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The Saudi facility had air defenses, but they are old and their radar has only about a 20 km range.

Likely the drones came in first and attacked the defense radar with the cruise missile swarm arriving a few minutes later.

Something odd here, the Ya Ali has been thought unable to launch from the ground. To get the range, the weak, but fuel efficient turbo-fan engines require an air launch......

“The Saudi facility had air defenses, but they are old and their radar has only about a 20 km range.

Likely the drones came in first and attacked the defense radar with the cruise missile swarm arriving a few minutes later.

Something odd here, the Ya Ali has been thought unable to launch from the ground. To get the range, the weak, but fuel efficient turbo-fan engines require an air launch......”

With the exception of a (very) few of their F-15 pilots, the Saudis can’t fight their way out of a paper bag. I know, because we had them with us during both Desert Shield and Desert Storm. “Pathetic” is about the kindest thing I can say about their abilities. And from everything I’ve seen since (sometimes, fairly up close and personal), they haven’t gotten any better in the intervening years.

All that high-speed, low-drag military equipment they buy from us and other nations in the West is more like the fancy baubles they buy the girlfriends they have secreted away in Paris, or like the Lykan Hypersport exotic cars they collect by the dozen. None of it is of very much use to them, as they don’t have the first idea how to use any of it, nor do they have an inkling on how to close with the enemy and destroy him. Saw it over and over again.

Nope, it would be us — yet again — who’d do the fighting for them. Because they suck at it.

“The Saudi facility had air defenses, but they are old and their radar has only about a 20 km range.”

i really wondered about what that situation was ... one would think the SA would be smart enough and care enough to have the best air defenses in the world protecting their world’s largest refineries from nearly by hostile regimes ...

seems like the U.S., and maybe even Israel would be willing to sell them whatever they need (of course with embedded radio-actuated software self-destruct mechanisms in case they should “lose” any of it) ...