Turkish defense industry news updates

[karn]

Cross posting from Strategic Front forum...
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I am not sure about rest of Turkish aerospace industry but Bayraktar is indeed among the most innovative company in aerospace. I was wrong about Turkey and Bayraktar, they are indeed a real deal and a mortal danger to India.

I am really really really scared of Kizillelma drone. It can do with airwarfare the same thing TB2 did with tank warfare. It can perhaps make a manned airforce extinct atleast for 4th gen and older aircrafts.

It is :

1. Cheap! No expensive or exotic powerplant! They bypassed the whole engine development headache by licensing engine from ukraine. These engine first flew in 60s. So no new tech. The manufacturing is in Instambul, so no disruption. This engine, AI-55 or something is really cheap.

2. Medium sized platform. The platform is medium sized and not small like loyal wingman program or HAL CATS. This means it has more capacity to carry weapons like long range air to air missiles. HAL CATS warrior is SMALL and actually does not compares with it. Its role is different.

3. Carrier enabled with no catapult required. Can be deployed very very VERY fast from a flat top.

4. Stealth. Stealth config with internal bays plus medium size = harder to detect and yet harder to intercept. Not to mention, since its pilot less, it can do manuvers which exceed human endurance for accelaration limit.15g manoeuvres to evade a SAM? bring it on!

5. Will be massively mass produced. Economy of scales.

6. Ditchable. More risky missions can be taken. More rewards.

Think about it, this thing will cost PAF 5-10 million dollars a piece + weapons cost. 1 billion dollar will buy 100 of these babies. 10 billion dollar, 1000. 10 billion dollars are enough to buy enough of these that entire airforces can be completely destroyed. A 400 strong "swarm" of the drones will make your airspace totally blocked. No aircraft and take off or land.

I will not be surprised if an aircraft carrier can deploy 100s of these.

It also removes the most irreplaceable part of the airforce : pilots. Any major power is limited in airforce by pilots. This thing ... can remove that limit.

If PAF gets 200-300 of these, its bye bye IAF. Each will carry two 100+ KM range BVR. Your planes will not be able to detect them at a longer range because of stealth and small sized. It can fire its weapon much nearer to you. PAF will push its advantage by taking riskier missions. A volley of IR + BVR missile from a distance of 60 KM is enough to take out ANY fighter in IAF. Nothing can beat such a combo. Whats more, if later they put a jammer in it, it will be able to approach as close as 30-40 KM before firing its dead missiles.

The engine is AL 322F isn't it ?
A 6 ton aircraft with a 44KN engine (with afterburner) will not be pulling any high Gs .

 

[Nazaria e Bakistan]

Where did you get the price tag ? Only article I found was. this :

First flight for the future Turkish stealth combat drone Kizilelma

Turkey continues to develop its drones, with the first flight of a jet-powered fighter aircraft expected to partially offset the country's ban on F-35 purchases.

aircosmosinternational.com

.

It says it will cost 35 million USD.

As far as launching from ship without catapult goes, the catch there is payload.

AFAIK its a human controlled drone. All such drones are highly susceptible to GPS spoofing and signal jamming.

Once mass production starts, prices will fall like rock. These folks do not need to import much. Even the engine is locally manufactured -- They have a JV with Ukranian Ichinov-Progress to make it locally in Turkey. They are working on a local radar and given their closeness to EU nations and being a NATO memeber, they have a very good case of achieving it in a year or so. Once you start manufacturing everything locally and orders are in several 100s, economy of scale will take care of rest. Engine costs some 1 million dollars. Given its smaller size, there is a good chance they can make a drone in 8-9 million dollars.

And indeed catch is payload. They will have just two A2A missiles per drone. Those are enough to bring down a fighter like Su-30MKI. Remember, these will be flying in big swarms. For A2G roles, they ave specialzied bombs like MAM which they have perfected in TB2.

Secondly, there is automation of roles and a single human pilot may pilot an entire formation of these drone. So yes, there may be a human operator in loop but instead of flying individual craft they will be taking higher level decisions and let the flying be delegated to software. AI can prioritise which sensor of which drone they need to pay attention to. This is very much a thing even today.

 

[Nazaria e Bakistan]

The engine is AL 322F isn't it ?
A 6 ton aircraft with a 44KN engine (with afterburner) will not be pulling any high Gs .

