Yemeni Conflict: News #3

Isos wrote:

crod wrote:How in the name of Christ do they honestly stand there and talk about being stronger than Iran. The latter would slaughter them in a conflict and doing so by proxy.

Houtis are a guerilla, people with AKs in the desert. A bomb from a f-15 won't damage them because there is ONLY people wide spread accross the country to target.

Iran is a country. Iran has lots of valuable targets for saudis and UAE like its nuclear facilities, fuel storage, weapon storage. One bomb from f15 will make huge damage if it falls on one of those targets.

US aren't doing better in afghanistan against talibans but destroying the iraqi army and economy was a matter of days.

You are confusing conventional war with astmetric war.

BS. This battle is a clear classical warfare. Block, encircle and destroy. All by the book. Houtis do this perfectly. On the other hand we have epical total incompetence of Saudi officers. They send whole brigade if not even bigger unit without protection on flanks, without securing high points on the hills, when the main unit is driving on the road in the gorge and without air support. Flying an F-15 to drop some bombs when they all surrender is not a support. Air force should fly in front of the unit to control the area, to bomb enemy units on the hills and if the unit is encircled, they should bomb out the exit route and cover unit, when exiting. Is air defense of Houties really such fear for Saudi pilots? Even few old MiGs of marshal Haftar in Libya provide better air protection to his units, than whole Saudi air force.  This is epic failure.

nomadski wrote:It looks like Saudi ground troops have lost all morale. They obviously feel much safer in Yemen as POW than facing and fighting them.

I think you won't have much better morale if you are leaded by a total idiot. No one wants to die for an idiot.

magnumcromagnon wrote:

From this video it is clear, that non stealth cruise missiles attack their targetas from higher altitude and are not flying low to attack from horizontal flypath. This is even bigger embarasment for US and KSA air forces, EW radars and air defenses, that they didn't detect them. They are really easy targets for Skyguard and Crotale batteries around rafinery.

LNA MiG-23 is circling around LNA column and giving air protection. This is exactly the job, which Saudi air force didn't do. They could only bomb schools, hospitals, weddings, funerals, etc.

kvs wrote:Thanks for the pictures.  How convenient of the USA to provide them so quickly and with such high resolution.   Recall the harvesters in the Donbass being passed off as
Russian artillery pieces several years ago using grainy US "spy photographs".   The chorus of Iran did it coming from the USA and its minions is grotesque.

To me it looks like most of the damage is to storage tanks.   Some cracking towers got hit, but this is not a 5 month rebuild project as it currently stands.

Honestly the Houthis took responsibility, moreover they've had several successful ballistic missile strikes, but most importantly MBS was set to sell Aramco equity. MBS was desperately trying get Aramco to have a valuation $2 Trillion, before they were set to open IPO of Aramco. Aramco was already valued by (Western) analysts to have value $1 trillion, now after this event poor little MBS will not get his precious $2 trillion valuation, its more likely he'll get sub $1 trillion, and the risk involved in buying Aramco stock will likely have analysts having a bearish outlook out it's future.

medo wrote:

Isos wrote:

crod wrote:How in the name of Christ do they honestly stand there and talk about being stronger than Iran. The latter would slaughter them in a conflict and doing so by proxy.

Houtis are a guerilla, people with AKs in the desert. A bomb from a f-15 won't damage them because there is ONLY people wide spread accross the country to target.

Iran is a country. Iran has lots of valuable targets for saudis and UAE like its nuclear facilities, fuel storage, weapon storage. One bomb from f15 will make huge damage if it falls on one of those targets.

US aren't doing better in afghanistan against talibans but destroying the iraqi army and economy was a matter of days.

You are confusing conventional war with astmetric war.

BS. This battle is a clear classical warfare. Block, encircle and destroy. All by the book. Houtis do this perfectly. On the other hand we have epical total incompetence of Saudi officers. They send whole brigade if not even bigger unit without protection on flanks, without securing high points on the hills, when the main unit is driving on the road in the gorge and without air support. Flying an F-15 to drop some bombs when they all surrender is not a support. Air force should fly in front of the unit to control the area, to bomb enemy units on the hills and if the unit is encircled, they should bomb out the exit route and cover unit, when exiting. Is air defense of Houties really such fear for Saudi pilots? Even few old MiGs of marshal Haftar in Libya provide better air protection to his units, than whole Saudi air force.  This is epic failure.

nomadski wrote:It looks like Saudi ground troops have lost all morale. They obviously feel much safer in Yemen as POW than facing and fighting them.

I think you won't have much better morale if you are leaded by a total idiot. No one wants to die for an idiot.

Exactly, +1

medo wrote:

LNA MiG-23 is circling around LNA column and giving air protection. This is exactly the job, which Saudi air force didn't do. They could only bomb schools, hospitals, weddings, funerals, etc.

