REPORTER: GIORGOS SIDERIS
Day after day, the Turkish press “boils” referring to the opening of the balance of power with Greece. Ankara is of course doubly worried, giving importance to the two points that are considered keys to supremacy.
The first one that emerges daily in the press as Turkey’s mega headache has to do with the TuAF problems, but also what the Greeks have achieved.
The second part that Ankara does not forget is the submarines of the Navy, Papanikolis 214 class submarines.
But through the publications what emerges for many reasons in the neighborhood is that although Ankara does not give up the fight for the F-16 Viper as this is the type of fighter that forms the backbone of the air fleet, but regardless of the development of the case in America, Turkey intends to acquire Typhoon Eurofighters from the British.
And here it certainly seems clear that the Turks are looking for the answer that the TuAF will have, against the Greek Rafale with the Meteor air-to-air missiles, which create conditions of prohibition since they are capable of neutralizing an enemy aircraft before it even illegally enters the Athens FIR and the National Air Space.
In the Turkish press, the reports about the Meteor missiles reach a point of obsession. It is emphasized that with this asset the Hellenic Air Force is capable of creating an impenetrable wall in the Greek sky, if the conditions ever become real. In other words, when there will be no closed dogfights and the pilots will not be able to tell who their opponent is by his helmet. That’s how close Greek and Turkish aircraft come in many cases…
The scissor won’t close…
But there are questions that are not answered through these publications.
Which type of Typhoon Eurofighter of all that the British RAF has at its disposal, is it making available to Turkey?
The information until now said that the British want to “get rid of” the first Typhoons, which are neither 4.5 generation, nor have modern electronics, nor are they capable of carrying the Meteor air-to-air missiles.
And it is possible that during his visit to England, Hulusi Akar saw the newest types of Eurofighters, which can carry the Turkish missiles, but who has given guarantees to Ankara that the manufacturing company and the Meteor co-producing countries will co-sign the concession of these missiles in Turkey and how will they welcome it to the closed club that recently accepted the Hellenic Air Force?
The same applies to the air platform of course…
Furthermore, assuming that Turkey really wants to put the European consortium aircraft in its fleet, is the infrastructure there? Are the funds for such a purchase available, when hundreds of Turkish citizens queue up for a kilo of bread? How long will the fliers be available in the new type?
From wherever one catches it to answer dozens of questions that arise. The only thing that is certain is that the TuAF is necessarily many years behind the Hellenic Air Force, even if we assume that tomorrow everything is magically resolved in the USA and the new F-16 Vipers are released for the neighbor.
The “stopwatch” testifies to Turkey that no matter how much it runs, it is not able to cover the lost ground and in fact the neighbors know very well that there is literally a daily educational orgasm at the Greek air bases, at a time when their own flights are increasingly limited in the isoboxes of the UAV’s which have taken the place of the F-16s in the daily illegal actions within the Athens FIR.
And something very basic: Even if the Menendez scope is passed, which is particularly difficult, and Turkey gets the F-16 Vipers, it will NOT have the answer it is looking for against the Greek Rafale Meteors. The United States will very hardly release a missile like the AIM-120 Delta in Turkey and Greece which will certainly fight its own “battle” since it is at the gates of the 5th generation and the F-35…
The nightmare of 214 “Papanikolis”
However, in the sea, apart from the new digital frigates selected by the Navy, the “KIMON” class, known as Belh@rra, about which the Turkish press does not stop reporting, the nightmare of the Turkish fleet remains the Greek submarines.
Mainly the type 214, Papanikolis class but also the older ones, type 209 and this because their crews for many years are the same people, they know very well the capabilities of each cetacean and the underwater terrain in which they methodically move.
And the combination of the 214 with the new torpedoes that within the next year will begin to be placed in the powder magazine of the fleet, create the cocktail of fear.
What if the Turks have ordered six submarines identical to the Greeks. By the time they learn the capabilities of the 214 it will be several years.
On the other hand, the memories and sufferings of 2020 from the Greek type 214 remain for the Turks fresh points of the Greek-Turkish crisis that… they do not want to bring back to their memories so often.
And of course, when and if the first 214 will finally be delivered to the Turks is of particular importance.
If one considers that in ten days Germany is expected to sign important agreements with the Greek side, for diplomacy and defense, it is possible to see another capitalization in this partnership, which in previous years was positioned as a request of Athens to Berlin and related to the release of the 214 in Turkey…
