Turkey Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

sequ said:

Siper Block 2 model on display at Euronaval:

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CasualObserver:
This is the J-35 thread so this is going to be my last post about Kaan. I'd appreciate it if the mods don't delete this post so that we can come back to this and repost it whenever this topic gets repeated.

Yes, I do agree that the risks are high but as we've always talked about this in our own thread, there has been some measures taken against it.

Even the tech demonstration prototype is already some ~90 percent indigenous, leaving the ejection seat, some valves and (obviously) the engines foreign.

In fact, if anything's going to cause a delay or cripple the program (as Turkey has already exerienced in the Altay MBT program) it's going to be the engine supply. Turkey actually has experience in designing modern turbofans but no engine of this scale has ever been designed in Turkey and if anything's going to cause delays; this is going to be it. But the risk reducing measure that they've taken is that they've built and designed these engines to essentially pave the road and develop the neccessary tech and capacity for the 35,000 lb engine.

If you say the money supply's going to be the problem, that is actually the least of TurAF's concerns as they haven't made any major fighter procurement whatsoever in 20-something years. Even the budget allocated for the planned ~130 F-35s haven't been used and the programme lifetime cost of the Kaan is estimated to be around 20 billion USD involving some 250 jets for the TurAF and the huge necessary infrastructure investments that've been made.

As a closing argument, this programme has the highest priority not just among military projects but among all of the projects of the government. Turkey is surrounded by 4(+1) war and conflict zones and all the neighbouring countries have been heavily investing in their airforces (including Iran!); this lack of investment has caused the fleet size to shrink from 400-strong to 240 strong and TurAF no longer has a competitive Airforce.

All of this meaning: Kaan is not a "nice to have" like the KF-21 is to S.Korea, it is an "absolutely must have" like the J-20 is to China.

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Dude, I already said that i didn't want to derail the topic any further!

They can simply wage that war with KF-16s, FA-50s and F-15Ks since there's nothing the North can bring against them. Yes, an indigenous high performing aircraft is a net positive but unless they're planning to take on China or Japan; they're not in a life or death situation as Turkey is due to being encircled by a circle of war and threat. Turkey has Ukraine & Russia to the North and East Med and the friggin Middle East to the South-Southwest. Every country surrounding Turkey is arming like crazy while Turkey decreases its investments and becomes a "prototype heaven".

Turkey is not in NATO to get protection against others, Turkey is in NATO to not get attacked or divided by them. They don't do jack sh.t for Turkey's interests; to the point when they rarely don't do something against Turkey, in a frenzy Turkish politicians and think-tankers alike all want to realign with the West again as if they've changed! (As if they were an abusing boyfriend/girlfriend - I can change him/her! )


As long as the South Koreans keep their cool and don't do something crazy to receive legit threats from their other neighbours, they can bomb the f out of the North (in this case, the only legitimate threats from the North are obviously the nukes and those huge artillery barrages against heavily populated areas within 50 kms of the border - you don't need advanced 4++ gen jets with decreased-RCS (not LO or VLO!) for this purpose...). They also have American bases and boots on the ground to deter anyone from doing anything crazy.

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CasualObserver said:

Guys, can't we please carry this discussion to the dedicated Turkey thread?


There's a difference between pointing this out and calling it a fake, hollow project.

Btw, as I've already explained in my previous answers (all of your points are already answered there), those F110s are only interim engines just like the AL-31Fs on early production J-20s.

Since this is a project of utmost importance and urgency, even if it ends up without an engine for a while (like the Altay MBT), Turkey will simply wait it out before the indigenous solution is ready.

It's not like Turkey is starting from where China had to start with their previous turbofan projects like when they had problems with initial WS-10s, Turkey is a well integrated OEM supplier to the West (with quite recent indigenous turbofan design experience) and they've accumulated specific technologies from participating a number of Western engine projects including a not-so-insignificant participation in the F135&F136 projects as a building block.

All they have to do now is take all those specific experiences, bring them together and enlarge the recently developed turbofan engines.

In fact, TEI has designed their latest engine so that it could be easily scaled up and it contains engine technologies that are demanded from 5th gen aircraft.

I'm aware that in engine design, you start to face more problems as your engine gets bigger and it's not quite "a linear experience" like what I've described but that is why Turkey has already poured billions of dollars and a couple of years' worth of manhours into this engine.

I mean, they're not new to any of this, they all didn't wake up one day and decide to develop a heavy 5th gen fighter and all of its subcomponents; in fact, they've begun building the foundational capacity aimed at this project exactly 50 years ago.

What I'm trying to explain you guys is that, all of these arguments repeated into irrelevance are already known to not just us but obviously also to the people who're tasked with materializing this thing and as you educate yourself further on this topic; you start to see that the Kaan project as a whole is not at all a "hollow" project, it's actually quite the opposite due to the sheer amount of experience and hardwork put into it.


Yeah, unfortunately we also have to get conscripted. Besides, what does conscription have to do with any of this?

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Guys, please let this be the last post about Kaan in this thread. You're welcome to discuss this further in the dedicated Turkey discussion thread but let's stay on topic here.

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