrades have not gone so far from them.
Houthis knocked out the Abrams tank
Take, for example, the story of the Pantsir anti-aircraft missile and cannon system in the Syrian air defense service, which reveals the following problem - the lack of proper training of personnel and the necessary support infrastructure. In Syria, air defense missile systems are guarding the Russian Khmeimim airbase and, I must say, showed their best side, repelling a large number of attacks from the militants. But those air defense missile systems that fell into the possession of the air defense forces of the Syrian Arab Republic seemed to have changed: the Syrians regularly miss Israeli strikes on their territory. Moreover, the Israelis managed to destroy at least two Syrian Shells.
In fact, such miscalculations of the Syrian air defense are not accidental. After all, it is not enough to supply modern anti-aircraft missile systems, it is still necessary to ensure that they work effectively, and in the conditions of the organization of the Syrian air defense, it is extremely difficult to do this.
Firstly, the Syrian army lacks modern radar systems that should transmit signals from the air defense system. Secondly, exactly the same situation is observed with modern automated control systems - their absence contributes to complete chaos during the operation of air defense. Thirdly, the personnel of the Syrian air defense system are poorly prepared, they are almost not trained to work with modern technology, and they have a weak level of discipline.
So there is a situation when the presence of modern anti-aircraft missile systems "Pantsir" in service with the Syrian army (SAA) turns out to be useless, and even harmful for Russia. After all, every failure of the Syrian air defense forces casts a shadow on Russian-made armaments: articles on the minuses of the Pantsir air defense missile system, their uselessness in front of Israeli aviation, etc. immediately appear in the world press. Once in the wrong hands, even the most effective weapon can lose its effectiveness.
Thus, it is not enough to acquire expensive and high-tech weapons, it is also necessary to create an infrastructure to ensure its activities, as well as to properly train personnel - both professionally and motivationally.
However, those countries that, at first glance, are doing pretty well both with the military infrastructure and with the training of personnel, can also pose a lot of problems for arms suppliers. This is the third problem - the uncertainty in its own strategy for the purchase of weapons.
India is a typical example. Everyone remembers well the story of the contract for the supply of the Su-35. At first, New Delhi seemed to agree to purchase a Russian plane, but then they demanded to lower the price, and then they began to look for shortcomings altogether, eventually refusing to purchase it. The situation was about the same with the cooperation on the FGFA (Su-57).
The reason here is not only US pressure or economic considerations, but also that the Indians still cannot decide whether they will remain in the role of buyers of foreign military equipment, or they will be able to produce modern weapons themselves. Of course, the military elite and industrial circles in India would like the latter, but are there resources for this - primarily intellectual and technological?
What can be done in this whole situation? Of course, it is impossible to refuse the export of high-tech weapons - this is real and big money. But thinking about who and what to sell is also necessary, otherwise the reputational costs and subsequent financial losses may even exceed the profit from the sale of weapons. An important component is complex contracts with personnel training and retraining by specialists.
