Intel that supports war planning revolves around capabilities and intentions. When evaluating an adversary and you can no longer depend on intentions, all you have left is capabilities. This will be a problem for Israel when considering any outcome of the Egyptian mess.
Below is a snapshot of Egyptian military forces. It is an extremely broad generalisation. For example, the warship category covers frigates down to small boats that could be considered “warships” and doesn’t count a lot of other things that float.
Large portions of the hardware could be considered obsolete but it will still kill something; and there is a lot of it.
There is also a lot of U.S. hardware. Hawkeye airborne early warning aircraft, F-16C fighter aircraft, Apache attack helicopters, M-1 Abrams tanks, Patriot surface-to-air missiles, Hellfire anti-tank missiles, Harpoon anti-ship missiles, ex-U.S. Navy frigates and so on. Thankfully, no JDAMs altough a request was put in sometime back.
There are some interesting modified systems. For example, antique Romeo class subs that can fire encapsulated Harpoons.
And, think of all the ammo sitting around to feed this massive amount of weapons.
Hopefully it will never have to be used. But if the Egyptian government goes perminantly unreliable, Israel will be spending a lot of time updating operational plans that are in the intel vault; if they aren’t doing so already.
How will Egyptian troops and combat leadership perform in battle? Unknown; historically it has never been good.
Broad generalisation of Egyptian military capability
Tanks 3700
APCs 6700
Attack helicopters 50
Self-propelled artillery 900
Long-range battlefied rocket launchers 108
Multiple rocket artillery launchers 1100
Self-propelled mortars 180
Army personnel 450,000 (15 million fit for military service)
Ballistic missile launchers 60
Fighter aircraft 450
AEW 8
Medium and high altitude SAM batteries 140
Warships 70
Subs 4
Never? Ramses II might disagree with you there Eric!
I was thinking modern times but yeah. Maybe it was because Indiana Jones took the Arc away from them.
I know mate. Twas just a small jest!
Thanks for showing these numbers. Would it be possible to get a breakdown into modern (read US and post 1990s Russian and Chinese) weapons and Cold War era weapons? The Gulf Wars have demonstrated, if nothing else, that outdated and obsolete military equipment can be annihilated by a well trained and technologically superior force.
I have found it notable that the protesters and Al Jazeera have been extremely reluctant to question the Egyptian – Israeli peace treaty. I suspect that any new government will open the Gaza Strip border, but will be unlikely to overtly threaten Israel with conventional military action. However, if the new government wishes to show its popular leanings, and unite the country, a conventional show of force could happen.
Finally, back in the old days when conventional wars in the Middle East were a dime a dozen, they became proving grounds for modern weapons, see the anti-tank missile, which got its debut in 1973, and the mobile SAM (SA-6), also in 1973. If there is a return to conventional conflict, which would be very bad, perhaps the US could rush a squadron or two of F-35s (in about 2 – 3 years) to the Israelis to get some combat experience / see what happens. [That comment was partially tongue in cheek...]
The better question might be the degree to which the Egyptians depend on American technical support…and the readiness of the support crews to sabotage American-made hardware.
I’d be more worried about Egypt siding with China and Iran politically than what its military capability might be
and how much explosives, cell phones, rpg’s and Stingers Egypt has: this stuff requires no tech support, but smuggle them to insurgents and they can have a huge impact on today’s REAL wars. unlike a gold plated F-35
When I was in the service, I got to spend some time with 2 Egyptian service members that were training with us.I was surprised after all these years of a “peace” treaty with Israel how much they were convinced that they would go back to war against Israel.Maybe the top hierarchy doesn’t want war with Israel but if what those 2 service members told me was prevalent in the lower ranks and in general in the country, war will happen again. It is a strange peace with really no interaction between both countries, sort of a “cold war”.
TO ARKY:
Good points, nothing brings a country together like war. If Muslim Brotherhood or especially if a weak coalition govt. takes over, they will have to fortify and unite the country behind them. Also nothing like war to justify all kinds of bad stuff. One could argue that when Iraq invaded Iran, that helped the Islamic regime in Tehran.