Truly unbelievable there was no support. The incompetence of the ksa military hierarchy is astonishing.

The KSA doesn't care about the people it pays to be in its armed forces... you can bet if there were any members of the royal family in the armed forces they will be well away from any front line... or conversely right up in the cannon fodder ranks leading the suicide charges directly on the leaders orders.

It sort of reminds me of medieval kingdoms who also practiced widespread use of foreign mercenaries

Saudies used to be a skilled leaders of their army and that was than and now they seem to just throw everything as they buy into combat with only hope in their mind that it will succeed. If you look at history every Army without proper leadership or preparation achieved successfully only its destruction and now seeing a Saudi Army as a paper tiger on its knees will rightfully only embolden Huti Army for a more daring attack who will I think is a matter of time start to waiver.

Cyberspec wrote:It sort of reminds me of medieval kingdoms who also practiced widespread use of foreign mercenaries

Saudi Arabia is medieval kingdom.

medo wrote:

Cyberspec wrote:It sort of reminds me of medieval kingdoms who also practiced widespread use of foreign mercenaries

Saudi Arabia is medieval kingdom.

It's more accurate to call them a Bronze Age Tyranny.

magnumcromagnon wrote:

kvs wrote:Thanks for the pictures.  How convenient of the USA to provide them so quickly and with such high resolution.   Recall the harvesters in the Donbass being passed off as
Russian artillery pieces several years ago using grainy US "spy photographs".   The chorus of Iran did it coming from the USA and its minions is grotesque.

To me it looks like most of the damage is to storage tanks.   Some cracking towers got hit, but this is not a 5 month rebuild project as it currently stands.

Honestly the Houthis took responsibility, moreover they've had several successful ballistic missile strikes, but most importantly MBS was set to sell Aramco equity. MBS was desperately trying get Aramco to have a valuation $2 Trillion, before they were set to open IPO of Aramco. Aramco was already valued by (Western) analysts to have value $1 trillion, now after this event poor little MBS will not get his precious $2 trillion valuation, its more likely he'll get sub $1 trillion, and the risk involved in buying Aramco stock will likely have analysts having a bearish outlook out it's future.

Fitch downgrades the Saudi's, now it's time to say goodbye to MBS and his dream of a $2 trillion valuation of Aramco! 

Fitch Downgrades Saudi Arabia’s on Rising Geopolitical Risk

The Saudi's put the Vassal in Vaseline.

To continue what I was saying, the real damage caused by the Houthis has yet to reveal itself:

The media reported on the next postponement of the IPO Saudi Aramco

The company wants to first provide investors with a report for the III quarter, sources say

Moscow. October 18th. INTERFAX.RU - Saudi state-owned oil company Saudi Aramco has postponed an announcement on an initial public offering, the Financial Times reported citing three sources. One of them said that the IPO was postponed, but not canceled, and the second, that we are talking about a delay of several weeks. Earlier it was assumed that the IPO will be announced on October 20.
The company wants to give investors a clear idea of ​​its financial situation after the September drone attacks on its oil facilities, which temporarily reduced its production, says a third FT source. She waits, when it will be ready to report for the III quarter, which accounted for the attack, and hopes that the good financial performance will strengthen the confidence of investors, say two sources CNBC and sides The Wall Street Journal
IPO is delayed until December or January, writes WSJ.

The meeting with investors on September 30 raised questions for the management of the company, sources in this publication say. According to them, Aramco CEO Khalid al-Dabbah did not present at this meeting the standard data that is usually provided to investors, including not explaining how the company determines its value and did not clarify the company's relationship with the Saudi government.
On October 17, Aramco announced that it was continuing preparations for an IPO and would launch it when market conditions allowed it and when shareholders wanted it.
Earlier it was reported that the announcement of the IPO Saudi Aramco could be made on October 20, October 27 - the placement prospectus was published, the road show could begin on November 3. The company intends to place about 2% of the shares at a price based on which Aramco will be fully valued at $ 2 trillion.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud first announced the possibility of placing a stake in Saudi Aramco in January 2016. He planned to use the funds received from the light for economic reform. After two years of preparation, the process was frozen in August 2018. Preparations for the IPO resumed in the summer of 2019.

https://www.interfax.ru/business/680839

The brilliance of the strike by the Houthis is the relevant timing of the strike (literally and figuratively). They must have known what MBS had planning for Aramco. The real damage caused by the Houthis is that they damaged the credibility and the time table of Aramco's IPO. MBS was trying to get a $2 trillion IPO for Aramco (was already valued by Wallstreet to have a value of $1 trillion), and the flip-flops played spoiler and effectively killed any chance for Aramco to get it's mythical $2 trillion IPO! 

