Well the situation came about with the delays to the F-35 and in combination with waiting for whatever USAF T-X will produce. Offcourse the chronical lack of funds doesn’t help. In short it’s more like the squadrons will regain their combat status compared with “increasing combat strength by 50%”.

https://www.hvkk.tsk.tr/en-us/Turkish_Air_Force/Todays_Air_Force/Aircraft_in_the_Inventory

Is the above link official TAF website? If so, it says current active planes number 240 F16, 49 F4 and 32 F5. (as well as 33 T38). So active combat plane inventory is 289 to 321 planes, depending on combat capability of F5.

I find it really strange if TAF is really going to get rid of their jet trainers and replace them with a pure fighter. Even more so if that fighter is going to be heavier than F-16. It doesn’t make much economic sense.

“Officially” its 232 F-16s, 63 F-4Es 59 F-5s, though 14 of those are RF-4Es and recon role is “actually” replaced by TARP F-16s, and F-5s haven’t flown actual combat duty for the last 20 years or so… Considering 116 F-35s are NOT slated to replace any F-16s but other ~122 (on paper that is, 49 are actually flying combat missions) legacy aircraft of TuAF on near 1-1 basis, Replacing ~232 F-16s with same 1-1 basis does not look THAT unrealistic to me; esspecially considering domestic aircraft will probably be cheaper to build and operate than F-35…

If true, it would still mean a planned increase of combat coded squadrons by roughly 50%. And as F-5 squadrons would be replaced by true combat planes, their training role would then have to be performed by additional new trainer planes, no? Aren’t most of those 50+ F5 really retired? And remaining two dozen are purely for training (as addition to T-38) and/or airshow performance?

Is this forum even moderated? How about all posts aimed at individual users (instead at discussion about Russian air force) getting deleted?

There is no context given about the pricetag. 45 million per plane, if that’s just flyaway cost, which it very well may be, is something that certainly looks doable for indian made f16 or gripen. Even if we’re talking about 2022 or something like that. Lets keep in mind that Boeing, with US workforce costs charged USN 55 million dollars per superhornet when volumes were high, back in early 2010s. (it would cost around 63 million today with inflation and low volume production)

Comparing Tejas flyaway prices, back in 2014 it was published that first lot of 20 Tejas (which is really initial production and prices may fall further) cost 26 million dollars per plane. No context given but could likely be flyway price.

Without context it’s impossible to talk about costs. Foreign order planes, using foreign workforce costs are one thing, domestic production line costs are another. Flyaway price is one figure, whereas entire pricetag with making the production line and tech transfer is another.

Also, will it necessarily be really 45 million per plane? Of course not. That may be set as a goal, contracts in place, production starts, then things start going over budget. But at that point it would be too late to change anything.

based on the responses here, it seems many want the boeing/saab model to win.
my answer is why?

I’d like them to win as that would increase the chances of low cost combat airplane appearing on the market for the western aligned countries. Right now, LM is pretty much blocking sales of FA-50 anywhere it thinks used F-16 has a chance, basically forcing users to go for used F-16 as that’s the only possibility.

Some new player, even if it was NG, would be hard pressed to compete against LM’s political clout. But Boeing? They’re a very powerful political player on their own, and have gone head to head against LM in many competitions. If they had a plane to offer, they could realistically change the landscape of cheap combat planes in the West a little bit. But without a T-X win, current proposal may end up being just a demonstrator.

8 launchers per lowest level unit (so we don’t get confused with batteries/divisions/batallions) was standard for a long time, since soviet times. one targeting radar and 8 launchers.

Has something changed recently? Has s400 brought forward the idea of two targeting radars per unit, alongside 8 launchers? So then, if needed, such unit could operate as two even smaller sub-units if needed, with just one radar and 4 launchers per sub-unit?? If so, when did that happen?

The plan for s400 is still 56 batteries delivered by end of 2020, right? (and by division one is refering to a battery?) If they are delivered indeed two batteries per polk, that’d be 10 batteries per year. With little reason to vary that number a lot in coming years. Which would mean some 40 more batteries delivered, on top of assumed 33 batteries so far. For a total of 73, exceeing the previously stated number.

Another explanation is that, unless explicitly stated otherwise, a s400 polk is in reality a mixed polk of s300 and s400, where there is one s400 battery. In such a case, there might be 20 or so batteries operational with another 20 to be made by end of 2020. Total of 40 is less than stated goal. That might explained either by slower acquisition (wouldn’t be the first time) or by some (but not all!) polks actually receiving 2 batteries, so actual total is higher, perhaps around the stated goal.

The latter seems a more logical explanation to me.

Looks too small for an ASAT. Looks of inappropriate fin/wing layout for an ARM, as the lack of mid body wings suggests a ballistic-ish trajectory.

Best bet would be a long range AAM, against not so maneuverable targets.