I’ll stand behind Mike M. on the logistics. As we saw in Iraq, literally hundreds of vehicles sat in-depot for no other reason than that they hadn’t seen reliable maintenance in over 8 years (this despite what we were told was happening with oil for food and supposed S2A threats to aircraft in the two NFZs that required a mini air campaign ala Desert Fox every two years when our own funding ran out).
Similarly, you can have all the equipment in the world and if you can’t move it up in a timely fashion from staging areas well stocked with everything from POL to tires to engines, you’re a PDP (Parade Day Power).
Egypt of 1973 this is not.
In other areas, I’m sure that the Israelis are delighted to be facing outdated APS-139 or 145 export standard radars in E-2Cs, having long since retired their own equivalents in favor of CAEW (Phalcon) type systems on G550s.
http://www.deagel.com/news/Israel-Air-Force-Takes-Delivery-of-First-Conformal-Airborne-Early-Warning-and-Control-Aircraft_n000003633.aspx
They know how it works and so have no fear of it.
However; what worries me is that these libtardian morons who are so eager to remove another dictator (Sadddam : stable rule. ‘Democratic Iraq’: basket case…) are in fact unleashing a pestilence of Islamic Militants of the like of Dr. Ayman Al Zawahiri-
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Ayman Muhammad Rabaie al-Zawahiri [1] (Arabic: أيمن محمد ربيع الظواهري, Ayman Muḥammad Rabayaḥ al-Ẓawāhirī; born June 19, 1951) is a prominent leader of al-Qaeda, and was the second and last “emir” of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, having succeeded Abbud al-Zummar in the latter role when Egyptian authorities sentenced al-Zummar to life imprisonment. Al-Zawahiri is a qualified surgeon, and is an author of works including numerous al-Qaeda statements. He speaks Arabic, English[2][3] and French . Al-Zawahiri is under worldwide embargo by the UN 1267 Committee as a member or affiliate of al-Qaeda.[4]
In 1998 al-Zawahiri formally merged Egyptian Islamic Jihad into al-Qaeda. According to reports by a former al-Qaeda member, he has worked in the al-Qaeda organization since its inception and was a senior member of the group’s shura council. He is often described as a “lieutenant” to Osama bin Laden, though bin Laden’s chosen biographer has referred to him as the “real brains” of al-Qaeda.[5] He called President Barack Obama a “house negro”.[6]
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayman_al-Zawahiri
Of whom the Egyptians have an abundance. As indeed-
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Before dawn, gangs of armed men attacked at least four jails across Egypt, helping to free hundreds of Muslim militants and thousands of other inmates. Young men with guns and large sticks smashed cars and robbed people in Cairo. The official death toll from the turmoil stood at 74, with thousands injured.
Two leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, the best-organised opposition to the regime, who were among those freed from jail were given a tumultuous welcome when they arrived at Tahrir Square last night. Esam al-Erian told the cheering crowd: “they tried every way to stop the revolution of the people.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/8291645/Egypt-crisis-Mubarak-under-pressure-from-West-as-lawlessness-takes-hold.html
‘Popular’ uprisings are always like a flood unleashed by a very few people smacking away with hammers at the base of the dam. When the torrent flows to an ebb as a function of national exhaustion and confusion as much as anything, it always turns out that the real agenda is of this small initiator group.
Because the rest are just obeying herd psychologies or a chance for personal plunder.
Egypt is or was also one of those ‘unscheduled stops’ in the worldwide CIA rendition system that dropped off all kinds of unpleasant people (Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) so that they could be tortured into admitting, well, just about anything really.
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1. The Attention Grab
2. Attention Slap
3. The Belly Slap
4. Long Time Standing
5. The Cold Cell
6. Water Boarding
“The person believes they are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law,” said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch.
