The U.S. State Department has approved a sale to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia of 280 AIM-120C Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) and related equipment for an estimated cost of $650 million, announced the Defense Security Cooperation Agency announced on 04 November.
Follow us:
The Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a press release that it has delivered the required certification notifying Congress of this possible sale on 04 November. The principal contractor will be Raytheon, Waltham, MA.
"The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has requested to buy 280 AIM-120C-7/C-8 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) and five hundred ninety-six (596) LAU-128 Missile Rail Launchers (MRL). Also included are containers; weapon support and support equipment; spare and repair parts; U.S. Government and contractor engineering, technical and logistical support services; and other related elements of logistical and program support. The total estimated cost is $650 million," stated the Agency.
According to DSCA's statement, this sale would support Saudi Arabia’s Eurofighter Typhoon, F-15C/D, F-15S, and F-I5SA programmess and would further strengthen the interoperability between the United States and Saudi Arabia.
The AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) is an American beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile(BVRAAM) capable of all-weather day-and-night operations. Designed with a 180mm diameter form-and-fit factor, and employing active transmit-receive radar guidance instead of semi-active receive-only radar guidance, it has the advantage of being a fire-and-forget weapon when compared to the previous generation Sparrow missiles.
