It’s been up against aircraft and systems supplied by a peer force constantly. In Vietnam many of the enemy pilots were Soviet. Take the Bekaa Valley Air War, US supplied force vs Soviet supplied force, result, walk over.

This is the most distasteful combination of two particular traits; ignorance and arrogance;

MiG-21 is a 2nd gen light class aircraft. Its direct counterpart in west is F-104. F-4 is a 3rd gen heavy class of aircraft. While it has no direct counterpart in Soviets, its generation-vise counterparts is MiG-23, Su-15TM and MiG-25.

Unsuprisingly, F-4 is a better aircraft than MiG-21 in all circumstances; It has a radar that deserves the definition, has potent BVR capability, better WVR missiles. In terms of aerodynamics, F-4 actually has better sustained turn performance and climb rates, so it was actually a better dogfighter in trained hands, plus it was faster too.

Likewise F-15 and F-16 are 4th gen aircraft, their counterparts are Su-27 and MiG-29. Comparing them with previous generation of aircraft is nonsense, as those aircraft excel in all criteria.

So are you chestpounding because then cutting edge US fighters achived parity with a generation older Soviet aircraft?

Only relevant air-to-air victory comparisons would be encounters in similar generations. Only suprising aircraft in such encounters was MiG-25, which was pretty survivable because of its speed. It maybe worth mentioning that in all the encounters that an F-15 or a Su-27 faced MiG-29, heavy types prevailed. Actually, that is also an expected outcome as F-16 and MiG-29 were born as cheaper alternatives to fill the roles where more capable F-15 and Su-27 would be unnecessary. This definition alone says, they are by no suprise inferior to Su-27s or F-15s.

and it’s pretty likely that was done precisely to antagonize Russia. Did Erdogan really want to do that? Did the US through it’s NATO/gladio networks have the influence to organize it?

I fail to see the logic. Erdogan already said pilot shot down was also arrested as part of the coup, but he also said this is totally unrelated to the shooting down event. From another POV, if that was true, why should Erdoğan not acknowledge this and save his own face? Many in Turkey didn’t exactly approved that shooting down event. If that was true, such action would have served very well to his internal politics.

It’s pretty obvious the Su-24 was shot down in a well set up trap,

This conspiracy theory, I don’t understand. What made this Russian Su-24 special? A Russian Su-30 invaded twice, it was not shot down, a Russian Su-34 invaded twice during the operations and those were not shot down either.

Turkish side said they didn’t knew the identity of the Su-24 before shooting down. They have shot down different Syrian aircraft, and surely this Su-24 didn’t get any special treatment than those. What is not to believe in this official explaination? What makes you think this is a well set up trap for this aircraft that makes the basis of your other teories?

Is it possible for Tu-22M to drop its bombs in selective amounts? For example if it takes off with 33 FAB-500s in internal bay, can pilot drop 6 if he wants? If not, then why waste bombs?

A nonsensical claim, TBH.. No video cameras are capable to tell what are those convoys of trucks ferrying stuff from Turkey to Syria and back loaded with.. It could be anything from bags of rice to MANPADS and they would still look the same from above.. so exactly what kind of proof would you expect to get?

You tell me? Its Russians who post photos of Trucks as “proof” of Turkey buying IS oil. The problem is, they turned out to be Iraqi trucks, and picture turned out to be taken in Northern Iraq. If you think such photo cannot prove anything, then you are saying two things; 1- Russians are simply talking nonsense 2- They’ve lied for nothing. I don’t share your idea and I do think some aerial footage can be a proof of that; ie, same convoy of truck leaving IS refinary, followed by an UAV all the way to the Turkish border, for example, could have been a pretty convincing proof (as Russians attempted to sell it) but I would have expected a footage at the very least to be taken in Syria.. In terms of law, Russians gave falsified evidence and this is considered a very big crime in any modern country that I know of.

Davutoglu in Nov 2015:
It was decided that in the event of our airspace being violated, all necessarily measures would be taken, all relevant orders to the armed forces were given by me, personally.

Davutoglu in Jul 2016:
“I did not give the order to shoot down that plane,” Davutoglu told NTV, claiming it would not have been possible to give the order as the Russian plane allegedly spent 17 seconds in Turkish airspace

Are YOU being serious? You are nitpicking two sentences to answers given to two completely different questions; (Unfortunately our press does the same to make headlines a little more sensational, I honestly don’t blame you on this)

1st one was a statement about that the order given to military for shooting down any aircraft crosses border was given by the prime minister.

2nd is an answer to a question regarding was he was in contact with military during the shooting down event, and his answer is in the lines of “I am not a soldier within the chain of command”.