6 ton is MTOW which will be in "non-stealth" config. After ditching weapons, it can attain a much better thurst to weight ratio close to 1.0.

 

[Nazaria e Bakistan]

All such drones are highly susceptible to GPS spoofing and signal jamming.

Yes and no. There are channels that are highly susceptible to spoofing and there are channels that are highly resistive to spoofing and jamming. Think UWB modems. UWB is very resistive to jamming and spoofing. Then if you do not rely on GPS alone for location, you can avoid GPS spoofing and jamming too. Scene co-relation comes to mind. DSMAC is a very old technology from cold war which can be reliably used for cruise missile guidance. I am damn sure, today I can implement DSMAC on a $10 ESP32 microcontroller with a camera.

Not to mention, if these drones are operating in formations of swarms they can pool resources and share load for location and communication.

And then there is a good reason why a lot of this tech is not going to be as expensive. A lot of tech that drives this is also used in TB2. Not to mention, it also drives IoT craze today.

 

[karn]

6 ton is MTOW which will be in "non-stealth" config. After ditching weapons, it can attain a much better thurst to weight ratio close to 1.0.

The engine thrust is nowhere close to what is required for those Gs even if close to empty. Indeed it is underpowered compared to every fighter in service.

 

[Nazaria e Bakistan]

The engine thrust is nowhere close to what is required for those Gs even if close to empty. Indeed it is underpowered compared to every fighter in service.

Fine, the drone is not super manuverable right now and likely will require more powerful engine to become one, all the other advantages still stand. Especially stealth and size and cost. Drone is likely to see you before you see it and that will be end of your manned fighter.

Try buying a stealth fighter for even 30 million dollars. This thing will cost much lower in mass numbers. Look at how F-35 price came down with mass production. Even a clean Rafale costs 100 million.

And lets not even talk about not having to replace pilots when your drone crashes or is shot down.

 

[karn]

Fine, the drone is not super manuverable right now and likely will require more power engine to become one, all the other advantages still stand. Especially stealth and size and cost.

Try buying a stealth fighter for even 30 million dollars. This thing will close much lower in mass numbers. Look at how F-35 price came down with mass production. Even a clean Rafale costs 100 million.

Not really .. You made a lot of assumptions with regards to autonomous flight and susceptibility of jamming as well as some magical reduction in cost.
The only point that stands is stealth .. which again with those canards we cannot be sure off . And just 2 AA missiles in stealth mode is hardly game changing .

 

[Gyyan]

Not really .. You made a lot of assumptions with regards to autonomous flight and susceptibility of jamming as well as some magical reduction in cost.
The only point that stands is stealth .. which again with those canards we cannot be sure off . And just 2 AA missiles in stealth mode is hardly game changing .

Canards don't affect the stealth to the degree you are thinking it does there are ways to get over it not totally but there is a way

Look at the angle which the canard of j20 makes while canard increases the reflection surface but the angle it makes reflects the incoming radar wave to another direction as in the pic.
You can look up millennium7 in the j20 video in which he talks about structural stealth of j20 he explains how the canard doesn't affect the stealth due to shape that much in case of j20

 

[Nazaria e Bakistan]

Not really .. You made a lot of assumptions with regards to autonomous flight and susceptibility of jamming as well as some magical reduction in cost.
The only point that stands is stealth .. which again with those canards we cannot be sure off . And just 2 AA missiles in stealth mode is hardly game changing .

People did not think much of TB2. Ask Russia. Its tank have been so thoroughly devastated that now they are digging out their 40s tanks to fight in Ukraine.

Or ask Armenia.

There is no magical cost reduction, economies of scale are very well known.

Given how much of hot news Baykar is these days, sure as hell their order book is going to be nice and thick.

About autonomous flying, their drone already have that in TB2 (https://www.baykartech.com/en/uav/bayraktar-tb2/).

And no, just because a fighter has canards, it does not mean it can not be stealth. A certain J-20 comes to mind. Not to mention, this is grippen/Tejas sized small.

The issue is not 2 A2A missile in stealth mode. Issue is, you can afford to loose two or three of these to take out a Su30MKI. The cost of losing the fighter with pilot will wear your airforce down. Thats the killer combo.

Its similar to what Nazi Germany did to France in WW2. They fought a war which French did not even imagine at that point of time.

 

[jai jaganath]

People did not think much of TB2. Ask Russia. Its tank have been so thoroughly devastated that now they are digging out their 40s tanks to fight in Ukraine.

