Turkey Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

sequ said:

They are immune to whatever BM the Turks can come up with in the next 10 years. They better improve their aerial situation and upgraded F-16 with AESA aren't going to cut it. Kizilelma+AESA+IRST+LRAAM are needed at the minimum.

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I think at least mass of BMs can work - Turkish territory is simply closer than Iran. Not as close as Hezbollah of course, but this is solvable through quantity.

But indeed, right now situation turned from "all fine" into "oh crap" essentially overnight, and entire Turkish rearmament is suddenly wildly late.

Everything is bad - even gökdagan missile is turning from national pride into emergency need "more, yesterday" - AF just don't have enough AMRAAMs to fight Israel...

Gloire_bb said:

I think at least mass of BMs can work - Turkish territory is simply closer than Iran. Not as close as Hezbollah of course, but this is solvable through quantity.

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Turkish BM's aren't as cheap as Fatehs and there are too few of them available. Besides, they'd need to shift their doctrine almost 180 degrees to incorporate mass BM fires into their capabilities, which their conservative airforce isn't willing to pull.

Everything is bad - even gökdagan missile is turning from national pride into emergency need "more, yesterday" - AF just don't have enough AMRAAMs to fight Israel...

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They are just now starting to use their indigenous ESM/ECM pods on their F-16's. They have a long way to go. Besides, the AMRAAM is known inside out by the Zio's. They are immune to them.

sequ said:

Turkish BM aren't as cheap as Fateh's and there are too few of them available. Besides, they'd need to shift their doctrine almost 180 degrees to incorporate mass BM fires into their capabilities, which their conservative airforce isn't willing to pull.

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Do they have a choice though?
Before siper, ozgur and gökdogan come in significant numbers (which will take many years) - TAF won't stop Kheil Haavir even of Turkish home turf.
I am not really a South Europe/ME expert, but fast check of TAF v Israel leaves it just barely better off than Egypt... it's like very very bad, and Mr. Trump won't really help. Or help Israel.

Like it's hard to even blame anyone, b/c Washington turning out that spineless wasn't in anyone's cards. But that's where regional security suddenly appears to be. Everyone is in a cage with a wild lion, alone.

Gloire_bb said:

Like it's hard to even blame anyone

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Really, though? All of this could've been easily mitigated at various points already; there have been numerous opportunities for this over the past 20+ years.

Even now, it has already been two years since the F-16V deal passed the Congress (only to be eventually scrapped), and even longer since the Eurofighter Typhoon was last considered for the TuAF's agenda.

What's causing this delay, if not the crippling bureaucracy within the TSK itself?

It seems like only the Navy branch is unaffected by this, but even then, there have been years-long delays to their plans (i.e., there's a reason why the TF-2000 destroyer is called the TF-2000! Back then it was to be equipped with SM-2s!)

Turkey could’ve had F-15Es by now if not for the 1999 earthquake.

In the late 00s/early 10s, some degree of local production and access to source codes were offered for the Eurofighter. Putting all your eggs into one basket (the F-35) has been the biggest mistake one could make, though it's easy to understand why they took that route.

By 2018, it was already clear that the Israeli, Greek, and Armenian lobbies would do everything in their power to kick Turkey out of the JSF program. So why did Turkey do nothing about it except 'come to an agreement with the US president'? At the very least, they could have avoided procuring the S-400s (only to give the Americans a pretext) and not literally handed billions to the Russians to stop their airspace violations and diplomatic pressure.