Yemeni Conflict: News #3

They didn't even know from where it comes .

In 2020 Aramco lost 45 % of it's profit .

Strange reported reasons for 2* Saudi Generals deaths recently. Can't see Saudis at that level being very energetic

It is said that Ibrahim bin Abdulaziz al-Moni’ was killed by Ansar Allah in a recent attack on Saudi coalition positions in Jeddah, but Saudi media reported that his cause of death was drowning on the shores of Jeddah.

Earlier, Maj. Gen. Ali bin Zafar al-Shahri, commander of King Abdullah Airbase in Riyadh, was killed after falling from a mountaineering exercise that the announcement of his death took place after the “Fifth Deterrence Balance” operation and other Ansar Allah attacks on Saudi coalition positions in Riyadh.

https://english.iswnews.com/17967/strange-deaths-in-saudi-military-officials/

Houtis shot down MQ-9 Reaper.

medo wrote:

Houtis shot down MQ-9 Reaper.

Two videos now that definitely look different so it looks like the second in a week. Bit tougher to down an F-15 or Tornado attacking them.

CENTCOM have said they have none missing so perhaps CIA.

They are saying that progress is slow in the Marib area due to the Saudis moving everyone they can into the area (no mention of the Turk supplied Syrians yet) plus they are negotiating with the local tribes to minimise damage.

Two points. First about this attempt by Ansar Allah to capture Marib. They say it has value at the negotiating table. It has oil. But the oil can be destroyed easily. And displacing two million people , will hardly win you friends at the negotiating table.

Second point. Why not drive south and cut east from west. Territory held by Alqaeeda. From the separatists? Deny any practical help given by one to the other? I never understood this drive to Marib. Also the Americans suggested a ceasefire. Rejected too quickly, I think. Why not allow for temporary lifting of blockade in exchange for ceasefire ? The permanent longterm solutions, may take longer.

Bad day for Saudi today

spriters
@neccamc1
·
39m
Air traffic has stopped at Jeddah airport so far, 4 Saudi planes coming from  Abha  Dammam  Madinah  Riyadh fail to land at Jeddah Airport and return to their listings

The Saudi Ministry of Energy admits that the petroleum products distribution station in Jizan was bombed and directly hit one of the station’s tanks.

The Yemeni army ironed the Jeddah and struck. Saudi claims to have intercepted 8 drones, and the reality is different, burning Saudia.

News of the sound of a violent explosion rocking the Saudi capital  Riyadh.

An official source in the Ministry of Energy condemns the attack on the petroleum products distribution station in Jizan with a projectile, and confirms that these sabotage acts target the security of energy supplies

spriters
@neccamc1
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27m
Saudi Urgent: Severe congestion at the petrol stations

We learned that the Houthis today targeted Najran, Jizan, and Khamis Mushait. Therefore, I appeal to His Excellency the Yemeni President, Mr. Abdul-Malik Al-Houthi, not to target the city of Wadi Al-Dawasir as well as the city of Al-Kharj. Thank you. (it is said by the Saudis)

22m
The petroleum products distribution station in Jizan is now burning

Status-6
@Archer83Able
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31m
Saudi Ministry of Energy says Houthi attack with "a projectile" caused fire in one of the terminal's tanks at the petroleum products distribution facility in Jizan.

The attack has reportedly caused no casualties.

JohninMK wrote:

medo wrote:

Houtis shot down MQ-9 Reaper.

Two videos now that definitely look different so it looks like the second in a week. Bit tougher to down an F-15 or Tornado attacking them.

CENTCOM have said they have none missing so perhaps CIA.

They are saying that progress is slow in the Marib area due to the Saudis moving everyone they can into the area (no mention of the Turk supplied Syrians yet) plus they are negotiating with the local tribes to minimise damage.

Saudi MQ-9.

JohninMK wrote:

medo wrote:

Houtis shot down MQ-9 Reaper.

Two videos now that definitely look different so it looks like the second in a week. Bit tougher to down an F-15 or Tornado attacking them.

CENTCOM have said they have none missing so perhaps CIA.

They are saying that progress is slow in the Marib area due to the Saudis moving everyone they can into the area (no mention of the Turk supplied Syrians yet) plus they are negotiating with the local tribes to minimise damage.

Saying the Turks are supplying 'Syrians' is the definition of cognitive dissonance.

medo wrote:

Saudi MQ-9.