Or ask Armenia.

There is no magical cost reduction, economies of scale are very well known.
View attachment 203608

Given how much of hot news Baykar is these days, sure as hell their order book is going to be nice and thick.

About autonomous flying, their drone already have that in TB2 (https://www.baykartech.com/en/uav/bayraktar-tb2/).

And no, just because a fighter has canards, it does not mean it can not be stealth. A certain J-20 comes to mind. Not to mention, this is grippen/Tejas sized small.

The issue is not 2 A2A missile in stealth mode. Issue is, you can afford to loose two or three of these to take out a Su30MKI. The cost of losing the fighter with pilot will wear your airforce down. Thats the killer combo.

Its similar to what Nazi Germany did to France in WW2. They fought a war which French did not even imagine at that point of time.

Where are tb-2s now

 

[Nazaria e Bakistan]

Where are tb-2s now

Ukraine only had 50 or so TB2. Russia had to deploy its entire strength of multilayered air-defence to defend against slow moving, lightly armed, cheap drones.

And TB2 is still selling very very well : https://digit.site36.net/2023/05/04...with-sales-of-the-tb2-in-almost-30-countries/

Not to mention, TB2 is a major reason that few weeks of war is now dragging on for quite sometime now. Ukraine using just 50 TB2 put a major dampener in Russian ground forces advance. Russia which was considered second most powerful military power in the world.

 

[jai jaganath]

Ukraine only had 50 or so TB2. Russia had to deploy its entire strength of multilayered air-defence to defend against slow moving, lightly armed, cheap drones.

And TB2 is still selling very very well : https://digit.site36.net/2023/05/04...with-sales-of-the-tb2-in-almost-30-countries/

Not to mention, TB2 is a major reason that few weeks of war is now dragging on for quite sometime now. Ukraine using just 50 TB2 put a major dampener in Russian ground forces advance. Russia which was considered second most powerful military power in the world.

Once a well layered and defined AD comes into game these drones can't even fly a proper sortie
Exception exists
In first Russian logistics was shit they didn't move their AD in same trajectory of their armored formation which us why tb-2 took some hit
And I think this they have to take 40s tank as all got destroyed is propaganda
Once a credible air defence enters into the game such male ucavs won't see daylight
Now neither Ukraine is ordering tb-2 nor interested to deploy it in warfare as they know it has no work right now as Russians have deployed layered AD

 

[karn]

People did not think much of TB2. Ask Russia. Its tank have been so thoroughly devastated that now they are digging out their 40s tanks to fight in Ukraine.

Or ask Armenia.

There is no magical cost reduction, economies of scale are very well known.
View attachment 203608

Given how much of hot news Baykar is these days, sure as hell their order book is going to be nice and thick.

About autonomous flying, their drone already have that in TB2 (https://www.baykartech.com/en/uav/bayraktar-tb2/).

And no, just because a fighter has canards, it does not mean it can not be stealth. A certain J-20 comes to mind. Not to mention, this is grippen/Tejas sized small.

The issue is not 2 A2A missile in stealth mode. Issue is, you can afford to loose two or three of these to take out a Su30MKI. The cost of losing the fighter with pilot will wear your airforce down. Thats the killer combo.

Its similar to what Nazi Germany did to France in WW2. They fought a war which French did not even imagine at that point of time.

It was hardly just the TB2 that screwed over russia. And Armenia got hit as they have no airforce and their airdefences were wrecked by harpys before the Tb2s went in.

Ill wait for the news article that claims that the cost of the Kızılelma is 10 million .. Even the 30 million quoted in the above article is just hopeful .. So lets stick with that. And right there you have half the cost of a light fighter ...hardly game changing.
(https://www.baykartech.com/en/uav/bayraktar-tb2/).
This link just shows automatic waypoint navigation hardly anything related to fighting.. Not even automatic takeoff and landing like the rustom .

 

[Shuturmurg]

People did not think much of TB2. Ask Russia. Its tank have been so thoroughly devastated that now they are digging out their 40s tanks to fight in Ukraine.

Or ask Armenia.

There is no magical cost reduction, economies of scale are very well known.
View attachment 203608

Given how much of hot news Baykar is these days, sure as hell their order book is going to be nice and thick.

About autonomous flying, their drone already have that in TB2 (https://www.baykartech.com/en/uav/bayraktar-tb2/).

