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  1. #121
    Quote Originally Posted by judgementofantonidas View Post
    cool. looked at the pictures. what an interesting mish mash of knock off parts from other main battle tanks.
    You are right. That's what I said to myself when I noticed it has a cannon. What a copy paste.

  2. #122
    Quote Originally Posted by judgementofantonidas View Post
    cool. looked at the pictures. what an interesting mish mash of knock off parts from other main battle tanks.
    Turkey should have just bought Leopard 2A7s or M1A2s. Or hell, wait a few years and be M1A3 launch customers.

    I honestly don't even understand the point of a Turkish domestic arms industry.

  3. #123
    Quote Originally Posted by Skroe View Post
    I honestly don't even understand the point of a Turkish domestic arms industry.
    Reducing the dependency to foreign tech. That's the primary motto. They will trade functionality and novelty with reduced dependency. This country should produce jets, tanks and space crafts at some point and buying USA's toys ain't helping, which Turkey did for its entire existence. It's not that hard to figure out by the way.

    And to be frank, Altai tanks are fairly good.
    Last edited by Kuntantee; 2016-08-25 at 03:11 PM.

  4. #124
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kuntantee View Post
    They will focus on ISIS and not other matters. See Biden's statements made in Turkey.
    Even now, after all the "accidental" air drops of munitions and everything else you believe that. Good work fluoride.

  5. #125
    Quote Originally Posted by Kuntantee View Post
    Reducing the dependence to foreign tech. That's the primary motto. They will trade functionality and novelty with lesser dependence. It's not that hard to figure out by the way.

    And to be frank, Altai tanks are fairly good.
    Yeah I'm aware (was mostly being rehtorical). But Turkey is not a big nor rich enough country to properly finance a full fledged domestic arms industry.

    My favorite example of this is fifth generation fighters. Everybody and their mother has a design.

    The Russians have the PAK FA, a fifth generation fighter in name only (according to Janes)


    The Chinese have the J-20, another fifth generation fighter in name only.


    The Japanese have the ATD-X X-2 Shinshin. it fills the Stealthy Air Superiority Fighter niche that the F-22 would have filled if it had been authorized for export to Japan. I really like this one because of the contrast it provides to the F-22. Both the US and Japan looked at their highly successful F-15 and came to different conclusions about what made it great and what they needed. The US built the F-22, the Japanese are building the X-2, which is basically a Stealth+Modernized F-15 layout.


    India has the HAL AMCA. This won't ever get built.


    South Korea has the KF-X. Will probably be built one day. It looks pretty familiar though.


    Turkey has the TAI TFX


    Sweden has the Flygsystem 2020. The final product probably won't look much like this.


    And I wouldn't be surprised if there is a Eurofighter sequel before long.

    All these things exist. Many of these have been talked about for the past 15 years. Almost none of them are new in the last five years, conceptually or otherwise. And yet only the US is building true fith generation fighters with the F-22 and F-35. Why? Because the fifth generation feature set is extremely expensive and complicated compared to the fourth generation. As Russia has quickly found out with the PAK FA, even dipping your toe in fifth generation by taking a SU-35 and putting it in a stealthy costume with some modest upgrades, has produced a fighter that is unaffordable for a middle income country.

    Basically unless you have a huge population AND a wealthy one, that via a positive feedback loop can underwrite these ungodly expensive systems, you have to choose between sophistication and numbers, and not both. And even with that kind of population and wealth, as we've seen with the F-22, numbers can be a challenge if there are other priorities at hand (in the US, it was the War on Terror in the mid 2000s). The US can do it. Europe as a whole can probably do it. Like take the Turkish TAI TFX for example. A better idea than fragmenting European/NATO defense procurement further and buying limited numbers, would be for Turkey to fold the TFX plan into a Eurofighter successor program, when that comes onto the scene in the next five to ten years. Hell, I really like the Japanese X-2 as a concept because it represents an interesting alternative to the US approach in evolving the F-15, but I'd much prefer that never get built and the US restarted the F-22 production line with Japan underwriting it, and modernizing the F-22 with F-35 technology to make an F-22C.

