Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Saudi Arabia Parades its Ballistic Missiles

Example of Chinese DF-3/fas.org
For the first time ever the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has publicly displayed its Chinese-made DF-3 (Dong Feng-3) missiles in a parade attended by dignitaries from Bahrain, Kuwait and the UAE – all of course fellow Gulf Cooperation Council member states.

The missiles were paraded at the end of the Saudi kingdoms largest military exercise -- the 'Saif Abdullah'.

It was in March 1988 China provided Saudi Arabia DF-3's with conventional warheads. Guesstimates about how many of these missiles the Saudis have range from 30 to 120.

The missile accuracy is very poor and it is of course very antiquated. They have been around since the early 1970's and are the oldest IRBM's China has in its arsenal.

 

Last July satellite images revealed a surface-to-surface missile base located in the Saudi desert – 200km west-southwest of Riyadh – with launch pads pointing these DF-3 missiles, which have a range of approximately 2500km, at Tel Aviv and Tehran respectively. 

***

On the topic of Saudi-Iran relations Arash Karami at Al-Monitor last week wrote up an analysis about the controversy stirred among hard-liners in Iran over a warm meeting between Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani and the new Saudi appointed ambassador to Iran, Abdulrahman Bin Groman Shahri. Throughout the course of the meeting Mr. Rafsanjani made clear his desire to see a reduction in the tensions between the two nations stressing that, "If the two countries are harmonized on regional issues and the Islamic world, seditionists will not be able to induce differences between Muslims."

17 comments:

Piruz Mollazadeh said...

Ohhh IRGC must be shitting on their selves as we speak :)

Seriously? They're "showing off" the most antiquated missiles ever that where nothing but a test-bed for future Chinese missile technology? Who are they trying to scare? Qatar perhaps? Please tell me it's not a bigger country they're sending the message to?

I must say the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been displaying some rather pointless theatrics over the past year, both diplomatic and military.

If I had such missile and was preparing for a military show, I'd do all I can to CONCEAL them from the media :)

Mark Pyruz said...

Interesting perspective on KSA SSMs by "Stein" at ACW, click HERE.

Anonymous said...

Considering the huge sums that the saudis supposedly payed for these missiles back in the 80s,its about time they got some use out of them even if its just as parade floats

Anonymous said...

Very interesting that they openly declare "these missiles can carry deadly poison..." and no one is actually protest against this statement. This is a clear indication of chemical warfare capability and the UN should ask Saudi Arabia to declare its possession and let inspectors into the country to verify and validate the situation. Saudi missiles with chemical warheads is a clear threat against Iran and Israel, no doubt who the target will be.

Anonymous said...

Good to see you back Paul! Getting tired of that Mark Pyruz quoting 19th Century American analogy to justify the wrongdoings by the administration in Iran.

Anonymous said...

seconded

B.M.A said...

which UN are talking about?-the one sitting in the US or the other real UN which HUMANITY is yearning for?

Anonymous said...

Once again these missiles are as usless as the ones the Islamic regime posses.To be of any use only a nuclear warhead would do. Ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads are two peas in a pod.

Anonymous said...

yes, that mythical occluded UN.... the one where folks say it's good and just to strangle to death people who commit homosexual acts, where it's good and just to have women 's testimony to be worth half that of men, where it's good and just to take a Nobel Prize laureate and oppress her for not supporting the tyranny of a theocratic and third-rate regime, the one where it's good and just to have nations use Islam to justify religious persecution and bigotry and denounce all others.

yes, let us all demand a UN where all the heroes are space monkeys and Ayatollahs who send children into minefields and call for the murder of authors.

Anonymous said...

AnonymousMay 2, 2014 at 11:40 AM
No,just a un thats truly representative rather than the one where the permanent members of the security council have all the power,of course what your malcontented rant has to do with this or the un or saudi missiles,which was the original point of this thread,escapes me

Anonymous said...

Anon 11:40 AM

You took it straight out of my mouth :o)

Anonymous said...

AnonymousMay 2, 2014 at 10:26 AM
You`re quite wrong,it comes down to the numbers of missiles and their accuracy,for instance irans arsenal is far larger and more accurate than the saudis,also most of the targets in the gulf are within range of irans short ranged missiles like the fateh 110 which iran has literally hundreds of.Its like saying that cruise missiles are only good for carrying nuclear warheads but as we have seen they work very well with conventional warheads,the same is true for ballistic missiles

Anonymous said...

10:25 PM

Ballistic missile in itself is a terribly inaccurate and outdated weapon (need a hint? the mightiest military power on earth isn't using it = the USA), but the Shitlamic repulic has no problem tricking you into believing that it's state-of-the-art weaponry that can be mounted on a limited number of platforms (trucks) that can easily be detected by Allied forces seconds after launch! You might as well have a 1000 missiles...but the fact remains... only a limited number can be readied to be fired at any given time! You dont think the Allies will just wait and let the thugs in Tehran expend their stocks of ballistic missiles over the course of what could be a few years? They will set in motion a thouroughly rehearsed plan of hunt and destroy as soon as the first ballistic missiles is fired. Bottomline is... don't hope for any wet dream of swarming Islamofascist salvos!

Basrawy (former IQAF pilot) said...

They have a highly technological air force, making these inferior missiles redundant. Saudi Arabia has no need for these missiles, anything these old missiles are capable of, their air force assets can do a hundred times better. Sole reason for not phasing them out of service and flaunting them on the parade ground is to catch the eyes of the person living next door, so as to say, we got this type of weaponry too.

Anonymous said...

AnonymousMay 2, 2014 at 11:57 PM
There are so many errors in your post I scarcely know where to begin,first up the us does use ballistic missiles,the mlrs based ATACMS,also the russians and the chinese use large numbers of conventionally armed ballistic missile systems.How else should iran transport its missiles? hovercraft?,using truck/trailer based tels is smart and cheap and allows the iranian missile forces to have literally dozens of launchers and for the short ranged weapons like fateh 110 the number of tels would be even greater as these are based around much lighter vehicles.The iranians depending on the type of missiles can launch salvos ranging from tens to hundreds of missiles,as for hunting them down that would prove rather difficult as iran is a big country and in the event of war the us/coalition bases in the gulf will likely be put out of action very quickly by those same missile forces,what remains will be carrier based aircraft operating several hundred kilometers off irans coast,one only has to look at how unsuccessful the attempts to find saddams scuds were and that was with aircraft operating from gulf bases,and lastly if the israelis/gulf arabs/us forces were so confident in their abilities to destroy irans missile forces why on earth have they spent billions on missile defence?.The only person who appears to be having "wet dreams" here is yourself,in future you might want to spend less time dreaming,wet or otherwise,and more time doing some basic homework that way you wont produce such laughable posts

B.M.A said...

anon shitlamic republic - may 2 20014 at 11:57 pm

"the mightiest military on earth [USA] isnt using it..........-
@ what makes you believe that the US is the mightiest military in the world? -
@ open a you tube video on US war crimes in Falluja and see how a mighty ,all powerful war machine can do to defenseless people !.

Anonymous said...

I guess you're right,Nigeria is the mightiest military on earth,lol !