Featured Greece to Buy 18 Rafale Fighters, Four New Frigates to Boost Defense

[Trango Towers]

Greeks are proud people. The grand daddy of science, democracy, western civilization, orthodox Christianity, not to mention the longest lasting empire Byzantine. That's a darn good resume!

History is the past
Arabs have a great past too

 

[Yongpeng Sun-Tastaufen]

This will just incentivize Turkey to come up with ways and means to defeat the Rafale on a war footing. Increasing spending and acquisitions to quickly improve their EW equipment (their Havasoj program will almost certainly get a boost in funding and procurement in numbers), and more R&D into defeating the Meteor and Spectra with DRFM decoys, towed decoys, Loyal wingman aircraft that can fly ahead and if need be, become sacrificial targets to absorb enemy meteors while closing towards the merge where Turkey can use its indigenous BVR as High off bore sight WVR missiles.

Turkey's military technology is way overrated. Turkey can't even make EO on its drones.

 

[FuturePAF]

Turkey's military technology is way overrated. Turkey can't even make EO on its drones.

It may not be as good as more established vendors, but they have an incentive and a market willing to spend on these kinds of products. Turkey will put in the money and cooperate with the likes of Italy or South Korea to catch up if it needs to, as it has done in the past. It may take a number of years but it is a capability Turkey will need sooner or later; I.e. for the T-FX. These events have only sped up the calendar for Turkey.

during this economic downturn, foreign partners maybe even more willing to collaborate.

 

[Avicenna]

Why can't Turkey just buy double the number of Typhoons?

 

[Yongpeng Sun-Tastaufen]

Why can't Turkey just buy double the number of Typhoons?

Western arms embargo. They can't even upgrade their F-16C to F-16E like Greece is doing.

 

[FuturePAF]

Why can't Turkey just buy double the number of Typhoons?

In order for Turkey To keep up, it will either need to make unauthorized upgrades of its F-16s Or build a medium weight replacement for the F-16. Any other option will leave it vulnerable to foreign sanctions, even if it claims it is using weapons in self defense, similar to what happened to them with the leopard tanks and Germany. The T-FX will take sometime and an interim program may not be a bad idea, similar to south Korea’s non-stealthy KFX before its final Stealthy K-FX is ready. Even for the Turks, the costs would be at least $10-15 Billion to just replace half their fleet with a semi-stealthy fighter if they can keep per unit costs at $50-60 million. Considering their experience and sunk costs in making fuselage parts for the F-35, their industry would love some orders to cover the lost revenue from the F-35 program.

The goal of any interim fighter would have to be to keep it “simple” but modern. A program that can go from the drawing board to first flight in about a year, and production in a few years after that. If Turkey doesn’t either switch to an all T-FX fleet or build some interim fighters, it will remain dependent on foreign suppliers and be vulnerable to foreign sanctions. Turkey could go back and build one of the single engine designs it had tested for the T-FX program. Considering Turkey experience build part of the F-35 Fuselage, it maybe better off building a similar semi-Stealthy conventional layout platform. It will be the best platform to integrate all the sub-Systems under development for the T-FX as well as a lower cost but very modern platform for export to countries like Pakistan looking to replace its Mirage fleet, looking for ToT, and Access to European weapons and sub-systems without buying a European platform but sharing the cost due to economies of scale. Especially if both nations could commit to 150 planes each, the costs would come down and it would help build up both defense industries to modern standards.

Turkey just build the Hurjet, so this would be a natural evolution, and a good stepping stone to the T-FX program. Pakistan too will ultimately need to replace its oldest F-16s and Mirages, before you know it, and a Turkish interim jet maybe the most cost effective option. This would be especially true if Pakistan is blocked from getting any upgrade on its F-16s in a reasonable timeframe.

operating the same jet would also allow Turkey and Pakistan to help each other in the event of war imposed on either nation. From loaning jets to actually sending pilots and planes, Pakistan and Turkey have the potential to become interoperable if they operate a common platform that is sanction-proof.

Also of the conventional design below, if the rail were changed from a “four poster”: twin vertical and twin horizontal at the rear, to a Pelikan tail, it would help in the development of that technology as well per the design recently revealed for project Azm.

 

[Zarvan]

Greek first needs to focus on maintaining a standing Army of at least 200000 all the time. Keeping only 90000 active is a disaster in the making. Turkey is way big for Greece to mess with and in case of war Pakistan will provide help to Turkey.

 

[BON PLAN]

paid probably by the UAE

why? and even.....

 

[BON PLAN]

LoL

Greek's fighters will be shot down by Turkiye's S-400 as they take off.

Greek's Rafales will never face Turkish Fighters.

full bashing !

 

[BON PLAN]

Do you know S-400 has maybe a maximum effective rage of 150km against incoming fighter jets?

Rafales will be armed with Spectra to try to jam the S-400 and it's missiles.
ARMs can be launched outside effective engagement range to neutralise the S-400s radars.

Too many people have been taken in by Russian hype over the S-400.

He doesn't know that french air force made regular trainings to attack and destroy S400.
Using Hammer to force the S400 and the other small system all around to use their precious missile, and then destroying it. S400 is a powerfull threat, but not invincible.

 

[UKBengali]

He doesn't know that french air force made regular trainings to attack and destroy S400.
Using Hammer to force the S400 and the other small system all around to use their precious missile, and then destroying it. S400 is a powerfull threat, but not invincible.

Funny thing is that they are all Pakistanis and not Turks.

They really seem to think or hope that Turkey has caught up with France in aerospace tech.

Once these Rafales join the Greek airforce then TAF will have to very careful when getting into a confrontation with Greece, as they would be facing an opponent with a clearly superior aircraft with the deadly Meteor BVRAAM.

 

[BON PLAN]

Funny thing is that they are all Pakistanis and not Turks.

They really seem to think or hope that Turkey has caught up with France in aerospace tech.

Once these Rafales join the Greek airforce then TAF will have to very careful when getting into a confrontation with Greece, as they would be facing an opponent with a clearly superior aircraft with the deadly Meteor BVRAAM.

not only the Meteor, but also a far greater range radar, a far more potent electronic support systeme, a LO jet (not a VLO).
It is a game changer.

 

[UKBengali]

not only the Meteor, but also a far greater range radar, a far more potent electronic support systeme, a LO jet (not a VLO).
It is a game changer.

The Rafale in exercises with Eurofighter was jamming the Eurofighter's mechanically slotted radar and that was when it had the older PESA radar.

Imagine what the brand new AESA radar that Greek Rafale's come with will do to the Turkish F-16 C/D mechanically slotted radar's that are somewhat less advanced than the Eurofighter's radar.

Turkey will upgrade to it's new own indigenous AESA radar but it is too much to think it will be anyway near as good as the one on the Rafale.

 

[BON PLAN]

Turkey will upgrade to it's new own indigenous AESA radar

When? in 2035?

 

[Prince Kassad]

Would be interesting to see how the Rafale with AESA radar faired against Turkish F16s with Doppler radar.

My guess is that Turkey wouldn't like the answer.