Posted on 07/13/2022 6:52:47 PM PDT by elpadre
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was in a tough spot last August when he paid a visit to Turkey. For nearly a year, his government had been at war with rebels from the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, which was now pushing south from its stronghold near the Eritrean border and threatening to move on the country’s capital of Addis Ababa.
Thousands had already been killed, and the United States and the United Nations had accused all the warring parties of blockading aid, committing sexual assault and deliberately targeting civilians.
With only a small, aging fleet of Soviet-era military jets, Abiy needed a way to quickly — and cheaply — expand his air campaign against the rebels. Turkey had just the solution: a military drone known as the TB2 that could be piloted from nearly 200 miles away. China and Iran also supplied drones, but the TB2, outfitted with cutting-edge technology, had fast become the new favorite of the world’s embattled nations, helping to win wars even when it was pitted against major powers.
On August 18, Abiy met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to sign a military pact. It’s unclear whether drones were part of the agreement. But two days after the signing, publicly available flight records showed that an Ethiopian Airlines charter flight took off from Tekirdag, an hour’s drive west of Istanbul, at an airstrip known for testing and exporting the Turkish drones.
It was the first of at least three such runs over roughly a month, the records show. Neither the Turkish nor the Ethiopian governments responded to questions about the flights, but officials in Turkey have previously acknowledged drone sales to Ethiopia.
(Excerpt) Read more at asiatimes.com ...
US military industrial complex not happy!
this a long read but interesting and revealing.
excerpted:
“..The U.S. now faces a slippery diplomatic quandary: On one hand, the TB2s are aiding allies like Ukraine, which has used them to turn the tide against Russian forces. On the other hand, they are rapidly changing modern warfare, giving warring factions a way to kill quickly, cheaply and remotely...”
Have a nice cup of Hush, Uncle Sam.
p
Good for Turkey.
Drats, we want to be the ones selling killer drones.
the russkie-uke war has opened one humongous Pandora’s Box ...
Russia finally has their drone program up and running. From what I understand there was some beggaring that ALL components of the drones HAD to be made in Russia, including the chips. Whoever pushed that through was a wise person. For some reason they can make military equipment ridiculously cheap compared to the crooks in the US.
I hope the US is developing means of spotting and killing drones for our troops to use. As an artilleryman in Korea I remember well the Chinese and NK had women spotters in the hills giving our location to the enemy. In firing position we were usually exposed for a modern drone to take out.
Lockheed Martin and Raytheon are not happy these cost probably 1/10th what they charge Fed.gov.
I can't see what propels these things; no propellers, no air intake - exhaust. ???
I’ll take two - tesekkur ederim Arkadaslerim!
“It’s a new kind of war, George. A new war for a new century.”
Well, you think the only place UFOs crashed was Roswell?
if they’re panicking over drones from turkey... they aren’t ready for what china has in store
I think of the quote from “Patton”:
Correspondent : General, we’re told of wonder weapons the Germans were working on: Long-range rockets, push-button bombing weapons that don’t need soldiers. What’s your take on that?
Patton : “Wonder weapons?” My God, I don’t see the wonder in them. Killing without heroics. Nothing is glorified? Nothing is reaffirmed? No heroes, no cowards, no troops, no generals. Only those who are left alive and those who are left... dead. I’m glad I won’t live to see it.
Dog and pony show. It is a lie that they were decisive in Karabakh, in Ukraine more TB2s were killed than the stuff they killed.
Globalist drone weapon control? Reminds me when they took weapons from the South Sudanese who then got massacred and stopped complying.
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