    The cost of the technology involved to make information age weaponry and systems instead of late-industrial/atomic age weaponry just prices nationally independent alternatives out of the market. Since we're talking about tanks, Germany, France and evidently Poland are all teaming up for a replacement for their Main Battle Tank beyond 2020 (it wouldn't be the first time, the Abrahms and Leopard both started as the same program). It won't happen because the Army is deeply invested in the M1 chasis, but budgetarily it would be better if the US got involved in that (even if it was for a new turret/gun design), than do our own thing. The US just went rhough this. The Patriot Missile successor was supposed to be the Italian-Germano-American joint program MEADs with the IRIS-T missile. Evidently MEADS was extremely capable - way more than Patriot. Last year Germany chose to procure MEADS, but the US decided to harvest the technology and walk away. Now we'll spend billions more enhancing PATRIOT in a phased manner. Buying MEADS outright, even in a delayed manner, would have just been so much more cost effective.
    Last edited by Skroe; 2016-08-25 at 03:53 PM.

  6. #126
    Quote Originally Posted by Skroe View Post
    I honestly don't even understand the point of a Turkish domestic arms industry.
    We have an amazing number of unemployed engineering and industrial design graduates dying to get internships in institutions like Aselsan, who design military vehicles and such. They deliver pizza instead; as there is little to no demand for industrial production; as my sister puts it, pretty much the only way to sustain yourself as an engineer around here is to move to Azerbaijan and work on oil rigs or petrolium stations.

    Increasing demand for the independent military production can not only help reduce how much we import foreign military tech, which will always carry the suspicion of unreliability during possible conflict of interest with the supplier, but will also help our more creative graduates who want to work in this industry, at least have a shot at learning the craft.
    Last edited by madokbro; 2016-08-25 at 03:58 PM.

  7. #127
    Quote Originally Posted by madokbro View Post
    We have an amazing number of unemployed engineering and industrial design graduates dying to get internships in institutions like Aselsan, who design military vehicles and such. They deliver pizza instead; as there is little to no demand for industrial production; as my sister puts it, pretty much the only way to sustain yourself as an engineer around here is to move to Azerbaijan and work on oil rigs or petrolium stations.

    Increasing demand for the independent military production can not only help reduce how much we import foreign military tech, which will always carry the suspicion of unreliability during possible conflict of interest with the supplier, but will also help our more creative graduates at least have a shot at learning the craft.
    I am entirely symapthetic to that notion. I just don't think it's very practical.

    Consider the F-35. Nominally, Lockheed Martin is building it. In actuality they are the primary contractor and thousands of companies in Europe, North America and Asia are contributing to it. The smallest screw, the rubber for the tires, glass for one specific display, all come from somewhere. A key reason the US (and Europe) has been able produce these advanced platforms while Russia and China have not is because Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and all these thousands of small suppliers exist and do their bit role. Russia and China have nothing comparable and their monolithic, state-backed approach, which was viable with third and fourth generation systems, simply don't have a broad enough reach. This is no small deal. In estimating how long it would take to restart F-22 production, Lockheed said about five years and $500 million. Why? Because the army of supliers it had assembled in the early-mid 2000s when it was building 30 of them a year had all moved on to other projects and they would have to be reassembled.

    China, for example, has been angling to create a competitor to the 737, 787, A319, A320,A330, A350 (those classes) for many years. They want to destroy the the Boeing-Airbus global duopoloy. But they've failed up to this point, and in truth, they aren't even close. They can't build the domestically designed engines competitive with US/European designs. Electronics, materials they are all way behind in. They don't have the subcontractors who can simply make the stuff.

    And materials is no small deal. Consider the Russian RD-180 engine. The metallurgy behind it is the biggest reason the US, for all it's vaunted technological prowess, can't j ust copy it. The Metallurgical composition of various parts (that keep it from, you know, exploding) is institutional knowledge within Russia's engine factory. It's not part of the spec (to be fair, this is the same of so many places for so many things). Aerojet Rocketdyne estimate it would take five years about $1 billion to make an American RD-180, most of that spent reverse engineering the mix of the materials and testing (and destroying) examples until they got it right.

    I'm very sympathetic to the need in abstract, but as practical matter, how can Turkey (and not to pick on Turkey, but really any country in it's position) hope to fabricate a legitimate peer to the F-22 or F-35 given that it simply doesn't have the massive-base of suppliers. It would need to be, like even the US is, deeply dependent on external suppliers. And if you're going to do that, you might as well just save money and do a broadly-international program like the Eurofighter at least.

