Armed Forces of Egypt

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EgyptEgypt Armed Forces of Egypt
القوات المسلحة المصرية
guide
Commander in Chief : Abd al-Fattah as-Sisi
Military Commander: Mahmoud Hegazy
Headquarters: Koubri el-Quba , Cairo
Military strength
Active soldiers: 470,000 (2016)
Conscription: for all male citizens

University completed -> 2 years as an officer / 1 year soldier
Matura completed -> 2 years
No certificate (or no Matura) -> 3 years soldier

Resilient population: 20,347,560 (2015)
Eligibility for military service: 18 years
household
Military budget: $ 4.4 billion (2016)
history
Founding: 1882 (re-establishment)

The armed forces of Egypt ( English Egyptian Armed Forces , Arabic القوات المسلحة المصرية) are the armed forces of the Arab Republic of Egypt . They are organized with the army , air force , air defense and the navy into four armed forces . The military budget is $ 4.4 billion . The total strength is around 470,000 men. The head of state is the commander in chief of the armed forces of Egypt. Minister of Defense and Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces was Field Marshal Muhammad Hussein Tantawi Sulayman until August 12, 2012 . He followed on the instructions of the Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi Abd al-Fattah as-Sisi . The current chief of staff is Mahmoud Hegazy . In Egypt there is a three-year conscription for men over the age of eighteen.

The armed forces have a great social, political and even economic influence in the country. Egypt was ranked 28th out of 155 countries in the Global Militarization Index (GMI) in 2018 . According to the ranking by Global Firepower (2018), the country has the 12th strongest military capacity in the world and the strongest in all of Africa.

history

From 1250 the Mamluks , former military slaves , ruled Egypt. In 1260 the Mongols conquered what is now Syria , but were defeated by the Mamluks under Qutuz and Baibars in the battle of ʿAin Jālūt . The Mamluks consolidated their rule in Egypt and Syria, began to drive out the Frankish crusaders (including the siege of Antioch (1268) ) and had Nubia subdued. In 1517 the Egyptian Mamluks were subjugated by the Ottomans , but continued to rule Egypt until the Battle of the Pyramids in 1798.

During the reign of Muhammad Ali Pasha , the Egyptian army was modernized in the early 19th century. With the army newly formed by Soliman Pasha , the Wahhabis in Arabia were defeated (1811-1818) and Sudan was conquered (1820-1823). During the Greek Revolution (1821–1829) the Ottoman Sultan was forced to call on the modern troops of the hated vassal Muhammad Ali for help. In 1831 the invasion of Palestine and Syria took place .

In 1882, after the Anglo-Egyptian War , the British occupation of Egypt began . On December 20, 1882, the Egyptian army was disbanded and rebuilt under the command of a British commander in chief, the Sirdar . From 1881 to 1899 she was involved in fighting during the Mahdi uprising.

During the First World War , the Palestine Front with the Sinai as the border area to Ottoman Palestine was a combat zone until October 1918.

In 1928 the Egyptian parliament decided to build an air force.

The first three Egyptian military pilots, 1931

When rebuilding the Egyptian army, the British colonial rulers are replacing the formerly Turkish-speaking officer corps with Arabic-speaking members of the lower middle class. Simple peasants were excluded from the officer career, as under the previous regimes , but made up the majority of the men. Although the British government introduced new technologies and doctrines, the external defense of the country was left to regular British forces. The local military primarily served to maintain internal security. The Egyptian government dismissed all British officers from their service in 1946.

In the Palestinian War , Egypt received military and financial aid from Saudi Arabia and other Arab states, and Egyptian troops were able to invade Israel . After heavy losses, the ceasefire agreement of 1949 restored the previous state. With the nationalization of the Suez Canal on July 26, 1956 and the accompanying attack by France , Great Britain and Israel, Gamal Abdel Nasser suffered a military defeat, but thanks to the intervention of the superpowers , he was able to achieve a political victory. The six-day war between Israel and its Arab neighbors Egypt, Jordan and Syria lasted from June 5 to June 10, 1967. The war began on June 5 with an attack by the Israeli air force on Egyptian air bases . At the end of the war, Israel occupied the Gaza Strip , the Sinai Peninsula , the Golan Heights and the West Bank . In the Yom Kippur War , the Egyptian armed forces achieved what they saw as limited success against the Israelis.

In 1989, Egypt was added to the US list of its most important allies outside of NATO . This gave the country preferential access to selected armaments programs. In addition, the military wanted to retire the predominantly Soviet equipment and replace it with more modern equipment. So Egypt was z. B. to the first export customer for the M1; 555 M1A1s had been delivered by 1998. The final assembly took place in Egypt, with 35% of all parts being manufactured in Egypt and the rest being supplied from the USA.

The Egyptian armed forces took part in the Second Gulf War with the 3rd Mechanized Division , the 4th Armored Division and the 20th Command Brigade - a total of 40,000 soldiers and 400 tanks . The Egyptian armed forces, together with Saudi , Kuwaiti , Bahraini and Syrian troops, were to advance to cover the flanks of the main attack. The unit known as Joint Forces Command North (JFC-N) advanced so slowly that the US 2nd Armored Division was used unscheduled to take over the flank security . The Egyptian army suffered less than a hundred casualties during operations.

