Leading Gulf air forces are in the midst of a major re-equipment programme. Capabilities are being transformed, though some air forces believe that much more is needed.
At one time, many would have expected the leading Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) air forces to follow Israel and become operators of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter. So far, none have done so, and the GCC air forces rely on the latest iterations of existing 4th Generation fighter designs, including the Dassault Rafale F4, Eurofighter ECRS.Mk 0 radar equipped Typhoons and Boeing F-15SA/QA Advanced Eagles. But with a rapidly evolving threat, and with an increasingly contested and congested operating environment, there is perceived to be a need to at least augment (if not replace) these aircraft with a 5th Generation, Low Observable (‘stealthy’) fighter.
Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) all regional allies of the United States and big customers for US defence equipment, have each asked to buy the F-35, but all have so far been rebuffed. With a rather older fighter fleet than Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the UAE was at the head of the queue for the F-35A. After signing the Abraham Accords in September 2020, normalising relations with Israel, the UAE negotiated a $23 billion deal for 50 F-35As (and 18 General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper UAVs) in January 2021. But US terms (insisting on the abandonment of a major telecoms contract with China’s Huawei) led to Abu Dhabi stepping back from the deal that December, and instead signing a contract with France’s Dassault for 80 Rafale fighters. That contract became active on 19 April 2022, when Dassault received the first down payment from the UAE.
While it is an admirable and capable fighter, the Rafale is no substitute for the F-35A, even in its latest F4 form, but the Emirati choice may have reflected their assessment that there is no viable 5th Generation alternative to the Joint Strike Fighter. There are other notionally Low Observable 5th Generation fighters, but all are unproven. The Chinese Chengdu J-20 is now in large scale service, but is generally assessed as being significantly less ‘stealthy’ and less capable than F-35, while the Russian Sukhoi Su-57 is also believed to lag the US aircraft, while the dozen or so production aircraft now in service lack maturity. The Korean Aerospace KF-21 Boramae is still in development, and in its initial form will not be a true 5th Generation fighter. There are similar doubts about the Turkish Aerospace MMU Kaan fighter.
In any case, while the acquisition of 80 Rafales will allow the UAE to replace its existing Dassault Mirage 2000-9s (59 remain in service), it will still need to replace its 78 Lockheed Martin F-16E/F Desert Falcons – a less urgent requirement, and one which could still see an Emirati return to the F-35.
Neither Saudi Arabia nor Qatar have formally normalised relations with Israel, making approval of an F-35 procurement unlikely. This is perhaps less of a problem for Qatar, which is nearing the completion of an ambitious fighter procurement programme that has seen it taking delivery of 36 Rafales, 36 F-15QA Advanced Eagles and 24 Eurofighter Typhoons. The latter are equipped with the new ECRS.Mk 0 radar, whose repositioner gives an unmatched Field of Regard, as well as powerful beyond-visual-range (BVR) air combat capabilities. This new fighter fleet may give Qatar some breathing room, perhaps allowing it to wait for one of the new European 6th Generation fighter programmes to bear fruit.
Saudi Arabia’s likely future course is harder to plot. The Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) has requirements to replace the last of its 100 or so F-15C/D interceptors (serving with No.s 2, 5, 13, and 34 Squadrons), and its ageing fleet of about 75 Panavia Tornados (with No.s 7, 75 and 83 Squadrons).
The Kingdom has had a long-standing requirement for a second batch of 48-96 Eurofighter Typhoons to augment the 72 delivered from 2008-2017, and signed a memorandum of intent for an additional 48 Typhoons on 9 March 2018, during Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to the United Kingdom.
The Kingdom has been deferring an order pending the availability of a fully funded ECRS.Mk 2 radar and Large Area Display (LAD). Just as ECRS.Mk 2 development has been funded to completion, another problem has now arisen.
The problem is that Germany will not allow the delivery of Eurofighter aircraft to Saudi Arabia “any time soon,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told reporters on the second day of a NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania in July. It was also said that the issue would not be addressed during this legislative term, which ends in 2025, and that “applications for export licences for Saudi Arabia will be postponed until the end of the war in Yemen.”
This has made the Eurofighter consortium look like a potentially unreliable supplier (though spares and support have continued despite the Yemen war), and may have finally scuppered any chances of a second Typhoon batch for the Saudis.