I thought that the US had not exported any to Saudi yet.

It gets worse

Flag of Palestinian Territories
Ali

@allushiii_new
·
4h
The Yemeni Armed Forces struck Aramco in Ras Al-Tanura, Yanbu, Rabegh, and Jizan. Also attacked King Abdul Aziz’s base in Al-Dammam.
Several military and vital targets were also struck in Aseer and Najran.

I total, 18 drones and 8 ballistic missiles were used in the operation.

Yahya Sare'e
@Yahya_Saree
·
1h
Aramco's facility in Ras al-Tanura, Rabag, Yanbu, Jizan and King Abdulaziz Base in Dammam were targeted by 12 sammad3 drone and eight ballistic missiles type Zulfiqar, Badr, and Sa'ir. Other military positions in Najran and Assir were targeted by six Qasef 2K-type drones.The operations successfully achieved its objectives.

These are 1000km through enemy airspace. Iran sends a clear message towards every possible enemy.

Mig-31BM2 Super Irbis-E wrote:These are 1000km through enemy airspace. Iran sends a clear message towards every possible enemy.

Creating a big problem for US SAM manufacturers and a really good reason for those buying S-400 systems threatened with CAATSA by the US Government to tell them to get on their bike because the US systems are not working in Saudi.

PapaDragon wrote:
Our guys had only ~200km to work with and were getting results

Saudis can't do squat with 1000km of empty space

Not just the Saudis. You can bet that many systems are US operated, trying to improve performance.

This article claims "cutting-edge" Patriots are doing a good job in Saudi:

Houthis are using mostly old weapons systems, but modern innovations which exploit the proliferation of modern satellite navigation, have made them more dangerous.
The most headline-grabbing, and most frequently deployed, have been explosive drones, sometimes called “kamikaze drones”.
The Qasef-2K, a propeller-driven aircraft, is slow moving but has a long range. It is based on the Iranian Ababil drone and built from foreign parts used on commercial drones, plus parts that have been reserve engineered.
It is originally thought to have been developed as a target drone for training air defence crews, at some point in the late 1980s or early 1990s.
More dangerous, arguably, are Iran-supplied ballistic missiles, as they carry large explosive warheads.
Burkan-2 missiles, which a UN panel of experts concluded in 2018 were made by Iran, have been smuggled into Yemen in pieces and then re-assembled for use, according to analysis by US-based defence expert Michael Knights.
The Burkan-2 shares its origins with the Iranian Qiam short-range ballistic missile.
“Some are based on foreign designs with Iranian modifications, like the Qiam/Burkan-2,” Fabian Hinz, a specialist in Iranian drones and missile systems, told The National.
“Others are Iranian designs but use foreign components.”
The Burkan traces its history back to Iran's efforts to reverse engineer Soviet-era Scud missiles, which threatened much of the region during Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1991.
It is these weapons – fast moving missiles with a high-altitude trajectory – which have been the focus of US missile defence efforts for years.
Washington has allocated tens of billions of dollars to missile defence to combat these threats.
So why are small drones and copies of Iranian cruise missiles, such as the Houthi Quds-2, still a threat?
The simple reason is that research and development of countermeasures, like the Patriot missile, were not designed to destroy them.
This is because when the Patriot was developed in the 1980s, the US assumed that small rival states or militias would never have access to cruise missiles or drones.
Focus was kept on intercepting high-altitude, fast-moving missiles like the Scud, 80 of which were fired by Iraq at Kuwait and Saudi Arabia during the First Gulf War.
As Scuds could travel at two kilometres a second, Patriots struggled to intercept them, though it was not impossible.
Since then, a lot has changed.

Enter the PAC-3 Patriot

To deal with smaller threats, the Americans designed a smaller and cheaper upgrade to the Patriot, a more flexible system known as the Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC-3).
Capable of targeting ballistic missiles or smaller drones, they have the capability to fly at 5,000 kilometres an hour. But more importantly, their computer targeting systems have been trained to recognise much lower and smaller targets.
Advances in computing power and radar technology since the First Gulf War have had a huge impact.
US geopolitical risk consultancy Gulf State Analytics estimates Saudi Arabia has shot down more than 300 ballistic missiles and more than 340 Houthi drones using Patriot PAC-3 missiles.

