Turkey Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

"The seventh of the R&D Panels, in which the decisions to start R&D projects in the field of defense industry, were held. At the SSB 7th R&D Panel meeting, it was decided to initiate 4 Projects and to call Wide Area Calls (SAGA) in 2 areas. "



Multi-Core Microprocessor Development Project: The project aims to design and verify a multi-core microprocessor, develop operating system support packages, and display all developed components in an integrated manner. The processor to be developed will be used in mission computers of various systems and platforms, primarily military weapon systems.

Aviation Engine Materials Development Program Phase-2 Project: With the project, 3 different superalloys that are used in the manufacture of gas turbine engine components and that meet the requirements of high temperature and high pressure operation will be developed and verified. In this way, foreign dependency on the critical materials needed by gas turbine aviation engines, especially Turboshaft Engine, whose domestic development is ongoing, will be eliminated.

Project for Development of Functional Transition Material (FGM) Processes with Directed Energy Deposition Additive Manufacturing Technology (DED): Within the scope of the project, a robotic system consisting of powder spraying and laser feeding units for the additive manufacturing process with the directed energy accumulation method will be developed. With this system, a liquid fuel rocket motor nozzle extension will be produced as a prototype, consisting of a transitional material structure and used in Rocket and Missile projects.

PEM Fuel Cell Technology Development Project for Directed Energy Weapon Systems (YESS): The project aims to develop a PEM Fuel Cell-based power supply that is placed on a tactical wheeled vehicle and will provide the electrical energy needed by the "Directed Energy Weapon System" to fulfill its mission. In this way, the noise and vibration loads affecting the target strike performance of the "Directed Energy Weapon System" have been reduced, and a power source that is advantageous in terms of volume and weight will be obtained from conventional power supplies with reduced thermal and acoustic traces in a way that makes it difficult to locate.

Development of Swarm Communication Technologies Defense Industry Wide Area (SAGA) Call: Within the scope of this call, flexible, non-planning, low-delay, high-bandwidth waveforms that provide communication security for homogeneous or heterogeneous swarm systems consisting of unmanned air, land and sea vehicles, mission planning software and communication systems are aimed to be developed. Thanks to the projects to be initiated with the SAGA call, new communication capabilities will be added to the Swarm Systems consisting of Unmanned Land, Sea and Air vehicles. Development of Centralized / Distributed Herd Management Technologies Defense Industry Wide Area (SAGA) Call: Increasing the level of autonomy within the scope of this call, the operator will be able to control the behavior of each herd individual separately. The aim is to control the herd as a whole, without any luck. Thanks to the projects to be initiated with the SAGA call, the Swarm Systems consisting of Unmanned Land, Sea and Air vehicles will be given the function of performing common tasks at a high level of autonomy.

ougoah said:

Will be very interesting to watch. If the program delivers in that timeframe and around predicted costs, it could become the first non aligned option for 5th gen fighter. I am assuming Korea's KFX won't be as easily offered for export since it will be cutting into the F-35's pie and the politics align so it's not like KFX could be sold to "unfriendly" countries.

Having said that, I really doubt there are going to be any customers for a 5th gen fighter before 2030, except for Pakistan. I doubt China would offer J-35 for export until it has enough for itself, if it ever even intends to before it becomes obsolete. Right now, TF-X seems to be not near even a prototype though and will have at least as many foreign inputs as KFX which surely will put export limits on it.

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With the KFX export ban may be a big problem since it uses a lot of western components. When Argentina tried to purchase the FA-50 the deal was blocked by Great Britain.

Feasibility of TFX boils down to whether they get the authorization to use F-110 on their plane. Without that, first flight will be a long way off.

Regarding the J-35 (J-31/J-21), I feel that Lin Zuoming and the folks at AVIC really bit off more than they could chew when they claimed in 2014 that it would soon be an export fighter superior to the F-35 in many aspects. My belief is that unlike the J-20, the current FC-31 is not able to achieve good kinematic performances with Russian RD-93s. Until a domestic interim is ready it won’t be available for PLAAF/PLANAF, let alone for export. People way underestimate the difficulty of engine manufacturing/development.

Thanks for the rearrangement of the quotes. I was running out of time and bumped into the 10k character limit so it messed up the format.

But the post beginning with the title 'Second', hasn't been properly formatted so here it is again:

"Any other alternative like you noted yourself "then we can take a Russian engine" has an even more delaying effect."

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The Russian engines that are roughly equivalent in size, power and tech level as the F110 are the AL-31F series. Seeing as the prototype hasn't even been build yet a conversion to the Al-31F series should not be that much of a problem.