The techniques are controversial among experienced intelligence agency and military interrogators. Many feel that a confession obtained this way is an unreliable tool. Two experienced officers have told ABC that there is little to be gained by these techniques that could not be more effectively gained by a methodical, careful, psychologically based interrogation. According to a classified report prepared by the CIA Inspector General John Helgerwon and issued in 2004, the techniques “appeared to constitute cruel, and degrading treatment under the (Geneva) convention,” the New York Times reported on Nov. 9, 2005.
It is “bad interrogation. I mean you can get anyone to confess to anything if the torture’s bad enough,” said former CIA officer Bob Baer.
Larry Johnson, a former CIA officer and a deputy director of the State Department’s office of counterterrorism, recently wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “What real CIA field officers know firsthand is that it is better to build a relationship of trust … than to extract quick confessions through tactics such as those used by the Nazis and the Soviets.”
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http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Investigation/story?id=1322866
You can count on the fact that we will have _zero_ friends in the Egyptian Militant Islamic crowd who think of Egypt as a neutered Western State and -long- to prove themselves as ‘Equals in the Pan Islamic Arab World’ again.
Having lost most if not all of their standing gained in the 1973 campaign after the humiliating piece with Israel. The blame for all of which they lay at the ‘Camp David’ feet of the U.S..
That they think of our most powerful executive as a domestic servant should tell you what kind of degraded condition our reputation truly is in, worldwide.
Here’s a couple of OrBats to help orient you-
http://www.scramble.nl/mil/1/egypt/orbat.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_Army
It looks to me like the AF are principally centered around the F-16C.30 and .40 of which there are about 9 squadrons. These will likely be just next to useless against Israel (compromised APG-68 and ALQ-131), particularly if they remain ‘as delivered’, Sparrow shooters.
There are at least 2 units of Mirage 2000EM/BEM but given the delivery date, these are likely to be export standard Mirage 2000C, not the later multirole capable 05/08 series.
The rest of the tacair pool are second line (point defense and BAI) units with FT-7 (MiG-21F-13 clones) MiG-21MF and Mirage 5 with three squadrons of F-4E tossed in. All are relics and unlikely to be able to generate large sortie numbers initially or sustainable for more than a few weeks without spares.
There is a typical scattering of special mission, liason and utility birds but only two of the AH-64 brigades so the likelihood that they will be able to engage in any deep air assault or maneuver campaign is limited.
On the ground, I haven’t read as much though I am slightly worried about the No-Dong and Hwa-Song theater systems controls since they could theoretically be used to either create tension with Israel or force shutting of the Canal at the very least.
The last I heard was that everything -but- their tank fleet was still pretty much Soviet Cold War with the GOE looking to demil most of their standing inventory, starting in about 2003. How this will have effected their standing military and it’s Western style hodgpodge of independent regiment and brigade level specialist forces I don’t know.
The exception to this is the indigenous production capability for M1A1 tanks which, thus far, has delivered about 755 of the Abrams and is now more or less fully self sufficient in key areas like the M256 and production of the KWA-2 APFSDS. I believe we maintain control over the powerpack (preventing them from switching to a less insane diesel) and the firecontrol electronics, and that is all.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/egypt/m1a1.htm
OPINION:
Though you’d never know it from the disasters of Somalia and Eritrea, Egypt has long been a lynch pin in controlling the Horn Of Africa and even acting as an ‘example state’ to the truly wretched places like Tunisia, Chad and Libya.
No more.
You can expect ‘piracy’ to become very aggressive and arrogant, probably state sponsored and supposing that this isn’t a Western driven usurpation on the road to World Government, possibly even a resurgence of various nations seeking to reset certain border regions.
I fully expect any followon government to go radical islamist and insular, at least in the short term, even if (The Suez) they maintain an outwards appearance of business-as-usual to sustain currency flows.
There may be an attempt to reestablish ties with such of the 1973 Pan Arab League states who are not considered compromised by U.S. relations (Syria and Iraq but not Saudi or Jordan) but more likely will be a shift towards neutral and even Shiia dominated states like UAE/Dubai and Iran. Because these represent banking ties and China will be right there too.
Expect some linkups with the usual suspects in international terror as well as a horde of national techint exploitation units within days of any overthrow.
If it is well planned, there will be players involved to negotiate basic sustainment of government too. Currency controls (stabilizing the Pound) and food supply against sureties for her enormous debt will be important to a followon government’s quick gains in popularity. Job subsidies and security pacts will follow…
If it’s poorly organized, you could see the new government try to abandon the old one’s debt in total and attempt to stand up a new currency based on control over the Canal. That could get really ugly, really fast.
Militarily, whatever we have that is still secure within the Egyptian force structure will be compromised and we can expect to see immediate changes in tactics and vulnerability appreciation on the Abrams for sure.
I suspect the F-16s and E-2 have long since been rendered transparent (and our own APG-68V(10) and APY-9 should help here) but secondary systems like advanced targeting pods or later weapons/EW (AIM-120B/C, ALE-50, EGBU-24, ALQ-184 etc.), will also be given away.
The M1A1 has already been superceded by the M1A2 SEP/TUSK-1/2 with which insurgents are readily familiar but full loss of firecontrol and ballistic supremacy must be expected within 5 years, even given the KWA-2 is tungsten and slightly less effective than our DU rounds. Equally important will be the assembly line technologies by which Egypt has achieved something like supplier independence.
Whether we get any of this back by going the German route to an L55 barrel or not, you can basically assume that frontal overmatch inside 2,500m is assured. Israeli Titanium Disulphide and OTH smart rounds (whatever followed on to STAFF/TERM) may be a better investment than trying to rescue the Abrams as a LOS system.
The FCS or it’s different-name followon becomes particularly attractive, using advanced APS technology (Iron Fist will knock down KE rounds) to alleviate weight and provide airportability while switching to tracks from wheels to get heights down.
This will come as a relief to our arms industry which is looking to replace the overemphasis on wheeled systems and the legacy armor with ‘more advanced’ systems to flush out much smaller FBCTs.
If there is a God and his name is not Allah, there will be severe retaliation towards and between sectarian elements of the ‘respected institution’ of the military (which is why they are now hedging their bets and only defending key infrastructure) and the rather less well trusted police (whose noteable absence is hysterically funny, given that vigilantism has run rampant alongside widescale looting).
Such will immediate regress competency and morale in the armed and security forces, much as it did in Iran. Whether this is a good thing (intelligence being the better part of discretion) remains to be seen but any war with Egypt, particuarly over the Canal, must be a short one and not (for instance) a prolonged insurgency with a trained military forming a cadre back stiffener to at home or overseas projected terrorist cells.
Any internecine secular governmental house cleaning can expect to be accompanied and expanded upon by civilian bigots to include religious and ethnic vendettas against Gnostic Christian, Nubian, Bedu/Berber, Armenian and Greek among other minoritiies.
Especially in the rural areas (kidnap, rape and forced marriage of Christian girls is a popular subculture in Egypt already), many of these were already on the the brink due to existing Islamic intolerance so any extended persecution would amount to a demographic bloodbath from which a 2012 Egypt could emerges as a homogenous and radicalized country, guarding their guilty consciences behind severe isolationist rhetoric.
Perhaps our most critical losses will come in the intel/counter terrorist community as I fully expect a revolutionary Egypt to clean house with a vengeance across the board with those who facilitated a perceived dhimmic status with the West at the cost of their own populations.
If we don’t get them out of there, expect 100% losses or sellouts to save skin.
Allah provides that the Faithful shall triump over the infidel, not the other way around and any resurgence of Islamist control is likely to be very embarrassing to the West in terms of what it reveals ‘beyond enhanced interrogation techniques’ was carried out in our name, on their soil.
And because we are anethematized as a symbol of all that is bad and bullysome, there is nothing we can do to mitigate this as anyone who extends a hand to U.S. will be seen to be selling themselves and the new ‘Unity Government’ cause out.