Obviously, Prime Minister (and parliament) give orders to Chief of staff to airforce command within the military hierarchy down to the pilot. Its very stupid -of you or anyone else- to expect Prime Minister himself calling the pilot to gave the orders. Aside from the technical impossibility, a politician cannot give orders to military in that way. Such orders must come from proper channels within the military. You are watching too much movies, I think.

BTW, the regret was not offered on day 1, it was first offered in Erdogan’s letter to Putin in June 2016, 7 months after the incident..

Ok, to be fair, it was offered on 26 Oct 2015, day 3. He said in France a) he regretted* such event occured, b) had we known aircraft belonged to Russia, we may have made our warnings differently, but he also said “he won’t apologize to Russia, for an event Turkey was right in its act. If anyone has to apologize, its Russians who crossed our borders”. What changed?

*I don’t know if that is lost in translation somewhere, but Turkish word “üzüntü” translate both as sadness and regret, and Turkish word “pişmanlık” translate both as regret and remorse. He said “üzüntü” maybe 20-30 times on those events, first being in France.

LOL… you are now completely losing any credibility in my eyes.. . it’s Edogan who is writing letters of regret, not Putin.. it’s Erdogan doing the traveling to Moscow to restore the relations, not Putin to Ankara.. It’s Putin who is rolling back the ban on the sales of holidays, food imports and construction, not Erdogan.. And finally, it’s Erdogan who is calling Russia “a strategic partner and a friend”, not vice versa.. so WTF are you trying to sell me here?

Don’t act like a 7 year old child. “hey its erdoğan begged putin” “hey erdoğan came to moscow” blah blah blah. What were you expecting, really? Its Turkish side who shot down the plane, how Putin could write a letter of regret? “I regret you shot down our plane”, yeah right. Its Russia who initiates sanctions, Turkey merely reacts to that, and now obviously its Russia rolling back them back first. How can you pass these as some “Russia strong!11”?? When you re-read what you have posted, do you REALLY think what you wrote has any logic?

Again, in this political stand-off, Russian side demanded apology, got none. Demanded compensation for aircraft got none. Demanded compensation for family got none. Demanded punishment of those who killed the pilot and so far, got none.

From Turkish side, it was regret on day 3, NO apology on day 1, only took equvalent action to Russian sactions from week 1-2, and called Russia a partner and a friend ever since day 3. Contents of letter was exactly that, now why Russian reaction softened after 7 months? Was it too difficult to translate those from TV?

Don’t try to sell this as a political victory of Russia. What matters is Russia didn’t got anything they wanted, period. I don’t have to sell you or anyone, anything. From political perspective, Turkey shot down the aircraft, and got away pretty clean with it.

But, Ankara Mayor Melih Gokcek argued that

You are taking quotes from a man who even managed to connect his rivals to illuminati. Seriously, Trump says Obama himself created ISIS and you quote a man who don’t even have 1/1000th credibility of Trump. Its YOU losing credilibity by such quotes.

What Putin want from Turkey, the one big thing, is creating a rift between NATO and Turkey. That has been one of Putin long term approach since he became President. Not just Turkey, but any NATO country.

Who knows, he may got his wish… US-Turkey relations has never been this bad, ever. This time its not just some political disagreement or some usual anti-capitalist folks dislike them, whole of Turkish population hates US for their PYD policy, and their refusal to return Fethullah Gulen.

Since 4 dispansers are still on the pylons, and sub-munitions appear to be originating from them, I would vote for KMGU-2 too.

No not trolling, I would respect the opinion, and agreed with most of it (especially I too trust military several times more than Erdogan, or I dare say, I trust our military but I don’t trust Erdogan) and few million others in Turkey -myself included- also considered that possibility of “staged” as well. But I don’t think that is the case, you think as such simply because you don’t know about the internal problems of Turkey.

In the shortest of summary; Jemaat of Gulen, among several others, was a known threat even in 1990s, those illegal organisations always used religion to find followers and had formed their own hierarchy and tried to gain key positions in government; before AKP, either 1st or 2nd man Turkish intelligence agency was always a general from the military, and military was allowed to make its own assignments and promotions internally. This resulted in military kicking out suspected jemaat followers (be it of Gulen or Nur or whatever), and every year 60+ high ranking officers among perhaps hundreds of petty officers were kicked out solely for this reason.

