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Saudi Arabia's Naval Capabilities Will Balloon Thanks To Huge U.S. Arms Deal
Riyadh's naval forces increasingly need new and better warships to counter Iran and project power throughout the region.
BY JOSEPH TREVITHICK | MAY 19, 2017
Riyadh's naval forces increasingly need new and better warships to counter Iran and project power throughout the region.
BY JOSEPH TREVITHICK | MAY 19, 2017
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...abilities-will-balloon-thanks-to-us-arms-dealU.S. President Donald Trump will unveil the largest single American weapons sale to Saudi Arabia to date during his trip to the kingdom, which began on May 19, 2017.
The deal will include weapons and equipment for the Royal Saudi air and land forces, which have been critical in Riyadh’s intervention in Yemen, as well as ballistic missile defense systems essential to for the country to counter Iran's missile forces during a conflict.
However, it may be new support for the relatively small Royal Saudi Navy that speaks more to the country’s desire to project even greater power in the Middle East and beyond.
On May 18, 2017, The New York Timespublished an insider’s look into how White House advisor Jared Kushner, who is also Trump’s son-in-law, had been actively involved in the arms sales, which many expect will be worth between $100 and $110 billion in immediate deals and up to $350 billion in total over the next decade. In particular, Kushner had personally intervened, as is the style of the Trump administration, to get the Saudis a discount on components of the Terminal High Altitude Air Defense (THAAD) system – the same weapon the United States had very publicly deployed to South Korea earlier in 2017.
Also on May 18, 2017, Bloombergconfirmed that the Pentagon and their Saudi counterparts would finalize a $6 billion deal with Lockheed Martin for four modified versions of the company's Freedom-variant Littoral Combat Ship – six percent of the total U.S. arms package. The rest of the deal will include thousands of precision guided munitions, 50 CH-47 cargo helicopters, 60 smaller UH-60 transport choppers, 115 M1A2S Abrams tanks, among other items.
But buried among the palace intrigue and talk of advanced aircraft, precision guided munitions, and anti-ballistic missile defenses, was mention of unspecified “maritime assets” that the Saudi Arabia hoped to acquire from the United States. This would mean “ships” the authors explained, “so the Saudis can assume more of the burden of policing the Persian Gulf and Red Sea against Iranian aggression.”
The warships are the center-piece of the American-funded Saudi Naval Enhancement Program II (SNEP II), which began in 2008. The United States, and the U.S. Navy in particular, supported supported the first SNEP in the 1980s, where the Saudi Arabia purchased a large fleet of modern naval vessels, ranging from frigates to small patrol boats, from the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and other countries. After this modernization project, Riyadh boasted the largest and best equipped naval force in the Persian Gulf region.
The Al Makkah, one of Saudi Arabia's four Al Riyadh-class frigates.
These ships formed the core of the country’s naval forces more or less as they continued to exist three decades later. The Saudi Navy’s only addition since then was its purchase of four modified French La Fayette-class frigates, which it named the Al Riyadh class, in 2003. As of 2017, these nearly 15 year-old ships were the country’s most modern warships. These 4,650-ton vessels have launchers for Exocet anti-ship and Aster 15 surface-to-air missiles, along with four torpedo tubes, a helicopter and a 76mm main gun. The design has limited stealthy features to help make it less visible to enemy radars.
But what was state-of-the-art more than two decades ago is showing its age now. From the very beginning, SNEP II called for four all-new “frigate-like” surface combatants, with a displacement of approximately 3,500 tons. These would replace an equal number of older French-supplied Al Madinah-class ships that the Saudi Navy had received under the original SNEP. This portion of the program also proved to be especially troublesome.
A standard Freedom-variant LCS
The initial requirements seemed relatively steep, with officials in Riyadh interested in a lightweight vessel that still had a radar and battle management capability similar to Lockheed Martin’s advanced Aegis system, including its powerful AN/SPY-1 passive electronically scanned array. In reality, “Aegis-like” really meant that it would have technology derived from that equipment.
Instead of the full-size SPY-1D radar, the new ships would have the SPY-1F variant specifically for frigates and corvettes, which had half the range of the standard unit. The COMBATSS-21, which included some components of the Aegis system, would link the radar to the ship’s other sensors and weapons.
Lockheed Martin produced both of these products. So, U.S. officials and company representatives proposed installing this equipment, along with a 16-cell Mk 41 vertical launch system (VLS), deck-mounted Harpoon anti-ship missile launchers, and SeaRAM close-defense systems, on a modified version of the firm’s Freedom-variant Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). The resulting warship became known as the Multi-Mission Surface Combatant (MMSC). In October 2015, the Saudis agreed to buy the ships. While at Foxtrot Alpha, The War Zone’s Tyler Rogoway wrote a deep dive into the precise capabilities of these planned ships.
The primary weapon for the ship's Mk 41 VLS would be RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles, "quad-packed" four to each of the 16 launch cells, for area air defense against both aircraft and cruise missiles. The latest version of the SM-2 was another potential option, which would offer even longer range, but less plentiful, anti-air and even anti-surface capabilities.
Unfortunately, according to a report by Defense News three months later, the Saudi Navy had become horrified at the expected price tag, which unnamed sources said was between $750 million and $1 billion per ship. In addition, Lockheed Martin told the Saudis it would take up to seven years to deliver the first example. By that point, SNEP had been running for nearly a decade and the officials in Riyadh had already moved ahead with a separate $1.9 billion deal to buy 10 MH-60R helicopters and associated weapons and equipment, another part of the SNEP II plan.
It seems impressive that the Saudis have been willing to pay even more in the end for the ships, suggesting they may come with new and improved capabilities over the original design proposal, or it could just be a symptom of the changing political winds in Washington.
The Saudi's purchase of the ships will be important for the U.S. Navy, since the they will likely fund development of a drastically upgraded LCS variant—one that includes area air defense capabilities—that many, including some members of Congress, have been pushing the Navy towards procuring instead of a far less capable "up gunned" Littoral Combat Ship concept. Sharing the burden with the Saudis in crafting the new configuration would not only offset development costs, but if the Navy were to also buy the ship, it would push the unit cost down overall.
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