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Saudi Arabia
Royal Saudi Land Forces
The army's strength of approximately 73,000 in 1992 was greater
than the other three services combined, and somewhat in excess
of the national guard's active complement. The principal combat
units were eight brigades: two armored, five mechanized, and one
airborne. There were five artillery battalions. A separate Royal
Guard Regiment consisted of three light infantry battalions. According
to Norman Friedman's Desert Victory: The War for Kuwait,
the Saudi land forces had deployed two armored brigades and two
mechanized brigades on the Kuwaiti border in December 1990 prior
to Operation Desert Storm. The disposition of the remaining ground
units included a mechanized brigade on the western Iraqi border,
a mechanized brigade on the Yemeni border, the Royal Guard Regiment
in Riyadh, and the airborne brigade in reserve. The location of
one mechanized brigade was not given.
Despite the addition of a number of units and increased mobility
achieved during the 1970s and 1980s, the army's personnel complement
has expanded only moderately since a major buildup was launched
in the late 1960s. The army has been chronically understrength,
in the case of some units by an estimated 30 to 50 percent. These
shortages have been aggravated by a relaxed policy that permitted
considerable absenteeism and by a serious problem of retaining
experienced technicians and noncommissioned officers (NCOs). The
continued existence of a separate national guard also limited
the pool of potential army recruits. Two months after the Persian
Gulf War, in April 1991, the government announced that a decision
had been taken to expand the ground forces sufficiently to provide
a more convincing deterrent against threats to the kingdom's borders.
Possibly 90,000 or more troops would be recruited during the 1990s
and organized into seven or eight divisions. With the expected
organization of a reserve force, the total number that could be
called upon in an emergency might reach 200,000. Foreign observers,
however, aware of past failures to meet personnel goals, doubted
that the limited manpower pool would permit a doubling of the
size of the army.
Smaller and less important than the national guard until the
1960s, the army began to modernize after Egyptian incursions onto
Saudi territory during the Yemeni civil war (1962-65). Radical
Arab nationalism and the emergence of Marxist movements in nearby
countries, as well as Israel's crushing defeat of Arab armies
in the June 1967 War also spurred efforts to build a credible
ground force. The surplus of revenues from oil exports provided
the means to spend lavishly on army facilities and advanced equipment.
The first Saudi armored brigade, designated the Fourth Armored
Brigade, was structured and trained along French lines. It was
equipped with 300 AMX-30 main battle tanks and 500 AMX-10P armored
infantry fighting vehicles, both French-made (see table 12, Appendix).
The other armored brigade, designated Eighth Armored Brigade,
was formed under United States guidance soon afterward in the
late 1970s. To equip this brigade, Saudi Arabia purchased M-60A3
main battle tanks and M-113 armored personnel carriers (APCs)
from the United States. In 1990 Saudi Arabia placed an order for
315 M1A2 Abrams, the most advanced United States tank; delivery
was scheduled for 1993. Each brigade consisted of three tank battalions,
a mechanized infantry battalion, and a support battalion. The
French-equipped armored brigade was stationed at Tabuk in the
northwest and the United States-equipped brigade at Khamis Mushayt
in the southwest.
The army's four mechanized brigades had been converted from infantry
brigades between the late 1970s and the mid-1980s and were equipped
with a variety of United States and French armored fighting vehicles.
Each brigade consisted of one tank battalion, three mechanized
infantry battalions, an artillery battalion, and a support battalion.
The infantry brigade consisted of three motorized battalions,
an artillery battalion, and a support battalion. The airborne
brigade consisted of two paratroop battalions and three special
forces companies. Field artillery battalions were equipped with
United States and French 155mm self-propelled howitzers and 105mm
and 155mm towed guns. The principal antitank weapons, many of
them mounted on armored vehicles, were the United States TOW,
the British Dragon, and the French HOT. Tactical air defense weapons
included self-propelled guns, the French Crotale surface-to-air
missile (SAM), and Stinger and Redeye shoulder-fired missiles.
The army used transport and medical evacuation helicopters but
had no assault helicopters.
The most visible unit of the army, because of its deployment
around Riyadh and wherever the king traveled in the country, was
the Royal Guard Regiment. The Royal Guard had been autonomous
until it was incorporated into the army in 1964; nevertheless,
it remained directly subordinate to the king and maintained its
own communications network. The mission of the regiment was protection
of the House of Saud. Detachments accompanied the king as well
as several other members of the Al Saud at all times. Mainly recruited
from the tribes of Najd, guardsmen were selected on the basis
of their loyalty to the king and the Al Saud. The regiment's equipment
included light weapons and armored vehicles.
The army's strength was normally concentrated at four large military
cities, built at great expense in the 1970s and 1980s with the
assistance of the United States Army Corps of Engineers. The first
of these cities was at Khamis Mushayt in the mountains of the
southwest, about 100 kilometers from the Yemeni border. The second
was at Tabuk, protecting the northwestern routes leading from
Jordan, Israel, and Syria. A third site, Assad Military City,
was at Al Kharj, about 100 kilometers southeast of Riyadh, where
the national armaments industry was also located.
The largest of the military cities, King Khalid, began functioning
in 1985 although construction continued throughout the 1980s.
Located near Hafar al Batin close to the border area facing Kuwait
and Iraq, King Khalid Military City was sited near the strategic
Trans-Arabian Pipeline (Tapline) road connecting Ad Dammam with
Jordan. It was a self-contained city of 65,000, both military
and civilian, built with a perimeter in the form of a huge octagon
within which were a series of concentric smaller octagons. Houses
and apartments for 6,500 families were provided, as well as numerous
schools and mosques, power plants, shopping arcades, theaters,
and clubs. Water was supplied by seventeen deep wells. Adjacent
to the main installation were a hospital, race course, maintenance
and supply areas, underground command bunkers, and antiaircraft
missile sites. The logistic and other base resources at King Khalid
Military City were indispensable to the allied buildup before
the sweep into Iraq during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. It was reported
that construction would begin in 1992 on a fifth military city
in the Empty Quarter, 550 kilometers south of Riyadh. The new
base would have a residential area to accommodate 20,000 people
and a large air base with hardened aircraft shelters. The existing
army base at Ash Sharawrah in the Empty Quarter was remote but
important because of its proximity to the Yemeni border.
The equipment of the land forces came from a variety of sources
but primarily from Western countries. However, in 1989 it was
revealed that Saudi Arabia had purchased the intermediate range
(2,600-kilometer) CSS-2 surface-to-surface missile (SSM) from
China. According to The Military Balance, published by
the International Institute for Strategic Studies, as of 1992
Saudi Arabia had a stock of thirty launchers and fifty missiles.
Of limited accuracy and reliability and with a payload of only
750 kilograms, the value of the SSMs was largely symbolic. Nevertheless,
disclosure of the secret transaction--Saudi Arabia's first major
acquisition of hardware from a communist country and a system
that could strike anywhere in the Middle East and beyond--created
an uproar in the United States. To placate Washington, King Fahd
provided written assurances that the missiles would not be armed
with chemical weapons, and Saudi Arabia later signed the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty to demonstrate that it had no intention
of acquiring nuclear warheads.
Data as of December 1992
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