According to retired chief of staff, after Turkish intelligence agency became all civillian, intelligence reports about such jemaats stopped. Military tried to deal with it internally, but military intelligence is merely for internal security for counter-intelligence, and not even allowed -by law- to conduct such espionage of its officers so this was ineffective. Worse, AKP had changed laws and now military couldn’t kick out officers as they please, and highest ranking military assignments would be done with approvement of some ministers, and military was only allowed to make suggestions about that. According to him, “If you suspect someone to be gulenist, all we could do was to ask his superiors or his subordinates about suspicious actions. If those were also gulenists they would have protected, military had no way of exposing jemaat followers without assistance of national intelligence agency”

While this increased the AKP’s grasp on military, this also increased army’s vulnerability to such jemaats that could act outside the chain of command. Initially this was not much of a concern perhaps even desired, because AKP and those jemaats were acting together. In the last few years, AKP got way too strong, and got in conflict of interests with those jemaats. It was Jemaat of Gulen that leaked tapes proving AKP’s corruption, and AKP government revealed malpractices of pro-gulenist corporations.

With that hatred grew day by day, this latest act is definately from members of Jemaat of Gulen that reside within the military, and NOT from military itself or from someone pro-AKP. In my own opinion, Gulenists thought should they start the coup, military would follow, that would explain why pro-coup soldiers tried to convince chief of staff to BE the leader of the coup, even offered him to speak with Gulen himself. But since that failed, and 1st Army and 2nd Army commanders ordered their forces to withdraw to their bases, “coup” was over, and only after that point bombs start to fell to strategically unimportant, but sensational targets, scorched earth policy in a sense.

In simplest terms, they tried to MAKE the military to throw AKP, but military itself chose not to. As such, I see this as a terrorist act and not a coup, maybe born out of desperation of Gulenists, or some pre-planned act for a goal not revealed yet, and in the end it MAY end up serving Erdogan more than anyone else -as he is great at twisting everything to his own benefit- but I don’t think he himself staged it in any degree.

Its laughable to interpret what Çavuşoğlu said as such..

From where we stand, days of “free” NATO aids in weapons is long gone last one being M-60A3s in 1991. Now we spend $$$$ on new weaponary and simply put, western weapons come with too high price tag attached and I don’t mean money…

For example lets talk about tanks.. Germans *sold* us Leo2A4s on conditions they won’t be used in conflicts inside Turkish territory, or Turkey’s South East. While Turkey didn’t lost any tank or tank crewmen againist PKK (though 3 crewmen injured as an indirect consequence of a RPG hit), you could surely imagine how we feel regarding Germans about that. What if our soldiers die tomorrow when technical difference between a Leo2 and a M-60 may save them? Hundreds of our most modern tanks is just waiting for the never coming day Greeks invade Turkey, while 2nd army is actively fighting a war againist terrorism and watching the hostile borders of Syria with simply obsolete M-60A3 tanks; all that to make Germans feel happy about it. This is only one of the mentioned high price of buying “western” defense equipment.

Turkey plans to start serial production of its own domestic Altay tank in Q4 2016. What good will building 1000 domestic tanks do if we have to beg Germans for MTU diesels & spare parts, and what good those tanks are for if we cannot operate them the second our disgruntled German “allies” cut the supply of replacement engines and spare parts? When we ask for 100% licence production, somehow every one of our western “allies” become very reluctant. And there is a -very well deserved- mistrust to our western allies in fulfilling their contracts the second Turkish actions get politically “inconvinient”..

Now the Turkish perspective; MTU diesels are great, but if Hyundai accepts licence production, then our new defense partner will be Koreans. Their engines may be not as reliable, but we would be manufacturing those engines our own, along with necessary spare parts as well. If Ukrainians offer co-development of the next generation 1800hp diesel for Altay, then our next defense partner will be Ukraine and not Germany.

Its not about a hostility or a hatred againist west or NATO, its just business, and its just a move towards being more independent when we can.

Rest of your comment as in:

This means the days of tech transfers from the west is probably done. no more f16s. their stealth fighter project probably dead now (they never had the resources to begin with).

is pathetically foolish.

Tech transfer from west done? LACK OF tech transfer is the reason why Turkey prefers NOT buying western equipment anymore. Tech transfer is the sole prerequisite of all latest procurements, for example, US agreed on full tech tranfer and licence production of S-70 a few months ago, and T-70 will be the utility helicopter of Turkish Army. They disagreed to tranfer technology of AH-1Z, so there wont be a AH-1T, and A-129 is chosen instead. No country on earth wanted to transfer tech about UCAVs back in ~2007, so we bought from no one, started flying our own armed UAV designs in 7 years. We wanted to licence produce Hellfire missile, US didn’t allowed that, and our UAVs and T-129 today fly with domestic ATGMs. List goes on and on, you see my point, I think.

Regarding Stealth fighter project, I can safely say TAI is still recruiting new personel each month just for that project, and since you haven’t been to TAI, you haven’t got the slightest idea what resources they may or may not have at their disposal. You probably don’t know the fact TAI is producing the middle hull and inlet ducts for for LRIP F-35As since ~October 2013, and I’d say they have quite equipment and the expertise for working with appropirate materials and composites required in a 5th gen fighter.