And no, just because a fighter has canards, it does not mean it can not be stealth. A certain J-20 comes to mind. Not to mention, this is grippen/Tejas sized small.

The issue is not 2 A2A missile in stealth mode. Issue is, you can afford to loose two or three of these to take out a Su30MKI. The cost of losing the fighter with pilot will wear your airforce down. Thats the killer combo.

Its similar to what Nazi Germany did to France in WW2. They fought a war which French did not even imagine at that point of time.

Nothing will get to the scale of US military industrial complex and hence similar cost reduction for other military jets is improbable. US is producing 180 F-35 a year. There is a reason Rafale is expensive even with export orders.


Even at best it comes down to 25 million + ammunition, it still won't be equivalent of stealth fighter. There is still human decision making involved and those sat comms links are vulnerable. Satellites are vulnerable as well, so if you don't have a huge ass satellite fleet (like US or China), and you go against an enemy with anti sat capabilities your comms infra will be destroyed.

Human pilots practice for these kinds of scenarios where sat comms are taken out. US has such exercises with its closest allies (UK, Canada and Australia) every other year.

DOD “Red Flag” exercise ushers in GPS jamming season across West

War games in the sky, at sea, on ground block GPS to add a dose of reality.

arstechnica.com

There is a reason US airforce decided to keep humans in the loop with manned unmanned teaming. The forward deployed manned fighter jet can communicate with the drones without sat comms. So, until the drones become fully autonomous to even engage targets, this manned-unmanned teaming was developed as compromise.

So, I will wait till there is some actual data.

Like TB2 is great for fighting against irregular forces and low tech forces, but as we saw in the Ukraine war, even though they are somewhat useful (esp. for surveillance), they are not a game changer and ultimately the war came down to artillery duels.

 

[Shuturmurg]

People did not think much of TB2. Ask Russia. Its tank have been so thoroughly devastated that now they are digging out their 40s tanks to fight in Ukraine.

Or ask Armenia.

There is no magical cost reduction, economies of scale are very well known.
View attachment 203608

Given how much of hot news Baykar is these days, sure as hell their order book is going to be nice and thick.

About autonomous flying, their drone already have that in TB2 (https://www.baykartech.com/en/uav/bayraktar-tb2/).

And no, just because a fighter has canards, it does not mean it can not be stealth. A certain J-20 comes to mind. Not to mention, this is grippen/Tejas sized small.

The issue is not 2 A2A missile in stealth mode. Issue is, you can afford to loose two or three of these to take out a Su30MKI. The cost of losing the fighter with pilot will wear your airforce down. Thats the killer combo.

Its similar to what Nazi Germany did to France in WW2. They fought a war which French did not even imagine at that point of time.

As for TB2 obliterating Russian forces, stop reading turkish news.

TB2 Bayraktar drones now "useless" in Ukraine against Russian anti-aircraft defense

Prior to the conflict in Ukraine, several specialists questioned the effectiveness of MALE drones in a so-called high-intensity conflict, judging them

www.meta-defense.fr

They were effective when Russians like morons brought out convoys of trucks and armored vehicles without adequate air defense and then like an even bigger moron ran out of fuel because their rear was not protected.


Russians after that loss started to add proper air defense to their convoys and also adjusted their air defense systems to track slow moving objects to rectify this.

 

[Nazaria e Bakistan]

Once a well layered and defined AD comes into game these drones can't even fly a proper sortie
Exception exists
In first Russian logistics was shit they didn't move their AD in same trajectory of their armored formation which us why tb-2 took some hit
And I think this they have to take 40s tank as all got destroyed is propaganda
Once a credible air defence enters into the game such male ucavs won't see daylight
Now neither Ukraine is ordering tb-2 nor interested to deploy it in warfare as they know it has no work right now as Russians have deployed layered AD

I beg to differ. Russian advances since mid of last year have slowed a lot. They have become entrenched, though at a massive military cost.

If a cheap drone can kill the best of your armour thrust, I will call it a success.

And when it comes to logistic being shit, honestly, do you think IA has better logistic? If a war happens, we will certain find out how well our army and airforce operates together. If last conflict is any indication, we are in for many surprises that Russia found out.

Lets not forget, that Russians consider themselves an expert in SAMs with S-400 being world most advanced SAM system. If they had to suffer this much of humiliation at the hand of a rag-tag army flying just 50 drones, I shudder to think what IA will have to face. Or IAF for that matter.

