All things Middle East related

[SunnySide]

The Turkish military's devastating display of power against the Syrian army last week — which saw the destruction of hundreds of regime tanks, artillery pieces and armored vehicles — came from a cheap but effective domestic drone program that NATO officials say has changed the military equation against Russia in Syria's Idlib Province.

Russia should have won this one — but it didn't

In theory, Russia would win such a conflict.

Yet Turkey won this round.

How?

Turkey has a new ace up its sleeve, one that forced Russia to think twice about escalating against President Recep Erdogan's government, military sources told Insider.

Turkey's offensive was conducted with about 100 domestically produced drones launching cheap guided munitions with deadly efficiency.

"Dropping these bomblets on Syrian regime tanks all night got Putin's attention"

While Turkey guards the exact cost of producing the Bayraktar TB2 as a state secret, it sold 12 drones and three ground command centers to Ukraine last year for $69 million. At less than $6 million per drone, the TB2 is about a third of the cost of the similarly capable US produced Reaper MQ-9, which retails for US allies at about $16 million a piece.

Turkey's President of Defence Industries İsmail Demir, in a 2016 panel discussion hosted by the Atlantic Council, lauded the U.S. restriction on drone sales for pushing Turkey to become an independent UAV manufacturer. "I don't want to be sarcastic, but I would like to thank [the U.S. government] for any of the projects that was not approved by the U.S. because it forced us to develop our own systems," Demir quipped, adding that Turkey no longer wanted U.S.-made armed drones.

"Flying dozens of these drones over Idlib and dropping these bomblets on Syrian regime tanks all night got [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's attention," said the NATO official. "Sure in a direct confrontation, Russia could use its airpower and standoff munitions like cruise missiles to breakdown Turkey's air defenses and drone command and control, but at a cost that would be inconceivable in a conflict over Idlib. Turkey knows it can't force Russia out of Syria as much as they might like to, but they did reinforce that Putin and Assad cannot force Turkey out of Idlib. So it's back to agreements and discussions for now."

Today, Turkey and Russia agreed to another ceasefire in Idlib, with Russian troops patrolling a corridor about 6km on either side of the disputed M4/5 highway that is a critical link between the regime-controlled cities of Damascus and Aleppo.

The peace will no doubt be welcomed. And among military analysts, so will the news that there are some wars that Russia is apparently not willing to fight.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/turkey-us...174456745.html

Drone wars. The new proxy war frontier.

Ive read other articles about how the US is vulnerable to a swarm of hundreds of drones attacking at one time. Its been somewhat reported we have "knock down" technology but for every outpost for every part of the world where we are stationed?

This seems like something straight out of Spider-man Homecoming.