Posted on 10/06/2019 6:05:30 PM PDT by BlackVeil
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said Turkey will carry out an "air and ground military operation" east of the Euphrates River, prompting US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to warn of an "all-out war" to defend the region they control.
It was Erdogan's most direct indication of a unilateral incursion into Syria since Ankara and Washington decided to establish a "safe zone" there.
The operation, which aims to clear groups Turkey considers "terrorists" from the border region ...
(Excerpt) Read more at aljazeera.com ...
[Turkey....”air and ground military operation” east of the Euphrates River]
I’m sure they’ll do something even larger, later.
Waiting for them to become full allies with Iran. Unless I missed that.
Thank you for pinging to your list.
Re Iran - yes, the pivot to Iran is most significant. Note this recent article:
ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday it was impossible for Turkey to stop buying oil and natural gas from Iran, despite the threat of U.S. sanctions, and added that trade between the two countries would continue, ...
What a NATO ally :)
You said it! Indeed, Turkey is a member of NATO, and that is the wild card in all this.
I see Turkey wants to lose quite a few more Leopard 2s to Konkurs missiles.
And possibly more T-129 attack choppers, though they only lost the one last time.
Time to pull all us forces, and weapons out of Turkey and level every building built with US funds and rubble every airfield.
Nothing like 3 day old news.
Be a damn shame if Russia took Istanbul while Turkey is messing around.
Yep, the Leopard 2’s were destroyed in significant numbers. Yes, they lost a number of helicopters, not all same type.
Well, no one had posted it, and Turkey making this statement is a significant event.
The only confirmed Turkish military helicopter combat loss in Syria that I could find was a lone T-129 ATAK that went after a Kurdish settlement with a wingman and was evidently shot down by tracerless AAA.
They’ve had the usual range of non-combat equipment failure and hard landings expected of helicopters worked hard in combat zones or in support roles.
The Leopard 2s, though... the Turks *still* don’t have an APS for those (to be fair, we only last year hastily started ordering Trophy APS for the Abrams after seeing what Konkurs missiles did to Turkey’s near peer frontline NATO tank with composite armor) so even if they start operating them properly (with proper infantry support) they’re still going to lose lots of them.
Weird, considering we’ve been doing ‘joint patrols’ with Turkey in the area for a while.
But not so weird considering Erd is seeking interior support.
And that his dream of Chinese support have been decimated by Trump.
Thanks for the note.
Sounds like a match made in Ezekiel 38.
When the world will get there, I dunno.
“confirmed”? By who?
They lost a number of Helicopters in Syria.
They lost a reported 50 tanks to ISIS during the operation in Al Bab.
I saw video’s of a number of tanks destroyed in Afrin and heard reports of quite a few. Not all the Turk tank kills were by Konkurs. I saw some photo’s of ChiCom guided anti tank weapons. That was before the siege of Raqqa.
Confirmed as in one side claimed it and the other side or third-party-national media confirmed it. Actual losses may have been more.
This is the only confirmed/admitted Turkish heli combat kill so far: https://www.dailysabah.com/war-on-terror/2018/02/10/erdogan-says-turkish-military-helicopter-shot-down-during-afrin-operation-in-syria
Here is one current ongoing list of confirmed air kills/accidents in the Syrian conflict: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aviation_shootdowns_and_accidents_during_the_Syrian_Civil_War
The majority of reported Turkish tank losses so far have been to Kornet and Konkurs missiles. The Chinese missiles have been seen in the possession of the FSA; the HJ-8E has been used with indifferent success at best against the Syrian-operated T-90A and little at all success against Russian crewed T-90As. The TOW-2B and the Iranian Toophan 1 through 5 have also been observed in use by the FSA, with the latter missile also in use by Hezbollah (who seems to have brought it to the party as well as supplying it to the FSA) and the YPG (who seems to have forcibly taken it off Hezbollah) among others. Mostly the Toophan 1 variant is what has been seen, but all Toophan use has been poorly documented and it hasn’t had much success in use against Russian tanks.
The wild success of Kornet and Konkur missiles against Turk Leopard 2A4s compared to the indifferent success of the HJ-8E, TOW and clones against Russian and Syrian tanks with APS is why pretty much all of NATO and especially the US is now rushing to retrofit their tanks with APS. Turns out that the Western assumptions of Russian missile effectiveness against Western frontline armor was completely wrong. Also wouldn’t be surprised if the TOW got hastily updated as the BGM-71Es that have been seen primarily in use against Russian-originated vehicles has *not* performed well against heavy Russian Kontact-5 ERA and their Arena APS despite having a tandem warhead intended to defeat the former. When it does manage to get past the Arena, the Kontact-5 seems to be able to deflect almost all damage from the TOW’s warhead. I don’t remember hearing if any BGM-71Fs have been seen in-theater, but that’s the only better version of the anti-tank TOW missile - it differs from the E mainly in that it can do top-town attacks. The fact that the E variant is doing so poorly should be a giant red flag for the West, just as much as the Leopard 2s being shredded by Kornets and Konkurs.
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