Comments by "VisibilityFoggy" (@VisibilityFoggy) on "Why Turkey's S-400 Matters..." video.

  1. They don't have much of a choice if they want stealth. There's a good chance the Su-57 never gets into mass production. And there is absolutely no way they can build an indigenous fifth-gen fighter. Japan couldn't even pull it off without help (though Mitsu made a demonstrator). Turkey is not capable of developing a fifth-gen plane capable of keeping up with the big guns.
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  2.  @alfabravo80  - One would think, however it doesn't seem that way. They're probably going to end up buying Flankers. It's what most dictators do when they want to look tough when no one else will sell them arms.
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  3. Why? You enjoy authoritarianism in Algeria?
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  4. Well, the ultimate way to "leave Turkey alone" would be to decline to sell them weapons systems. ;)
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  5. Every dictator needs a boogieman when someone tries to throw him out of office. The US is a popular boogieman.
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  6. No stealth plane is 100 percent stealth. So, in theory, something like the S-400 (which is really just a re-branded S-300, which has never actually been used in combat) can "see" an F-35, but that's relatively meaningless. You're going to have it going in and out of radar cover, and firing a missile would be silly since the S-400 battery has to light up its own radar to target the F-35. At that point, the F-35 would use its stealth to evade and respond by firing a radar-seeking missile at the S-400. There is a big difference in seeing a plane and tracking it, engaging it and successfully downing it. I don't doubt the S-400 is somewhat capable, but I do doubt it's keeping any USAF pilots up at night.
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  7. Right, because Russian influence has worked out so well for your neighbor to the south. The US and Colombia are solid allies. Your government is smart not to ruin that positive relationship.
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  8. Huh? You mean the one guy who flew an F-16 down a city street? C'mon. That "coup" attempt was silly.
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  9. @Serdar - It's hard to build a truly stealth navalized aircraft. To operate on an aircraft carrier, you need folding wings, arrestor hooks, hardened parts on portions of the fuselage, etc. The F-35C will be about as "stealthy" as you can get for that role. Perhaps the F/A-XX program will produce a sixth-gen stealth naval aircraft that is purpose-built for maritime use, but until we see a contract awarded, what's out there now is as good as it gets.
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  10. @Blue Sky - Keep in mind that Russian jets tend to have significant reliability issues, and the supply chain for parts and repairs is much narrower than in the larger US/NATO ecosystem. On paper, Russian military system seem like bargains (and some are) but their advanced systems become quite expensive, quite quickly. Production and maintenance costs for the F-35 are getting lower and lower. At this point, it's only $4 million more for an F-35 than a Gripen-E.
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  11.  Clandestino  - Japan has been building the F-16 for 20 years under the Mitsubishi F-2 program, and even produced an improved version of it.
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  12.  @unggrabb  - Pressure on whom? No other European, NATO or democratic country in the world, for that matter, produced a fifth-gen jet. Only the U.S. So what's the competition here? If you are not aligned with China and want fifth-gen tech, the F-35 is the only game in town. Even Russia's Su-57 looks like it'll be dead on arrival, given the fact that India dumped them.
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  13. Bingo.
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  14. Not really. A Dassault (French) Rafale fighter has a "standardized" tail hook and arrestor system to land on the U.S. carriers. The F-22 and F-35 were designed to coordinate with the Eurofighter. There is a ton of British tech in the F-35. The U.S. itself buys plenty of arms from European defense manufacturers. The UK is developing its own 6th-gen fighter. Then there's the Gripen. Lockheed Martin does not dictate which planes are purchased by NATO members.
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  15. They can buy whatever they want – and we can sell or not sell whatever we want. The U.S. isn't going to go to war with Turkey, or anything. They're not even going to get kicked out of NATO. They just aren't going to get two pieces of competing military equipment that can produce valuable information which can be stolen, leaked, sold, etc.
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