    THis just get's back to my key point about European defense spending. The 2% of GDP target is a stupid PR metric that means nothing. Because 1% if everyone is being highly cost effective and not duplicating investments and capability is better than a Europe where everyone spends 2% but everyone builds a different boat, a different jet or a different fighter, that fulfills the same niche. Europe should follow an "invest once, buy many times" philosophy. Europe's problem right now is capacity. The US Military for example has 6000 M1A1 and M1A2 tanks. It has another 4000 M1s and M1A1s in storage. The Lima army plant alone can produce 120 tanks per months. Now the British Army, by contrast, has a grand total of 407 Challenger II tanks. The french have 406 Leclercs. The Germans have 250 Leopard 2s. The Turkish army operates 354 Leopard 2s, 397 Leopard 1s, and about 1600 M48 and M60 dinosaurs. Combined the four most powerful armies in Europe, which all operate mostly different vehicles, operate ~3400 tanks, 1600 of which are M48 and M60s, so let's say 1800 semi-modern tanks. Compared to the US's 6000.

    Europe needs capacity. It doesn't need nationally-sourced redundancies to keep people employed.

  8. #128
    Deleted
    Are there any statements by Assad? Did Syria allow this, or asked for Turkey's help? If not, sending tanks over the border is basically a declaration of war.
    Last edited by mmoc8e6adafa1d; 2016-08-25 at 04:44 PM.

  9. #129
    Quote Originally Posted by DiegoBrando View Post
    Are there any statements by Assad? Did Syria allow this, or asked for Turkey's help? If not sending tanks over the border is basically a declaration of war.
    I read that syria was not pleased at all having turkey rolling into syria, could have changed though.

  10. #130
    Quote Originally Posted by Skroe View Post
    snip

    Nothing to say; except that your arguement convinced me to hold off on having more opinions on the subject without delving into the the vast ocean of information on military spending that you kindly provided a sneak peek of.
    Last edited by madokbro; 2016-08-25 at 04:45 PM.

  11. #131
    Quote Originally Posted by madokbro View Post
    Nothing to say; except that your arguement convinced me to hold off on having more opinions on the subject without delving into the the vast ocean of information on military spending that you kindly provided a sneak peek of.
    There isn't really a "right" or "wrong" opinion in this case. It's just hysterically complicated and the numbers are rather mindboggling. Because on one level, the point you made, that a country has to keep it's engineers employed, is hugely important and ultimately a country's leadership has no higher responsibility than to the welfare of it's people. Keeping these people employed (and I don't mean to make that sound like a bad thing) is why there is the sheer diversity of programs that fill the same military niche across all of Europe.

    The US for this part, had this during the Cold War, but in 1993 (at the "Last Supper" meeting) the forced industry consolidation was ordered. This happened next.





    And lots of people lost their jobs and lots of places stopped making things. At it's peak 120 tanks per month were built at Lima, but another 120 were built in Detroit. Detroit closed, Lima didn't. Lockheed now builds basically all it's fighters in Fort Worth. They didn't used to. So the American example isn't even great for Europe, because it would mean the end of certain defense industries certain places. Germany for example, would probably be Tank Land, but not Warship Central. That won't go over well with German shipbuilders.

    There is no easy or great solution. But similarly, the status quo can't stand either. Because countries like Germany buying 2300 Leopard 2s, and then liquidating 90% of them to save some money, or France building a submarine that offers duplicate capability that five other submarines do, has reached it's end point. These things are just getting to expensive to build in numbers and quantity on top of tax bases that range from 8 million to 40 million taxpayers. The only reason the US gets away with it is because we have 220 million taxpayers and being the world's reserve currency allows us to borrow a lot.
    Last edited by Skroe; 2016-08-25 at 05:00 PM.

  12. #132
    Quote Originally Posted by Skroe View Post
    Turkey should have just bought Leopard 2A7s or M1A2s. Or hell, wait a few years and be M1A3 launch customers.

    I honestly don't even understand the point of a Turkish domestic arms industry.
    we just fielded A1SA that were supposed to be complete refurbishes.
    second year of gunnery and we were down to one functional tank a number of times.
    does not give me much faith in our platforms.
    There is no Bad RNG just Bad LTP

  13. #133
    Quote Originally Posted by Skroe View Post
    Turkey should have just bought Leopard 2A7s or M1A2s. Or hell, wait a few years and be M1A3 launch customers.

