Milliyet: “We will field the Eurofighter Typhoon against the Greek Rafale”

Turkey is negotiating with the UK to supply second-hand Eurofighters to fill a gap created by the fact that the United States withholds the delivery of F-16s, according to Turkish newspaper Milliyet.

The Turkish publication reports that the commander of the Turkish Air Force has already met with the commander of the British Royal Air Force in London with the aim of acquiring Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft, as already reported by pronews.gr.

“The Eurofighter Typhoon that Turkey plans to add to its fleet has very similar characteristics to the Rafale aircraft that Greece bought from France,” writes the author of the article, which also compares the two weapons.

At the same time, the Rafale has an advantage in air combat at low altitudes, and the Eurofighter Typhoon – in high-altitude air combat. At the same time, according to him, the Rafale was designed to be effective in defeating ground targets, air-to-ground, and the Eurofighter Typhoon was more effective in gaining air superiority.

Rafale also has the ability to land on an aircraft carrier, but neither Greece nor Turkey have aircraft carriers, and the likelihood that in the event of a military conflict France will send its aircraft carrier Charles Le Gaulle to help Greece is unlikely.

“Turkey’s goal is to maintain sea and air supremacy in the Aegean because we know we cannot trust Washington,” Milliet writes. Previously, the author of the article tried to find out what options Turkey has if Joe Biden and the US Congress do not allow the sale of new F-16s to Ankara.

“We don’t even think about buying fighters from France,” he said, suggesting that Macron would defiantly refuse, while rejecting the idea of ​​​​buying 5th generation Su-57 fighters from Russia, as this is due to problems in the training of pilots, the overall system NATO communications and maintenance.

It is worth noting that Eurofighter Typhoon is a fourth-generation multirole fighter, unlike the Rafale. “Typhoon” was developed and manufactured by the company Eurofighter GmbH, established in 1986 by a consortium of Alenia Aeronautica, BAE Systems and EADS. To date, according to the developers, the aircraft is version 4+ thanks to stealth technology and updated electronic equipment, and according to American pilots, surpasses in the maneuverability of the F-22 Raptorexcept for invisibility.

True, it is still unknown which version Britain will sell to Turkey.

Source link