For nearly two years authorities of Kuwait has
conducted silent negotiations with regard to
a purchase of new multipurpose combat air-
crafts which in the armed forces of this rich
emirate would replace currently used the
Boeing F/A-18C/D Hornet aircrafts. Informa-
tion which we receive from both sides of the
Atlantic Ocean indicate that the authorities of
this county will follow a part of the local allies
and against the tendencies present in NATO
it will come to a diversification.
Al-Quwwat al-Jawwiya al-Kuwaitiya placed an
order for 40 pieces of the F/A-18C/D Hornet (32
pieces of the C version and 8 pieces of the D
version) in 1988. Their deliveries begun just af-
ter finishing the First Persian Gulf War when an
international coalition forces liberated the Ku-
wait from the Iraqi occupation. The deliveries
were completed in August 1993, and then the
Hornets replaced the Douglas A-4 Skyhawk
and the Dassault Mirage F1 jet combat aircrafts
– the are currently grouped in two combat
squadrons. Since then they have been inten-
sively exploited in the region, mainly as fight-
er aircrafts. The Kuwaitis did not occupy their
m i n d s
with a modernization of
the possessed machines or purchases of the
precise combat assets of air-ground class.
The first attempt to improve the offensive
capabilities of the Hornets took place in 2011
when the US DSCA agency informed about
issuing a consent for a potential sale to this
country a batch of the helmet-mounted sight
systems and the AIM-9X Sidewinder guided
missiles. According to a part of publications
www.fragoutmag.com
