【Military Subplane】Author: Big Ivan.
According to the Russian newspaper "Independent" on December 18, the Turkish military is trying to buy the FC-1 "Thunder" fighter jet jointly manufactured by the Chinese aviation industry and the Pakistan aviation industry complex.
It is said that the reason why the Turkish side suddenly thought of buying the "Thunder" was that Turkey had hit a nail on the nail on the issue of replacing its fighters, and there were "uncertainties" in its request for F-16V fighters from the United States, and it was not smooth to purchase EF-2000 fighters from Europe. After being deflated at both ends, Turkey remembered that there was also a seller in China, and remembered that the "Thunder Dragon", a joint development between China and Pakistan, can be regarded as the only third-generation fighter independently manufactured in the Islamic world. So, didn't this idea just come out of nowhere?
Why does Turkey want to buy the Thunder again?
Is Turkey's idea of buying FC-1 fighter jets reliable?It is estimated that the first thing that comes to everyone's mind is the unpleasantness that we and Turkey had a few years ago because of the export of FD-2000 air defense missile systems. At that time, Turkey tried to bargain with the West with our FD-2000 system, but in the end, it got away with it, and incidentally harmed our own interests.
And this time the situation is different, the fighter jets that Turkey is trying to obtain from NATO are not expensive or cheap, but the problem that NATO countries are unwilling to sell: the F-35A fighter is not to be discussed, Turkey has basically given up, and the United States has repeatedly stuck and refused to give it to the F-16V fighter jet that Turkey is trying to obtain.
It wasn't until May this year that Turkey took the opportunity of letting Sweden and Finland enter NATO, desperately colluding with the United States, trying to make the United States pay the corresponding exchange price, and then Sullivan came out and made a statement with Turkey, saying that Turkey, as long as you agree to let Sweden enter NATO, I will push *** to agree to sell you F-16V block70.
It stands to reason that this matter will end here, but slowly, from the perspective of the process of US foreign arms sales, the arms sales (Foreign Military Sales) process under the NATO system needs to be submitted to the US Congress for approval after approval, but I didn't expect it to be stuck in the US Congress. U.S. Senator Democratic Senator Menendez has been looking for a reason to card the F-16 arms sale, saying that Turkey's mere permission to join NATO is not enough, and that a lion has put forward a series ......of conditions, such as asking Turkey to improve its attitude towards the Kurds or something
Obviously, Turkey cannot agree to these things, so the US arms sales to Turkey's F-16V Block70, which should have been settled this year, have actually dragged from the beginning of the year to the end of the year, and it still has not passed, which is also very speechless for Turkey. Seeing that the F-16V Block 70 was unreliable, Turkey proposed an alternative and tried to buy a batch of EF-2000 fighters from Europe.
In fact, as early as 2005, Turkey had the intention to buy EF-2000, which was to bargain for the United States, and then sure enough, the United States gave Turkey a license for 30 F-16C D Block50+ in 2007. In November this year, Turkey began to send arms offers to several interested parties for the EF-2000 fighter jets: the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, and Germany. Britain and Spain readily agreed, and on November 23, when British Defense Minister Schappes visited Turkey, he specifically expressed support for Turkey on this matter.
Scholz said that because Turkey is on the side of the Palestinians on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, it is impossible for Germany to agree to export EF-2000 fighter jets to Turkey. Of course, this may be a superficial reason, but the internal reason cannot be ruled out that it involves contradictions between Turkey and NATO. Turkey has made every calculation, and wants to pull Europe to bargain with the United States, but it didn't expect that the United States and Germany would have been a family of NATO, and it is even possible that Germany, Britain, and Spain were originally you singing red face and I singing white face, and the bargaining was not successful, and it was surrounded by bid-rigging and becoming a pig killing plate.
So, now for Turkey, it can be said that it is very speechless in the renewal of its own air force tactical aircraft. Counting on the United States, the United States is now opening its mouth wide ;Counting on Europe, Europe actually played Turkey around with the United States;Counting on Turkey itself, Turkey's aerospace industry capacity is still relatively limited. It wants to rely on its own ability to upgrade the existing F-16C D to the F-16V, not to mention whether it has this ability, even if it has this ability, its upgraded production capacity will inevitably not catch up with the United States itself.
What's even more depressing is that the Greek Air Force, the main hypothetical enemy of the Turkish Air Force, has only turned over in recent years: in 2022, the American company Lockheed Martin began to upgrade F-16V fighters for the Greek Air Force in accordance with the contract, and the first batch of 2 was delivered in September 2022, and all 83 F-16V fighters are expected to be upgraded in 2027;At the same time, the Greek Air Force also ushered in a ruthless role, signing a contract with France in 2021 for the purchase of 24 Rafale fighter jets, which are expected to be delivered next year.