In December, France’s weekly financial newspaper La Tribune reported that Saudi Arabia was considering the acquisition of 100-200 Rafale fighters. This report has been repeated, though there does not seem to be any ‘fresh evidence’ of Saudi intent.
Rafale would, on the face of it, be an excellent replacement for the Saudi Typhoons, and would allow commonality and interoperability with Rafale fleets in Qatar, Egypt, and the UAE, though there are concerns that the aircraft’s performance may be marginal in hot and high conditions. Though France has won itself a reputation as a reliable supplier that is unlikely to ever impose embargoes or restrictions, there are doubts in some quarters that the RSAF would want to turn to another supplier, and have to establish a new supply chain, when it has established relationships with Boeing and BAE Systems. Some believe that Saudi has expressed an interest in the Rafale not because it wants to acquire the type, but because it wants to ‘flex its muscles’ and show existing suppliers that it does have alternative options.
The Typhoon, in P4E configuration with ECRS.Mk 2 radar, would seem to be a better ‘fit’ to Saudi Arabia’s requirements, and to its existing logistics infrastructure. The Typhoon with ECRS.Mk 2 will offer impressive electronic attack capabilities, leading some analysts to conclude that it will be more capable in tomorrow’s more contested and difficult environment.
A relatively modest Typhoon procurement (perhaps in conjunction with an upgrade for in service aircraft) could ‘bridge the gap’ to the procurement of a 6th Generation fighter in the mid-2030s, especially given the fleet of F-15SA and F-15SR Advanced Eagles that is building towards 152 aircraft.
Saudi Arabia has wanted to join the Anglo-Italian Tempest programme (now the Anglo-Italian-Japanese Global Combat Air Programme, or GCAP) for some time. The UK and Saudi Arabia signed a statement of intent to begin a “partnering feasibility study” to look at a future combat air partnership and closer industrial collaboration with the UK in March 2023.
A senior British defence official noted that: “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of the UK’s strategic partnerships and UK Defence is keen to deepen work on GCAP. We see Saudi Arabia as a key partner in the fighter programme and we are working to ensure strong progress as soon as possible.”
In Kuwait, 34 F/A-18C/Ds are being replaced by 28 ECRS.Mk 0-equipped Typhoons, and 22 Boeing F/A-18Es and six F/A-18Fs, though recent reports suggest that some of the ‘Heritage Hornets’ may be retained for a while longer.
The remaining GCC members are Bahrain and the Sultanate of Oman. Bahrain is in the process of upgrading its 16 surviving Block 40 F-16Cs and four F-16Ds to F-16V standards, and is waiting for the delivery of 16 new build Block 70 F-16C/Ds. The current aircraft equip the 1st and 2nd Tactical Fighter Squadrons (TFS) at Sheikh Isa, while the new-build Block 70s will re-equip the 6th TFS and a new 16th TFS. With its Northrop Grumman AN/APG-83 SABR AESA radar, the Block 70/F-16V is a very much improved derivative of the Fighting Falcon, with significantly greater capabilities than the 17 Block 50 F-16Cs and six F-16Ds operated by the Royal Air Force of Oman (RAFO) with No.s 18 and 20 Squadrons at Thumrait. The RAFO also operates 12 Typhoons (three of them two-seaters) with No.8 Squadron at Adam.
Outside the GCC, Egypt has been undertaking a major recapitalisation of its tactical air power, with a gradual shift in favour of Western types and away from balancing procurement between East and West. Egypt backed away from its planned procurement of Su-35s to augment its fleet of 44 MiG-29M2s and its planned fleet of 54 Rafales, and is now understood to be looking at a procurement of the Eurofighter Typhoon.
In Turkey, ejection from the F-35 programme after the country refused to cancel its procurement of Russian S-400 surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) left its fighter plans in disarray. The original plan was for the F-35 to replace Turkey’s ageing F-4E Phantom ‘Terminator’ aircraft in the long range strike/attack role, forming the ‘high end’ of a high:low force mix, with the indigenous MMU replacing the F-16 and forming the ‘low’ end of an all stealthy fighter force.