Evolving air defences
“The Patriot system was originally designed for ballistic missiles, but it's having to adapt to a target it wasn't originally designed for,” said David, an analyst at open-source analysis company Aurora Intel, who only gave his first name.
“Why are they improving? Because of the increase of usage. You can't be expecting it to just work. These things evolve, computer algorithms change, radars improve, equipment is updated and upgraded,” he said.
This evolution, combined with cheaper air defence options, like the US Hawk system which Saudi Arabia has also deployed, is bad news for the Houthis, especially as efforts progress to reduce the cost of air defence.

Next generation drone defence
David says this evolution process will continue and in future, it is possible that drones like the Qasef-2K will be easily downed by defence systems that fill the gap left by a focus on intercepting ballistic missiles.
“We are seeing that adaption happening. If you look at Israel, with Iron Dome [Israel's mobile air defence system], they have taken what is ultimately a C-RAM, made it ‘smarter’ and now they have a newer version being deployed which can now go against cruise issiles and UAVs [drones], simultaneously” he said.
C-RAM is an acronym for the US Counter-Rocket, Artillery and Mortar system, which fires 4,500 rounds a minute to destroy incoming weapons, once they are detected by infrared sensors.
Newer systems currently in development, such as the US Lower-Tier Air and Missile Defence Sensor (LTAMDS) radar-based system, are being prioritised to counter a range of threats, from small drones to missiles.
Until they enter service, Saudi Arabia will remain on the front line of a new type of proxy warfare – and observers will be watching and learning.


Sorry guys for the wall of text, I still can't post links.
This article can be found on thenationalnews.com

Good article anyway. Both Patriot and THAAD failed in KSA greatly trying to intercept Houti ballistic missiles, which hit rafineries. Drones and cruise missiles are also big problem for KSA. They fly very easily through Saudi airspace and they have no ECM support.

I would also like to expose a big fail for super expensive, most modern French crap SAM with the name Mica-VL. KSA have them for some years now and they have operational crews for them. I don't think they have them in garages, when Houti drones regularly strike Saudi oil instalations. They are for sure on their combat positions, but for now no results...

A few years ago, I did say that Yemen could justifiably retaliate against Saudi economic interests. To stop the war. Yemen did not yet have BM. I thought that any sane Saudi, would see no benefit in prolonging the war afterwards.

They should have by now, learnt their lesson. Since facilities have been already hit a few times. That is if they had the Arab people's national interest at heart. But then, they would not even fight the Ansar Allah, to prolong a sectarian war in Yemen that could spread even in Saudi Arabia.

This tells me that they take orders from outsiders. The Zionists or Americans. Who benefit by setting the region on fire. But is there an alternative?  The Houthi can not remain a passive target either.

I think that if different sides in Yemen did not fight in the first place, then outside powers can not intervene. Did the Ansar Allah made any efforts to talk with other Yemen sides recently ?

kvs wrote:

1) The Saudi oil is obtained by the west for free.   All the money spent on it gets reinvested back into the west
and the GDP does not care.

The US might get the oil, and much else, for free as it 'prints' $ out of thin air at almost zero cost.

But the rest of us have to buy US$ so that we can use them to buy said oil. As the US can create those $ for free as well and gets foreign currency in return that it can then spend to buy more products at zero cost to themselves.

Have the World's reserve currency is a licence to get goods for free.

From that article you would think Saudi Arabia is fine and protected from drones and cruise missiles.

The reality is that Patriot comes in two forms... two very very expensive forms... PAC-2 for normal aircraft, including low flying targets and high flying targets, and PAC-3 for very high speed ballistic targets.

The PAC-3 is more expensive than PAC-2 and PAC-2 is very expensive... neither one would be sensible for use against drones let alone cruise missiles simply because it would be like ploughing a field using a 20 million dollar Rolls Royce.

Even printing your own free money doesn't make it affordable... and if you think the solution is C RAM...

a 20mm gatling gun blasing away 20mm cannon shells at 4,500rpm over a radius of 3-4km is probably going to do more damage than the drones can.

Even the 12.7mm DU rounds that penetrate the drones completely will be dangerous to any targets anywhere near the gun mount... the vast majority that miss will have even more range and energy to do damage to anything they hit... do you really want that in your oil refinery.