Compared with the F-16C D equipped by the Turkish Air Force, the F-16V and Rafale of the Greek Air Force are equipped with active phased array fire control radars, new electronic countermeasures equipment and mission computers, etc., which surpass similar equipment of the Turkish Air Force in terms of over-the-horizon interception capabilities and multi-mission capabilities. In terms of the progress of equipment renewal, in fact, the Turkish Air Force is already one position behind the Greek Air Force, if Turkey is still so slowly swallowing and not knowing where its third-generation aircraft improvement is, when the Greek Air Force equipment update is over, it will be time for Turkey to cry.
In this sense, now the equipment of the Turkish Air Force is not better than in 2005, and not more than in 2017. In those two years, the Turkish military did not lack military equipment from the West, and pulled China or Russia just to see if they could make the West have more blood and give Turkey a better condition or something. In other words, the Turkish military wanted to order more dishes for a small amount of money, so they said to the cook that if you don't give me two more dishes and send me a drink, I will go to another house to eat!
From the perspective of 2023, the problem faced by the Turkish military is that the chef in the restaurant doesn't want to cook for Turkey, saying that you are not right here and there, you are wearing the wrong clothes, and you still wear slippers when you come to the restaurant to eat, which is not formal at all, and the nature of this matter has changed. Therefore, Turkey is now angry and saying that I want to buy the "Thunder Dragon", but it may not be really the exchange price, maybe it is true.
Buying Thunder is a boost for Turkey.
Besides, Turkey really wants to buy the "Thunder" fighter jet, and the performance is not bad, and the words are divided into two ends:
On the one hand, Turkey must have been in contact with the FC-1 Block 3, a third-and-a-half-generation fighter, through joint military exercises with the Pakistani military. Compared with a typical third-generation fighter, the FC-1 Block3 has advanced gadgets such as phased array fire control radar and integrated electronic countermeasures equipment, and is equipped with PL-15E and PL-10E two air-to-air missiles, especially considering that the nose radome area of the FC-1 is not small, it is estimated that the situational awareness will not be weaker than the "Rafale".
The KLJ-7A active phased array radar equipped with the Thunder Block 3.
Therefore, don't look at the small body of the "Thunder" fighter, but if you really want to intercept it at a medium range, it will not necessarily be worse than the F-16, the Pakistan Air Force must have done tests in the middle, and must know the huge role of the FC-1 Block3's advanced avionics, advanced reactance, and advanced missiles in air combat, so it must be well known to the Turkish Air Force.
On the other hand, Turkey itself has also partially participated in the FC-1 fighter project, and part of the avionics system of the FC-1 fighter, some supporting pods and ** systems, etc., directly selected the products of Tai company, which means that Turkey can be familiar with the FC-1 fighter. And if it is planned to be introduced, it can also be equipped with more Turkish avionics equipment for the FC-1 Block3, and even the introduction of a production line is not ruled out.
This will not only solve the problem of the lack of advanced equipment of the Turkish Air Force itself, but also solve the problem of what the Turkish aviation industry should do after the assembly of the F-16 fighter jets and before the mass production of its own TFX fighters. By the way, it can improve the technical level of the Turkish aviation industry, which is not good for TurkeyFrom this point of view, Turkey's procurement of FC-1 must have great benefits.
Of course, for the current Turkey, Big Ivan still thinks that it is difficult to say that Turkey suddenly came up with a sentence saying that I want to buy the "Thunder Dragon", how much is the truth and how much is angry. After all, as a country in the NATO system, Turkey's dependence on Western equipment will be difficult for a period of time. However, it is also true that Turkey is gradually becoming an outlier in the NATO system, and as relations with the EU decline, Turkey's position in the EU system is also gradually declining.
This makes Turkey's foreign arms purchases, perhaps just want to bargain with NATO at the beginning, use us as a bargaining chip, and show NATO when the mascot is shown, but when the chips are really too much, then maybe there will be a day to get rid of it. In the end, don't become NATO, I don't care about you Turkey at all, buy whatever you like!Or the relationship between Turkey and NATO will go down further, to the point where Turkey and NATO are "in the same bed, not in the same ......."
Not to mention, the current behavior of NATO countries to draw lines in camps at every turn is incompatible with Turkey, a country that likes to check and balance from multiple sides, and this may become a variable in the relationship between Turkey and NATO. Maybe at that time, the fake will become real, and the chips will become the protagonist, Turkey originally wanted to buy the F-16V, but finally really switched to China's arms to buy the "Thunder Dragon", after all, that's not how Iran came In this magical world, everything is possible, all we have to do is wait for the arrival of changes.