Instead, the MMU (recently named as the Kaan) will now be the ‘high end’ fighter, augmented by the F-16 force, which will be recapitalised via the local upgrade of 30-35 surviving Block 30 aircraft under the Özgür programme, adding a new cockpit and mission computer and an indigenous Murad AESA radar. Current plans will also see the acquisition of 40 new build Block 70 F-16C/Ds, and by the upgrade of 29 Block 50+ and 50 Block 40M aircraft to Block 70 standards, using 80 US-supplied F16V upgrade kits, though if this should fall through, TUSAŞ is bullish that the Block 40 and Block 50 aircraft could be put through the local Özgür upgrade.
The Block 70 F-16 and upgraded F-16V also form the basis of Morocco’s fighter fleet modernisation. The Royal Moroccan Air Force will receive 25 F-16C/D Block 72 fighters, and will upgrade 23 existing F‑16s to the more advanced F‑16V Block 52+ configuration.
The Iraqi air force currently relies on 34 F-16s, augmented by about 20 Sukhoi Su-25s, 11 Aero Vodochody L159s and 24 Korean Aerospace T-50IQs, but reportedly has plans to recapitalise.
The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Major General Yehia Rasool, has confirmed that the Iraqi Air Force hopes to rebuild and modernise its fighter fleet, and there have been reports that 24 Beechcraft AT-6C Texan II aircraft may be under consideration, as well as 12 JF-17 Block 3 fighters from the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex and China’s Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group.
In November 2020, the Iraqi Defense Minister Juma Enad Saadoun visited Saint-Dizier where he was briefed on the Dassault Rafale, after which he confirmed his government’s interest in the type. A Rafale purchase was subsequently said to be under consideration in February 2023, and has reportedly ‘firmed up’ since then. It has recently been reported that the Iraqi Air Force now intends to purchase 14 Rafales, for an overall programme cost of $3.3 billion.
UAVS On the Shopping List
The leading GCC and MENA air forces have been keeping abreast of developments in unmanned aircraft capabilities, and a number have introduced UAVs into service.
Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, and the UAE have acquired Chinese Chengdu Wing Loong UAVs, for example, while Libya, Qatar, and the UAE have bought Turkish Bayraktar TB2s (a type also ordered by Kuwait and Iraq).
The UAE found the sensor capabilities of the Wing Loong inadequate and from February 2013 acquired a number of unarmed General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA ASI) Predator XP RPA systems, which it then used in concert with the Wing Loongs. In November 2020, the US State Department approved the sale of up to 18 MQ-9Bs to the UAE as part of the same package that included the F-35. It was similarly abandoned.
Saudi Arabia has had a long-running effort to deploy operational unmanned capabilities. The Kingdom purchased two Chinese CASC CH-4s in 2014, and augmented these with five Wing Loong IIs. Saudi Arabia also obtained a licence from Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group (CAIG) to build up to 300 Wing Loong and potentially an unknown number of CASC’s heavyweight CH-5 armed UAV.
From 2019, Saudi Arabia procured Turkish-made Lentatek Karayel-SU UCAVs, which are now being produced in Saudi Arabia as the Haboob, while the South African Denel Bateleur MALE UAV is being produced as the Saqr-1. There are also a number of indigenous UAV programmes, including the SkyGuard and the twin-engined Samoom.
A deal to licence-build the Chinese TB001 UCAV as the Al Eqab-1 and Al Eqab-2 seems to have been abandoned, and instead Saudi Arabia has signed an agreement with Turkey’s Baykar for the state-owned Saudi Arabia Military Industries (SAMI) to manufacture the twin-engined Akıncı, while Saudi firm Intra Defense Technologies’ ASEF-I UAV will be produced in Turkey by ESEN!
Following Morocco’s signing of the Abraham Accords, the US has approved the sale of four MQ-9B SeaGuardians to Morocco. These will be the first examples of this new generation UAV in the region.
With the widespread adoption of Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules transports, and with the sale of Boeing C-17 Globemaster IIIs to Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE, and the procurement of Airbus A330MRTT tankers by the UAE and Saudi Arabia, it is clear that airlift is not being neglected. Rotary wing recapitalisation has seen a plethora of orders for a variety of rotary wing types, from attack helicopters like the Boeing AH-64E Apache Guardian and Bell AH-1Z to transport helicopters including the Sikorsky S-70/UH-60 and Leonardo AW149, as well as the NH Industries NH90 and members of the Airbus Super Puma/Cougar/Caracal family.
The leading regional air arms are making similar progress in upgrading ISR capabilities, and the Middle East remains a crucial market for the latest platforms, weapons and capabilities.
by Jon Lake
