General News- Turkish Armed Forces

The USA doesn't want to deliver the F-35s because they are afraid that the Russians might use the S-400s in Turkey to collect data about the F-35s.

That is what they say but clearly that is a lie.

If they feared F-35s flying near S-400s and the Russians collecting critical data about the F-35 from the S-400s radars then they would ban Israel from using their F-35s in Syria... which they have not.

The fact that Israeli F-35s don't enter Syrian airspace and launch standoff attacks from bordering countries suggests the F-35 can't get past Syrian S-300s, let alone Russian S-400s.

Equally the US should jump at the chance of testing their downgraded export F-35s they sell to Turkey against the downgraded export S-400s Russia sold to Turkey and assess how effective the F-35 would be in real combat against the system.

The fact that they don't want a real world test means they know the end result... the F-35 is not worth the money and even their versions and the versions they sell to israel can't penetrate airspace defended by S-400s reliably.

You would think Russia would refuse to sell their powerful AD SAM system to Turkey, but they sold S-300V missiles and Tunguska SPAAG and missile vehicles to the west in the mid 1990s and after 30 years western SAMs and AD has not improved.

So there is no solution for now.

Bully the bully... tell the US to stick its F-35 programme where the sun does not shine. And suggest that US military bases and nuclear weapons will need to be removed from Turkish territory if you want to impose sanctions. Having Turkey is rather more valuable to HATO than it is to Turkey. Russia is not interested in invading Turkey or any HATO country, but HATO seems to be playing chicken with them and you can only poke the bear so many times before you lose your arm.


How often does Russia or India or China bully Turkey into doing things against their interests... Turkey should pick better friends.

Poland or Turkey is the first NATO member that will voluntary leave this genocidal Mafia.

I would guess Hungary is more likely to leave... and to leave the EU as well, who are strong arming them into become liberal freaks too.

Yesterday, Minister of Defense Yaşar Güler made some statements in the Grand Assembly

40 F-16 Block 70s (32 F-16C, 8 F-16D) will be purchased from the USA, an initial payment of $1.4 billion has been made.

In addition, it was planned to purchase 79 F-16V upgrade kits for existing F-16s, but this was abandoned.

The procurement of 40 aircraft and related ammunition will cost a total of $6-7 billion.

Contract for 40 F-16 Block 70 and 79 F-16V upgrade kits;
https://www.dsca.mil/press-media/major-arms-sales/turkiye-f-16-aircraft-acquisition-and-modernization

I have to say that this is an old contract but it can give an idea about the new F-16 purchase.

The contract, including upgrade kits, is worth $23 billion. It will cost $6-7 billion without modernization kits.

Defense Minister Yaşar Güler also shared information about the F-35s.

There are currently 6 Turkish F-35s in storage in the USA.

The Americans attitude towards the F-35s changed after the TAI Kaan made its first flight, the Americans are now saying they can give F-35s to Türkiye.

We sent another offer to the US to purchase the F-35. If this purchase is accepted by the US, we will purchase a total of 40 F-35s and we want to be a part of the F-35 production again. (We were a Level 3 Partner before the sanctions, the F-35's central fuselages were produced by TAI and and Türkiye was planned to be a maintenance center for the F-35)

Lets be generous and say 6 billion for 40 aircraft... that is 150 million dollars per aircraft... you could have bought quite a lot of useful things for that sort of money.

Of course I encourage all HATO members to buy as many F-35s as they possibly can as soon as they can... it is just good for the rest of the world.

23 billion would have been better spent on your own stealth fighter design IMHO.

Turks are smart enough to bribe the US - the thing which was common during Trump administration.
Maybe they plan to cut someone to pieces in some embassy, as the Saudis, who knows ...

GarryB wrote:Lets be generous and say 6 billion for 40 aircraft... that is 150 million dollars per aircraft... you could have bought quite a lot of useful things for that sort of money.

Of course I encourage all HATO members to buy as many F-35s as they possibly can as soon as they can... it is just good for the rest of the world.

23 billion would have been better spent on your own stealth fighter design IMHO.

We have around 20-30 F-4E Terminator 2020. These aircraft are 50 years old and we need to retire them. That's why we look for foreign solutions.

If all goes well, TAI Kaan will enter the inventory in 2028, of course with US-made engines.

Trump administration may block engine sales to Türkiye, just as he blocked the sale of F-35s. If that happens, TAI Kaan's entry into the inventory could be postponed until the mid-2030s.

TRMotor, TEI and Ivchenko-Progress are working on a 35,000 lbf engine, which is expected to be ready in the mid-2030s.

We are also buying 20+20 Eurofighter Typhoon (announced by the Defense Minister two weeks ago). These will be Tranche 4.

Buying from the most probable enemy in the future... dumb in my opinion.

US big enemies were USSR, then Muslim, now Russia, then will be China and finally will go back to Muslim.

Russia/China being nuk power they can't engage wars against them directly. So they will quickly come back in the middle east. But since most countries there are either destroyed, or their slaves, they will quickly turn Turkey into the big villain of their new Hollywood movies and invade it.

US needs wars. But cheap and easy to win ones. There, only left country able to provide that is Turkey.

Let's see what's going to happen with the Trump Administration. I think he will focus on Iran, after ending the war between Russia and Ukraine of course.

The US needs to sell weapons. Thanks to the war between Russia and Ukraine, European countries sent all the old and Soviet-made weapons in their inventory to Ukraine. European countries now need to buy new weapons.

Whose door will they knock on? Of course, the US. Look at the weapons Poland bought; They are buying 300+ M1 Abrams and 32 F-35 from the US and 1000 K2 tanks and 48 FA-50 from South Korea. Bulgaria is purchasing F-16 Block 70.

Even the Czech Republic and Romania are purchasing F-35s.

The US must have made a lot of money from these arms sales.

Now it is time to arm Türkiye, but against whom? My guess is Iran.

Who cares about sells of weapons, that money is coming from the US anyway and isn't useful for their ambitions.

A war reshapes everything. Right now Turkey is like a cancer for NATO, they will be a target one day or another.

Iran is too powerful and would anhilate oil supplies for the west. It's not worth investing in a war against them.

Turkey is the best foe for nato. Contrary to what you say it's friendly with Iran and has good ties with Russia but not enough to be supplied with weapons in huge quantity if war happens with nato. Russia would provide just enough to piss off nato (like nato is doing with ukraine).

Iran would be supported by Russia and north korea, has enough missile to destroy US ships and oil production in the area. Turkey has nothing to threaten Nato. It's weapons are outdated nato shit and local programs are too weak to change anything.