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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Saudi Arabia
Index
Saudi air defense units were separated from the army in the
mid-1980s to form a fourth service branch responsible for
territorial air defense. The new fourth command was initially
entrusted to Amir Khalid ibn Sultan Al Saud, son of the minister
of defense and aviation.
The air defense forces, with an estimated 4,000 personnel in
1992, had as their primary responsibility the operation of
thirty-three SAM batteries. Of these, sixteen batteries were
equipped with 128 I-Hawk SAMs with a forty-kilometer range, which
were emplaced around Riyadh, Ras Tanura, Dhahran, Jiddah, and key
air bases at Khamis Mushayt, Hafar al Batin, and Tabuk, as well
as the approaches to strategic oil facilities of the Eastern
Province. The remaining seventeen batteries, forming a second
line of air defense, were equipped with sixty-eight Shahine SAM
fire units with a range of sixteen kilometers. These SAMs were a
version of the French Crotale missile system mounted on AMX-30SA
chassis. This mobile missile defense guarded the Saudi oil fields
and other vital installations. An additional seventy-three
Shahine fire units were employed as static defense. Both the IHawk and Shahine systems were linked to AWACS and to the Peace
Shield command and control system. In addition to the missile
defense, the air defense forces were equipped with Vulcan 20mm
self-propelled guns and 30mm guns mounted on AMX-30SA chassis
(see
table 14, Appendix).
Data as of December 1992
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