A human asset can plot the locations of all the gun mounts and all the hardware being defended... it actually might be worth sending drones between the gun mounts and important stuff and try to get the guns to fire and damage the refinery... if the drone can get between the refinery and the gun mount it could fly towards the gun mount and blow it up. The only way the gun could defend itself is open fire and do serious damage to the equipment and buildings it is supposed to be defending...

How far are these guns or patriot batteirs located from the oil facilty?
Your last scenario seems unlikely, the drones would have to get past the guns, I mean it can happen for sure but it seems to me a bit optimistic (for the attackers).

@KVS


"........Saudia Arabia is being used to counteract Iran on many fronts........". Yes agree. But like Syria , outside powers to the Yemen conflict will all follow the same agenda to different degrees. It is only the Yemen people, like Syrian people, who can truly unite their country.

To unite Yemen, then all parties to the conflict must negotiate and compromise. Including the Ansar Allah. I remember that Hadi supporters objected to the changing of laws into Islamic laws, as demanded by Houthis. They wanted a secular constitution.

I am saying that if a compromise constitution can not be agreed upon, then no side should try to impose their will on others by military force. A different Federal arrangement, allowing for regional autonomy is a better solution and alternative to the present conflict.

Yemen was divided before along tribal lines, reflecting in different " socialist" ( tribal) perspectives. The roots may go back thousands of years. The Federal Republic will allow for a weaker national government. But it is better than having no government and war.

mavaff wrote:How far are these guns or patriot batteirs located from the oil facilty?
Your last scenario seems unlikely, the drones would have to get past the guns, I mean it can happen for sure but it seems to me a bit optimistic (for the attackers).

Shorter the range, closer to the defending object.

How far are these guns or patriot batteirs located from the oil facilty?
Your last scenario seems unlikely, the drones would have to get past the guns, I mean it can happen for sure but it seems to me a bit optimistic (for the attackers).

Well honestly to be flippant... they already planned lines of attack that bypassed the existing defences which already included guns... which means they knew the fields of view of the existing systems and their effective range and altitude of detection.

The circles showing effective range of the guns in that map above does not take into account the target type... clearly their detection range of small quiet targets is much shorter than that.

The range the ammo the guns fire where it is dangerous to is another matter.

For a normal target like a jet or a helicopter a 2-3km range for C-RAM is being generous, but a very small target like a drone or cruise missile the target is tiny... for Phalanx its effective range is given as 1.8km with DU rounds, because it fire DU penetrators that are about 12.7mm calibre... if you miss then you do no damage to the target.

Compared with a 30mm cal round with air burst system it is not very effective against small targets.

Against an air plane or helicopter then a nice s pread of 20mm or 30mm cannon shells is a good thing and a 50-100 round burst gives a good chance of enough solid hits to bring the target down most of the time.

With drones and cruise missiles the target is so much smaller the rounds could blow past it and miss it completely.

With air burst rounds even a miss can get a kill because drones and missiles, while they are small, they are also generally pretty fragile too so a spray of fragments can normally break them.

Conversely if it is an attack helo like a Mi-28NM then you don't want airburst rounds and the tiny high velocity fragments don't have the mass or range to penetrate its armour.

Like I said, the people who planned these attacks had detailed information about the air defence weapons and the sensors being used for the defence system so they were to plot paths for drones and cruise missiles to evade detection and hit the target.

Especially with a drone they could have programmed it to fly to a point between the target and an air defence gun weapon and then turn and fly towards the gun weaving from side to side... perhaps even turning on a navigation light ...the only real problem with that would be that the gun battery probably wont be looking at the oil equipment they are supposed to be defending... perhaps a better plan would be to turn on the navigation lights in a position between two air defence gun positions and hope they open fire and therefore end up shooting at each other... it could head towards one and if they don't notice at least one gun can be taken out with a suicide drone.

The Houtis are still applying pressure but it looks like positive progress at last. Especially if the Saudis are pulling out the sensitive stuff.

spriters
@neccamc1
·
2h
Saudi Arabia

Another attack by the Yemeni on the city of Jeddah took place tonight.

22m
The end of the political negotiation in Muscat
Military negotiations began in Marib and Riyadh

21m
Marib
Military transport trucks accompanied by 10 military vehicles that pulled 5 vehicles designated for military communications, eavesdropping and electronic warfare, from the city of Ma'rib, towards the Al-Wadiah border crossing with the Saudi Kingdom.