Ukraine is still deploying TB2. They lost one just 3 days back (to friendly fire). Roles have changed a bit. They are using TB2 to find targets to hit using HIMARS. HIMARS packs a vastly bigger punch to hit entrenched enemies. Lets not forget, Russia has run out of tanks. TB2's biggest usecase is complete now. Destroying russian mechanised army.

 

[Nazaria e Bakistan]

Nothing will get to the scale of US military industrial complex and hence similar cost reduction for other military jets is improbable. US is producing 180 F-35 a year. There is a reason Rafale is expensive even with export orders.

Even for russia, Su-30-SM costs 35-37 million dollars per plane (https://militarywatchmagazine.com/a...ce-as-much-as-russia-s-new-su-30sm-here-s-why). And you are telling me a drone will not come down to 10 million dollars per plane?

They were effective when Russians like morons brought out convoys of trucks and armored vehicles without adequate air defense and then like an even bigger moron ran out of fuel because their rear was not protected.

Every one is intelligent till the real war starts and bullets fly. Then one realizes how stupid one was. Till 26th Feb 2019 we were also very confident and then we found out that heck even blast pens to house Su-30MKIs were not there in near LoC. WTF!

Let the fighting begin and we will also find out just how stupid our ground forces and their decision makers are.

Russians after that loss started to add proper air defense to their convoys and also adjusted their air defense systems to track slow moving objects to rectify this.

And yet Russians have run out of any modern tanks and are digging out 1940s and 50s tanks. TB2 has fulfilled its role well.

 

[Nazaria e Bakistan]

There is still human decision making involved and those sat comms links are vulnerable. Satellites are vulnerable as well, so if you don't have a huge ass satellite fleet (like US or China), and you go against an enemy with anti sat capabilities your comms infra will be destroyed.

Human pilots practice for these kinds of scenarios where sat comms are taken out. US has such exercises with its closest allies (UK, Canada and Australia) every other year.

Do you India has those ECM capabilities? And why will China not lend its sat network to Pakistan for its long range comms? Last but not the least, Sats are just one way. A high flying plane with UWB can also do the same trick. UWB modems are almost impossible to jam.

 

[Nazaria e Bakistan]

Even at best it comes down to 25 million + ammunition, it still won't be equivalent of stealth fighter.

You do know that for russia, a Su-30-SM costs just 35 million dollars. It costs us 70 million due to our limited scale of production. I do not see any reason why a drone will not come down to 10 million dollars with economy of scale.

Here is the thing. It does not need to be exactly equivalent to something like F-22. All it need to do is to cheaply take out all your 4th gen and 4.5 gen fghters. Then your airforce is dead. India is not getting a 5th gen fighter before 2040.

20-50 million dollar is a good price to take out a 70-240 million dollar plane PLUS an experienced pilot.

 

[jai jaganath]

I beg to differ. Russian advances since mid of last year have slowed a lot. They have become entrenched, though at a massive military cost.

If a cheap drone can kill the best of your armour thrust, I will call it a success.

And when it comes to logistic being shit, honestly, do you think IA has better logistic? If a war happens, we will certain find out how well our army and airforce operates together. If last conflict is any indication, we are in for many surprises that Russia found out.

Lets not forget, that Russians consider themselves an expert in SAMs with S-400 being world most advanced SAM system. If they had to suffer this much of humiliation at the hand of a rag-tag army flying just 50 drones, I shudder to think what IA will have to face. Or IAF for that matter.

Ukraine is still deploying TB2. They lost one just 3 days back (to friendly fire). Roles have changed a bit. They are using TB2 to find targets to hit using HIMARS. HIMARS packs a vastly bigger punch to hit entrenched enemies. Lets not forget, Russia has run out of tanks. TB2's biggest usecase is complete now. Destroying russian mechanised army.

Their slowdown is not due to drones pls do visit the conflict thread in the forum
It didn't kill their armour thrust in the manner western sources say yeah at first they were used due to absence of proper AD
When true Russian layered AD arrived they were falling left and right now they are mostly used for their ideal role that is reconnaissance and intel gathering as they are ineffective in ucav roles
Coming to us we will invade any piece we are a defending force so comparing us with Russians is not right as they are invading Ukraine the resources should be very high which their officers weren't able to achieve it
Drones have affected aerial warfare but not changed it
Except loitering munitions all male drones are vulnerable and have limited roles