Under shroud of secrecy US weapons arrive in Yemen despite Congressional outrage
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/05/middleeast/yemen-saudi-us-arms-footage-intl/index.html

Houtis shot down Saudi AH-64.

Russian made air defense systems were Quite busy in the last week. In Yemen Houtis shot down on Saudi coalition drone and today an AH-64.

http://en.ypagency.net/143299/

NAJRAN, Nov. 21 (YPA) – The Yemeni army’s air defenses on Thursday downed a reconnaissance aircraft belonging to Saudi-led coalition in Sauh area off Najran region.

“The reconnaissance plane was shot down with an appropriate weapon while conducting hostile actions in the border areas,” the army’s spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Sarie said in a statement.

In Libya LNA this week shot down 1 italian and 1 US MQ-9 reaper drones with Pantsir from UAE.

https://theaviationist.com/2019/11/20/italian-air-force-mq-9a-predator-b-drone-crashes-in-libya-images-surface-on-social-media/

Images showing the wreckage of an Italian Air Force Predator drone have started circulating on the social media networks in the afternoon on Nov. 20.

While showing an Italian Air Force drone, the photographs don’t show an MQ-1 as some sources have reported: they actually show what remains of an MQ-9A Predator B, operated by the 32° Stormo (Wing) of the Aeronautica Militare (Italian Air Force), based at Amendola Air Base, in southeastern Italy.

https://www.stripes.com/news/africa/us-military-loses-drone-over-libyan-capital-1.608381

CAIRO — The U.S. military said Friday that it lost an unmanned drone aircraft over the Libyan capital, Tripoli, where rival armed groups have been fighting for control of the city for months.

The U.S. Africa Command said the drone was lost Thursday while assessing the security situation and monitoring extremist activity.

https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2019/11/25/world/middleeast/ap-ml-libya-us.html

CAIRO — Libyan forces trying to seize Tripoli shot down a U.S. military drone over the capital by mistake last week, officials said Monday.

The U.S. military said it lost the drone Thursday while it was assessing the security situation and monitoring extremist activity. U.S. Africa Command declined to elaborate Monday, saying only that the incident was under investigation.

A senior official in the LNA’s general command said they mistook the U.S. drone for a Turkish-made drone used by the Tripoli-allied militias. The LNA also downed an Italian drone southeast of Tripoli in recent days.

And yesterday SAA shot down Turkish drone near Qamishli.

Not bad at all.

https://diana-mihailova.livejournal.com/4215767.html

Better video of shooting down Saudi AH-64. Unfortunately it is not seen well, which missile is used.

Longbow down...



Interesting that is shows some of the converted AAMs being used by the houtis to shoot down very modern very expensive Saudi aircraft...

Interesting they are just using a thermal camera for targeting... I suspect it is more than just a camera ball though.

This is going to be S.Arabia's "Vietnam"

Video from downed saudi Wing loong UCAV.

They don't need more. They use r-27T and r-73 so engagement zone is around 10km. A stupid thermal camera will see any helicopter or plane at such ranges. The camera doesn't participate in locking on the targets only as early warning/detection. The missile must be used just like manpads are (missile locking on by itself).

Well most such IR guided missiles are generally pointed at the target and then activated to get a lock so I suppose they could do the same here... though the R-27T and R-73 have much wider field of view than older IR guided missiles... they tend to use active cueing systems like helmet mounted sights and radar and IRST systems to point the seeker directly at the target being tracked so lock up time is very very fast normally. In this case they might just let it scan its full field of view and when the seeker in the nose is pointing at the same thing the IR camera is pointing and the system indicates a lock they can launch...

Ironically a wide field of view counts against the system really in this situation... but it was not designed for this anyway.

Note the image of the Apache with its tail severed is the clear proof this was probably an R-27T as they often have an expanding rod type warhead... think of a long narrow tube of HE and wrapped around it are metal rods a half a metre long... but chained together at the ends so the explosive blows them out at high speed and they cut fuselage and wing parts like a guillotine...

In an article a week ago he stated that Sudan didn't have anymore that 25k soldiers in Yemen. And that military means won't solve the Yemen conflict. They should never be there in the first place. Saudi Arabia promising investment and backhanders to Sudan is the reason
They are there. I guess with their death toll mounting upthey are looking to tip toe backwards out of this mess


The Sudanese Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdouk said that Sudan has approximately 5,000 soldiers in Yemen, noting that their number in the past was around 15,000.

https://mobile.almasdarnews.com/article/sudan-reduces-military-presence-in-yemen-by-10000-report/

Iran and Houthis sign first military cooperation agreement?

https://mobile.almasdarnews.com/article/breaking-iran-and-houthis-sign-first-military-cooperation-agreement/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook