OT Things are getting hairy in the Middle East

[Olefin]

FYI my money is on the F-15's if it does come to combat in the skies. The F-14's are great planes but they are very long in the tooth.

[Louied]

Someone correct me if I’m wrong but IIRC didn’t the Saudi’s hire a whole Division of Pakistani’s (or have a treaty with Pakistan to provide a whole Div) around the time of the First Gulf War 1990/91

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Would not surprise me at all if the Pakistani Division thing was true.
About 20 minutes ago I got off the phone to a friend about this coming weekend. He's an English language teacher and has had some experience in the Arab nations. His opinion of the Saudis is that they have become too wealthy and are now hedonistic, snobby and intellectually lazy.
There are plenty of stories of the Saudis hiring masses of people to do the jobs they don't want to do and they have done so in the past with the military as well.

It appears that in the most part, the general opinion of the Saudis is pretty low so when it comes to the hard work of military operations, the opinion naturally enough follows that the Saudis don't have the desire to do what it takes to be a strong, effective fighting force.
I'd still put my money on the Iranians in air combat - the Iranians are hungry for victory while the Saudis would rather pay someone else to do it for them.

[RN7]

Originally Posted by Louied

Someone correct me if I’m wrong but IIRC didn’t the Saudi’s hire a whole Division of Pakistani’s (or have a treaty with Pakistan to provide a whole Div) around the time of the First Gulf War 1990/91

Not quite but there is some truth to this.

Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have had a close military relationship since the 1960's. Both governments claim that its due to their shared majority Sunni Muslim religion, but Saudi money and oil also play a big part. Pakistan advisors and pilots have served in the Saudi military since the late 1960's, but the first large Pakistani troop deployment to Saudi Arabia dates to 1979. After fundamentalists seized the Grand Mosque in Makkah in 1979 in the wake of the Iranian Revolution, Pakistani special forces were sent to Saudi Arabia to participated in operation to eliminate fundamentalist elements. Later during the Iran-Iraq war up to 15,000 Pakistani troops were stationed in the Kingdom to boost its security. Some of them were part of a brigade positioned near the border with Israel and Jordan. Most left after 1988 but during the First Gulf War in 1991 up to 13,000 Pakistani troops and 6,000 advisers were based in Saudi Arabia. Pakistani forces frequently have participated in joint military exercises inside Saudi Arabia and Saudi cadets have been trained at various academies in Pakistan. The Pakistani Military has repeatedly reiterated that the security and physical integrity of Saudi Arabia are equally important as that of its own. The close ties were tested in 2015 when the Pakistani parliament rejected a Saudi request for Pakistani troops to support its Yemen campaign. But Pakistan still provided some naval assistance early in Saudi’s Yemen operations, and since then the two militaries have conducted joint exercises.