    I honestly don't even understand the point of a Turkish domestic arms industry.
    You cant buy a leo 2 A7... the A7 is a proposed upgrade of the Leo2A6

    And no the M1A2 are shit in comparison to the leoA6 so don't even include in the the same sentence.
    I would buy either the Leo2s or the T-90

  14. #134
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kuntantee View Post
    Reducing the dependency to foreign tech. That's the primary motto. They will trade functionality and novelty with reduced dependency. This country should produce jets, tanks and space crafts at some point and buying USA's toys ain't helping, which Turkey did for its entire existence. It's not that hard to figure out by the way.

    And to be frank, Altai tanks are fairly good.
    It is still based off foreign technology. The chassis and armor are Korean, the main gun is German. The fire control is the main Turkish portion.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Ulmita View Post
    You cant buy a leo 2 A7... the A7 is a proposed upgrade of the Leo2A6

    And no the M1A2 are shit in comparison to the leoA6 so don't even include in the the same sentence.
    I would buy either the Leo2s or the T-90
    There is nothing proposed about it, Germany already fields the 2A7. Do you ever bother to read what you link?

    The 2A6 and M1A2 are about equal in armor (but the M1 has far less of a "bullet trap") and speed. The 2A6 has longer range than the M1 because it gets about 2X the MPG. The 2A6 has a better version of the Rhienmetall 120mm main gun (being 55 caliber vs 44 caliber), but the M1 has better secondary armament. The T-90 is inferior to both in armor and speed, and the effective range of the T-90s 125mm main gun is less than the effective range of either 120mm guns. It is the T-90 that doesnt belong in the same sentence with the M1A2 and 2A6.

  15. #135
    Quote Originally Posted by Kellhound View Post
    It is still based off foreign technology. The chassis and armor are Korean, the main gun is German. The fire control is the main Turkish portion.
    The gun is developed by MKEK, you are probably confusing the engine and I am not completely sure if the engine is German or Korean. The chassis and armor are designed and developed in Turkey, in joint operation with a Korean firm. National alternatives for both engine (electronic one) and armor is in development.

    TAI TFX will be using a European engine too, at first stage. The aim is to reduce (there is a reason why I used that word) the amount of foreign tech involved in a progressive manner, as Turkey lacks experience on engine development, but not so much for software, which brings us to the main point of Turkish Defense Industry: disability to modify the bloody operating system. We neither had/have the access to the OS of both F-16 and F-35's nor authorization to implement our own operating system. This is a major problem and pretty much what triggered a national jet project.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by soulcrusher View Post
    Even now, after all the "accidental" air drops of munitions and everything else you believe that. Good work fluoride.
    I am saying that based on the action, not words alone. Kurds are backing off, like they are told.
    Last edited by Kuntantee; 2016-08-25 at 07:01 PM.

  16. #136
    Banned Kellhound's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kuntantee View Post
    The gun is developed by MKEK, you are probably confusing the engine and I am not completely sure if the engine is German or Korean. The chassis and armor are designed and developed in Turkey, in joint operation with a Korean firm. National alternatives for both engine (electronic one) and armor is in development.

    TAI TFX will be using a European engine too, at first stage. The aim is to reduce (there is a reason why I used that word) the amount of foreign tech involved in a progressive manner, as Turkey lacks experience on engine development, but not so much for software, which brings us to the main point of Turkish Defense Industry: disability to modify the bloody operating system. We neither had/have the access to the OS of both F-16 and F-35's nor authorization to implement our own operating system. This is a major problem and pretty much what triggered a national jet project.

    - - - Updated - - -



    I am saying that based on the action, not words alone. Kurds are backing off, like they are told.
    The gun is a Rhienmetall 120mm 55cal smoothbore design. The engine will be German, at least in the beginning. The chassis and armor are based on the Korean Black Panther, not Turkish tech. The main contribution of indigenous tech is the fire control system.

    The OS of the F-35 is rather sensitive, and to be quite honest, few countries warrant access to it.

  17. #137
    Quote Originally Posted by Kellhound View Post
    The gun is a Rhienmetall 120mm 55cal smoothbore design. The engine will be German, at least in the beginning. The chassis and armor are based on the Korean Black Panther, not Turkish tech. The main contribution of indigenous tech is the fire control system.