Which will be fatal.
Whether nationalist or religious in nature, it could well be many years before there is any hope of regaining useful diplomatic ties with a post-Mubarak regime.
I am reminded of the aftermath of Ramses II where a 67 year rule led to a very disorganized, dyspeptic and hostile followon period. Egyptians likely themselves do not know what (or -who-) they want to replace their current leadership, but they will not be told so by outsiders.
Such is what happens when libtards cheer-for-change without realizing that the most common direction for it is downwards to the LCD of greed and stupidity.
The clueless leading the barbaric into anarchy…
(Bush Jr was a libtard?) The big question is can they feed their exploding population? At least Iran has oil. Will an intervention be required to keep the Suez open? IMO, the military will step in Turkey-style. I don’t think they want to be Iran Mk 2. (I guess I’ll never see the pyramids.)
So?,
Bush is not the one commanding Mubarak to ‘do the right thing’ while attempting to stay in the good graces of his stalwart Arab allies. Never realizing that the Arabs are more biased against blacks than any ten American rednecks.
As soon as a state of totalitarian anarchy is reached (and/or something happens on ‘Dancing With The Stars’) the ability to count in numbers larger than fingers and toes will cease to resident in the media. And there will indeed likely be a media blackout during which Americans, who by and large couldn’t find Egypt on a map, will go back to their lives as the libtards step away from the consequences of their actions as the corruption (and incompetence) of the new ruling class becomes a given.
Specifically: there will be no reporting of wide spread famines and general loss of control in the provinces. As long as the professional classes in Cairo and the major cities can buy food, everyone will change but nothing will be altered.
Sooner or later the <30 populist crowd will blow it and 'professional business managers' will step in with some self-generated replacements from the older elite classes who were either evacuated immediately or live as expats, abroad.
Iran and oil is as The Suez to Egypt: question and answer. Egypt will go Islamist and yet the fact that they absolutely -must- have Suez to have revenue will prevent them from even thinking about anything like 1956 because there is no effective challenge (yet) to U.S. Hegemony. No Cold War opposition to skulk behind. Which will be fine for the MSM because frankly the world doesn't care about Egypt's opinions: 'rant an rail all you like', so long they toe the line, commercially, nobody important will hear it.
This will be great for them because they can stay 'Western' in business front facade while acting as an anti-U.S. hotbed for extremism, powered by twenty years of resentment for U.S. Egyptian pseudo-relations and 10 years of torture and illegal imprisonment in our name.
Big Business will want nothing to do with this, so again, as long as their goods reach market, nothing will be said. Just as Iran still sells us oil. Without commercial motive as backing, even if they wanted to, U.S. politicians and diplomats will thus lack the dagger hand to make a sudden strike possible.
The Egyptian Military will do what all palace coup militaries do in situations of crisis: stand back and bide their time, looking for their next paymaster. The last time they tried anything, a President got shot and they took the fall. They will not risk a military takeover now.
The only thing that could change this is if large component commands are taken apart for their loyalties to the prior regime (which is why all the Egyptian military units are broken down into geographically isolated specialist brigades, just like our own), and/or foreign aid diminishes to a trickle. All of which will take years to wash out.
My only worry is that Obama is looking for a success in Foreign Policy to spike his 2012 'without Biden!' numbers and sees this as a possible entry point for U.S. grandstanding theatrical diplomacy. It's not. Aside from making sure we are as uncompromised as possible in current intel ops exposure, the best we can do is get civilians and diplomats out on charter flights with plain clothes DPS personnel and maybe a Marine ARG standing by at a discrete distance.
At the same time, if we have a covert network, now is the time to stand them up if there are real enemies to our interests in-country as the survival and acension of men like Zawahiri is best not contemplated 'after the fact'.
The more we can shape the transition between power structures by controlling the likely candidates, the more reach-in we may be able to retain in the postlude.
Well Saddat’s mother was Sudanese. BTW, Libya’s population is only a fraction of Egypt’s.