Egyptian Army – Greatest Military Power on the African Continent

Currently, the greatest military power on the African continent! It has about 650,000 soldiers, officers and non-commissioned officers in the active composition divided into four branches…

In addition to the standard branch of the ground forces, air force and navy, the Egyptian air defense has been designated as an independent branch that has particularly great importance. The reason for this are likely experience in the Arab-Israeli wars, and the influence of the Soviet Union who had five branches, including the territorial air defense. With a large operating band, Egypt has one million reservists.

Armed Forces
Army has a very a strong role in the entire social and political life in Egypt since the time of Nasser. Today, the great social and political role considerably strengthened after the dramatic events during the Arab Spring in late January 2011. Land force is the largest branch of the armed forces of Egypt and technically very sophisticated, focused primarily on the development of a strong armed forces.
Most effort has been invested in equipping the armed forces, therefore the Egyptian military industry bought the license and today produces M1 Abrams tank, which is ( with 1,130 “copies”) the most numerous tank in the Egyptian arms. But besides Abrams army has more than 1,100 American M60 Patton tanks and more than 1,500 Soviet T-55 and T-62, which are mostly withdrawn in the reserve.

Egyptian Air Force
The Egyptian Air Force is composed of more than 30 000 people, more than 1,100 aircraft and 245 helicopters, making it respectable structure within the armed forces. The best fighter aircraft in the EAF is an American fighter F-16 Fighting Falcon with 220 aircraft in service. Most of them is a modification of Block 40/42. EAF also owns 110 Soviet MiG-21 and its Chinese variants Chengdu J-7, which are still in service on secondary tasks.
In addition, Egypt has with France entered into an agreement on the purchase of 24 multi-role fighter aircraft Dassault Rafale, of which there are six already delivered. They should replace the French Mirage aircraft and Mirage V. 2000.
With Russia has signed a contract to buy 50 combat helicopters Ka-52, which would be equipped with the latest laser targeting system OES-52, and they could use Russian anti-tank missiles Vihr and Ataka. Delivery should be from 2016 to 2018.
They also plan to purchase 45 units of the most modern Russian multi-purpose fighter jet MiG-35, for which Egypt will pay about two billion dollars, and the first delivery will be in 2016.

Egyptian navy
The Egyptian navy is the largest naval power in the Middle East and Africa, with 32,000 officers, non-commissioned officers and sailors (of which around 14,000 reservists) and the currently 245 ships of various models and purposes. The majority the Navy was formed in the 60s with great help of the Soviet Union and the at the end of the 70s made a big turnaround and began to purchase equipment of the Western origin.

The main ships of the fleet are the two Mistral class helicopter carriers that Egypt bought from France. The total price paid for both ships about 950 million which includes the training of crews, and for them to have were ordered Russian helicopters Ka-52K. But striking strength of the fleet consists of 11 frigates, among which is certainly the most advanced class frigates FREMM Aquitane of French production. For now, the Egyptian navy has one ship of that class.

The powerful military force
When you give a general assessment, it can be concluded that the Egyptian armed forces is one strong military force (11th in the world). However, the composition of the armed forces are still largely conducted on the basis of compulsory military service and the obligation to serve in the reserve corps, while the professional part significantly smaller. Although this is a large armed forces, according to some analyzes required extensive structural reforms that are supposed to turn into a much smaller, but much more operational and efficient army, better suited to current trends.