"From what I read, the prototype will use F110 engines"

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But you were doubting this before but now not anymore??

"and do you really think if TAI must change to a Russian one, this can be done so easily?"

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Easily? I don't know. Doable, yes, since I've explained above that the Al-31 series are roughly equivalent to the F110 in every metric.

"Even more do you think the Russians will sell their best engines - and nothing less is what Turkey demands - with full ToT?"

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That is not what the Turks are demanding nor are going to demand. The plan is to use a handful of foreign engines in the prototypes and perhaps in the LRIP until an indigenous engine is ready. There is no need for any ToT for that, just technical assistance.
And the Al-31F are not the best engines the Russians have and if they are so, they've supplied the Chinese with the same engines for years and even improved ones for use in the J-10B/C and J-20 prototypes. I'm sure that from a geopolitical and prestige stand-point, the Russians would love to supply their engines to Turkey, just like they supplied them for the J-20.

Like stated by TAI head Dr. Kotil, 12 Hurkus-C light attack aircraft exported to Bangladesh!

The first test carried out succesfully with the TS1400 engine on the T625 helicopter:

"Speaking at the ceremony, Minister of National Defense Hulusi Akar stated that the work on the National Combat Aircraft, the Siper Air Defense System and the Anatolia Amphibious Assault Ship is continuing intensely. Minister Akar also informed that they successfully carried out the tests of the first national helicopter engine TEI-TS1400 recently.

sequ said:

Like stated by TAI head Dr. Kotil, 12 Hurkus-C light attack aircraft exported to Bangladesh!

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I suppose that this is a separate procurement program from the one Bangladesh is already having right now. I know that they are already talking about 12(16?) fighter jets, rumours say it will be the Eurofighter Typhoon.

voyager1 said:

I suppose that this is a separate procurement program from the one Bangladesh is already having right now. I know that they are already talking about 12(16?) fighter jets, rumours say it will be the Eurofighter Typhoon.

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Yes, and this acquisition could prepare them for an advanced fighter in the near future, most probably the EF-2000.

Turkish army ups the amount of new ATGM Tank Destroyer vehicles from 260 to 344.

"While 113 vehicles have been delivered to the Land Forces Command within the scope of the Weapon Carrier Vehicles Project, 344 vehicles will be delivered within the scope of the project. According to the latest statement, 208 of them are tracked KAPLAN and 136 of them are wheeled PARS anti-tank vehicles."


The Turkish army is fielding 210 ATGM Tank Destroyers on the M113 and ACV-15 platform. It could soon end up with 550 ATGM tank destroyers.

sequ said:

My personal opinion about the changing thrust figures of the TF-X from 20000lb to 27000lb and the recently stated thrust figure of 30000lb.

Seeing as Rolls Royce is helping with the design of the engine, they would most probably use their experience with the high thrust-to-weight ratio EJ200. This engine has a max thrust of 20000lb in its plain vanilla variant. But the Eurojet consortium got a requirement somewhere in the 2000's to improve the thrust figure of the EJ200 by 20% initially to 23000lb (stage I) and by 30% eventually to 27000lb (stage II).

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I think that the initial plan of Rolls Royce vis-a-vis the TF-X was to provide help to develop a EJ200 like engine, but with the changing requirements and perhaps some tough negotiations here and there, Rolls Royce upped the stakes by using the stage II experience to help the Turks to develop a similar engine with similar capabilities, hence the 27000lb figure all in the same relatively small and light-weight EJ200 size of 4m length, 74cm diameter and most probably with a bit of an increase in weight from the original ~1000kg.

But now with the 30000lb thrust figure given I am of the opinion that the Turkish engine is going to be an inspired and up-scaled version (around 1500kg dry weight) of the original EJ200 with the same thrust-to-weight ratio of ~9, but with a potential of growth of up to 39000lb of thrust!

This would make fairly sense as the TF-X might need room for future upgrades which need more power, like directed energy weapons, higher power electronics etc.

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"Its (TF-X) engines each burn 30000 pounds, 15 tons, together they have 30 tons of impact, with two engines."

Translated with youtube sub and google translate.

Btw, how come the mods get to edit their post long after the 10 minute mark?

I wrote a reaction to @Deino where I mentioned the Hurjet and the F404 engine pending. I don't see that post anymore. If you (the mod in question) are going to edit my posts, don't delete stuff.

This is very strange. It seems someone is trying to cover-up their mistaken takes on the TF-X.