    The OS of the F-35 is rather sensitive, and to be quite honest, few countries warrant access to it.
    The gun seems to be indeed RheinMetall. The armor is, however, ROKETSAN Composite Armor, according to wiki. Forget F-35, you don't even open F-16 source or let is change it as far as I know.
    Last edited by Kuntantee; 2016-08-25 at 07:28 PM.

  18. #138
    Quote Originally Posted by Kuntantee View Post
    The gun seems to be indeed RhienMetall. The armor is, however, ROKETSAN Composite Armor, according to wiki. Forget F-35, you don't even open F-16 source or let is change it as far as I know.
    A key reason why the F-35 system software and source code isn't shared (instead relying on an API for plug-and-play applications and pods) is because a big part of the F-35 system is the global logistical network being build by Lockheed Martin, ALIS, the Autonomic Logistics Information System.

    ALIS allows a Turkish F-35 flying to Fort Worth for an overhaul (for example) to have it's entire maintenance and flight history pulled up. It also manages the entire F-35 spare part supply chain so that if a part is needed and say, at another base, it can be seamlessly requested. This replaces a huge adhoc logistics system that came together in a very patchwork as the F-16 went from being a USAF only fighter to the principle strike-fighter of the West for an entire generation. ALIS also directly interfaces with the F-35s artificial intelligence (yes, it is the first production military aircraft with that) to automatically handle status-of-the-vehicle information. Airmen have called the F-35 a dream to maintain because every fighter tells you exactly what is wrong with it (along with a design built around maintainability, taking a page from the Gripen).

    I often say that half the F-35 program is revolutionary technology that will change the face of defense and logistics for the next fifty years in far more than just a mere strike fighter role. ALIS is one of those systems. Something like it could be applied to the entire next generation of common ground vehicles, warships... really anything that uses an adhoc logistics systems that was put in place as information technology was laid on top of fourth generation platforms.

    But a key part of this conceptually is commonality, and if ALIS is to work, it can't be letting the Turks or the Dutch or whoever do god knows what to their F-35s.

    There is one exception to the no-sharing rule. Israel is getting access to the OS source (because of course they are) and they will be putting their own radars and systems inside their 'F-35I". But the cost of this is they won't be in ALIS and are paying Lockheed directly for external support.


    Which brings us to the other reason the US doesn't allow it: the F-35 was designed to work as a unified system. The software, built around the expectation of certain radars, certain sensors, certain computers. Change one out to a different model and it's a big deal. Principally that's been the change buyers of the F-16 made. The US exported F-16s, in many ways more advanced than our own (since we stopped buying them in 1994/1996) but with dumbed down radars. So occasionally buyer countries have retrofitted their fleets, post-sale, with their own, non-dumbed down radars.

    The F-35 has America sharing some of our unique and newest military advantages - stealth technology that is cheap to maintain, an advanced radar superior to the F-22s, the EOTS system, artificial intelligence and so forth. The cost to that is that partner countries get to buy it and field it, but they don't get to understand it or fiddle with it's workings. I think that's fair. It represents a confluence of factors ultimately. The F-16 broadly speaking, needs to be replaced, first for the US (since ours are oldest) and then a decade later, en masse for our allies (since they bought theirs mostly after the US did), and that was always going to be a big, big program. A successor was always going to have to have stealth technology and other tech, or really not be worth buying in the first place (or to put it another way, if the US offered an F-16 replacement that used technology 15 years behind the F-35, why would our allies buy it?). And the US wants to keep know how about how systems are designed under tight wraps so China and Russia are left further and futher behind. So the compromise of all these factors was how the F-35 program was ultimately structured.

  19. #139
    Quote Originally Posted by DiegoBrando View Post
    Are there any statements by Assad? Did Syria allow this, or asked for Turkey's help? If not, sending tanks over the border is basically a declaration of war.
    According to Article 51 of UN, it is self defence and is not a declaration of war. Some towns in south of Turkey were being attacked from other side of border for long time. Many civilians died.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mi...0PY2H820150724
    Last edited by sabe; 2016-08-25 at 08:19 PM.

  20. #140
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kuntantee View Post
    The gun seems to be indeed RheinMetall. The armor is, however, ROKETSAN Composite Armor, according to wiki. Forget F-35, you don't even open F-16 source or let is change it as far as I know.
    ROKETSAN is using Korean armor technology. Even the C3I gear is heavy leveraging Korean tech it seems.

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