OT Things are getting hairy in the Middle East

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by Olefin

Keep in mind that the Iranians havent fought in the air since the Iran-Iraq War - meaning those pilots who had combat experience are all retired or dead by now most likely (i.e. its been 30 years)

And some of those vets probably inhabit the upper echelons of their air force, or at least passed on their operational experience to the next generation of fighter instructors before leaving the service (or dying). I wouldn't sleep on their pilots. I'd put my money on the Iranians, IF the Saudis didn't have several E-3 Sentries. As history has demonstrated time and again, those things are game-changers. AFAIK, the Iranians don't have equivalent dedicated AWACS platforms. That said, IIRC, they used the F-14's powerful AN/AWG-9 radars as a sort of ersatz AWACS for aerial fighter direction/control in several engagements during the Iran-Iraq War. If the Iranians still had any AIM-54s for their Tomcats, the Saudis would be at a disadvantage in BVR fights.

It would be interesting to see an air war between Iran and Saudi Arabia play out, on an intellectual level. On a purely human level, I hope it doesn't come to that.

Originally Posted by Olefin

And using mercenaries and foreigners is never a great idea - while it worked great for the SS...

While some of the Waffen SS foreign "volunteer" units were quite good (5th SS Wiking Division, for example), others were disastrously incompetent.