Armed forces

army

Egyptian M113 leaves an American landing craft
Egyptian paratrooper , 2007

The army with 300,000 men, the largest armed force. The command structure of the army is organized in 2 army - headquarters in Ismailia and Suez , 4 tank divisions , 7 mechanized infantry divisions , 1 infantry Division , 3 airborne brigades and 14 artillery brigades . The army is equipped with 1,130 M1 Abrams tanks, 1,716 M60 tanks , 34 T-80s , including 20 T-80U and 14 T-80UK, 500 T-62 , 340 T-55 and 425 Ramses II , an increase in combat value of the T-55 (as of 2011).

Air Force

Egyptian F-16s refueling

The Egyptian Air Force has 25,000 men. The backbone of the air force is its General Dynamics F-16 . Egypt has the fourth largest F-16 fleet in the world. In addition, Dassault Mirage 2000 interceptors are used. The Air Force has a McDonnell F-4 and Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 . Six E-2C Hawkeye Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft are currently being converted to Hawkeye 2000 aircraft. A marginal part of the training aircraft used is assembled under license from kits in Egypt.

Air defense

Following the Soviet model, in 1968 the air defense forces were brought together under a single command as an independent military force. Today they include radar surveillance, anti-aircraft missile troops, a joint command system and units for electronic warfare .

The anti-aircraft missile troops are equipped with:

marine

The Navy is the smallest branches of the armed force of 16,000 men. It has a coastline of more than 2000 km to protect and is stationed in the Red Sea and the Mediterranean . The main base of the fleet is Alexandria . Other bases are located in Hurghada , Safaga and Sues .

Vice-Admiral Tamer Abd El Aleem Mohamed Ismail is in command of the fleet .

The Navy has 8 frigates (including 4 former Oliver Hazard Perry class ), 4 submarines and 40 speedboats . The floating units are supported by 12 Gazelle and 5 Sikorsky S-61 Sea King helicopters .

Several modern missile speedboats are manufactured for the Egyptian Navy in the USA . The first Ambassador III class boat named S. Ezzat (after Admiral Suleiman Ezzat , founder of the modern Egyptian navy) was delivered in 2012. The speedboats F. Zekry , M. Fahmy and A. Gad are to follow by the end of 2013. They can reach speeds of up to 41 knots and have eight Harpoon anti-ship missiles , an Oto Melara cannon and the RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile close-range defense system .

In September 2015 it was announced that in France originally for Russia built two helicopter carriers of Mistral class of Egypt are bought. 50 Kamow Ka-52 helicopters intended for the Mistral are to be purchased as flight equipment . The two ships were delivered by September 2016 and named Anwar El Sadat and Gamal Abdel Nasser .

Political and economic influence

The military has great political influence in Egypt. Since the fall of King Faruk in 1953, the armed forces have provided all Egyptian presidents , with the exception of Mohammed Morsi , who came to power in the wake of the Arab Spring in 2012 . This was removed on July 3, 2013 by Colonel General Abd al-Fattah as-Sisi after the massive protests in the population. The military also has a great influence on the economy. However, it is unclear how much of the economy is controlled by the military. Estimates range from 5 to 60 percent. Defense budget details, as well as other figures that may reveal it, are being kept under wraps. What is clear is that the military is involved in every major economic sector , from the food industry to furniture and television production to oil exploration and infrastructure projects. The army also has its own hospitals , tourist resorts on the Red Sea and plays a leading role in agriculture .

See also

Web links

Commons : Armed Forces of Egypt  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The World Defense Almanac 2006, Mönch Publishing Group, Bonn 2006
  2. ^ Information from Globalfirepower.com
  3. ^ Information from Globalfirepower.com
  4. ↑ Egypt's president breaks the power of the military. Defense Minister Tantawi sacked. Sueddeutsche Zeitung , August 12, 2012, accessed on August 12, 2012 .
  5. ^ Egyptian President Morsi fires Army Chief Tantawi. Power struggle. Spiegel Online , August 12, 2012, accessed August 12, 2012 .
  6. ↑ President Morsi dismisses army chief Tantawi. Scandal in Egypt. NZZ Online , August 12, 2012, accessed on August 12, 2012 .
  7. ^ Democracy movement drives Mubarak out of office. Reuters , November 2, 2011, accessed August 12, 2012 .
  8. ↑ GLOBAL MILITARIZATION INDEX 2018. Max M. Mutschler, Marius Bales \ BICC, accessed on February 10, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Countries Ranked by Military Strength (2018) Globalfirepower, accessed February 10, 2019.
  10. ^ Egypt Military Strength. In: www.globalfirepower.com. Retrieved April 11, 2016 .
  11. ↑ Kenneth Pollack: Arabs at War, Lincoln, 2004; P. 14f
  12. ↑ Kenneth Pollack: Arabs at War, Lincoln, 2004; Pp. 139-142
  13. ↑ "Safe skies" on Al-Ahram Weekly Online from July 2008; accessed on November 14, 2010 ( Memento from April 3, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  14. ↑ Air defense systems ( Memento from December 30, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  15. ^ Mistral Joins Egyptian Buys of French Gear. In: defensenews.com. September 27, 2015, accessed October 8, 2015 .
  16. ↑ Iran gains Mediterranean bases. In: debka.com. September 25, 2016, archived from the original on September 25, 2016 ; Retrieved September 26, 2016 .
  17. ↑ Egyptian army expands economic empire , Deutsche Welle on May 4, 2014