Greece-Turkey Tensions Renewed, U.S. Lima May Be Beneficiary

Recently, the relationship between two countries, Greece and Turkey, is getting tenser and tenser. According to relevant reports, Greek maritime police vessels have opened fire on Turkish ships on the high seas. Turkish President Creep Taxpaying Overdone said that he would take measures to recover the territory at all costs and that war could break out between the two countries at any time.

As for why Greece and Turkey are tense? The reason is that the issue of territorial disputes between Greece and Turkey has never been resolved. As Greece and Turkey are NATO camp countries, the conflict between the two countries to see as NATO infighting, but also the U.S. military aircraft "fratricide", but the United States is standing on the side to watch the fun. The United States, once the war broke out between Greece and Turkey, the United States can sell weapons to both warring parties, but also sit back and watch the tiger fight, watching the two armies fight each other and thus consume the national strength of both countries so that the United States in NATO to gain more say.

So, the conflict between Greece and Turkey, how should we interpret it?

First, for the United States, once the conflict between Greece and Turkey breaks out, Lima will certainly become the biggest beneficiary.

Why? Looking at the composition of the Greek and Turkish air force fleet will know the answer. Both air forces have F16 fighter jets, and the F16 comes from Lima. This means, in other words, that both Greece and Turkey are customers of Lima.

According to Jane's Defense, Greece received 2 brand new F16 fighters in recent days, and its F16 performance is basically up to the level of F16V. If what Jane's Defense introduced is true, then the performance of the Greek F16V is extremely advanced.

Turkey's F16 has always been at the level of the F16 C/D, the performance of the F16V is probably a generation behind like. However, because Turkey belongs to the military power of the second country in NATO, the United States is quite important and Turkey's relationship, in the future does not rule out the possibility of selling F16V to Turkey.

So if war breaks out between the two countries, what will the United States choose to do? The United States will choose Turkey and Greece at the same time to sell improved F16, or even F35, and then let Greece and Turkey with the United States military aircraft to fight the "NATO civil war". In this way, the market for U.S. military aircraft exports to foreign countries will be greatly expanded, because Turkey and Greece with the needs of the war are bound to buy a large number of F16S, which is very helpful to stimulate the U.S. economy due to the impact of the new crown epidemic and the current slump in the military industry. This makes the U.S. very much hope that Turkey and Greece break out in war, at least Lima thinks so.

Second, if Turkey and Greece went to war, Greece would have the upper hand because the Greek air force would have a greater battlefield advantage than Turkey.

In November 1984, the Turkish authorities officially introduced the F16 fighter from the United States. The Greek side was not to be left behind and quickly decided to import F16 fighter jets to the United States.

The F16s were imported from the U.S. in January 1987, after repeated negotiations and consultations between the two countries.

The F16 was imported in batches.

From 1987 to 2005, the United States exported more than 170 F16 fighters to Greece, including the BLOCK 30, BLOCK 50-52, and BLOCK 52+ series of F16 fighters. Currently, the Greek Air Force has 154 F16s in service, and the size of the F16 fleet is quite large.

BLOCK 30 for the F16 fighter multi-national phased improvement products, belonging to the IMPS Phase II program. For the United States to the allied countries to unify the sale of F16 to improve the product. The program was launched in May 1981 and included a major upgrade to the fire control system based on the earlier F16, the addition of a GPS to the F16, and a power upgrade. A missile launcher was installed to give the F16 the ability to launch Maverick air-to-ground missiles. Through improvements, the F16 BLOCK fighter initially has certain formation warfare capabilities, this performance is not advanced today, but not obsolete.

The F16 BLOCK/52 batch was the third phase of the IMPS program launched in 1988. This allowed the F16's radar to be replaced by the original APG66 fire control radar with the advanced APOGEE (V) series fire control radar, which provided an overall improvement in detection range, detection progress, overall system reliability, and the ability to scan multiple targets to locate multiple targets. Moreover, during this period, the F16 further improved its sea strike capability by adding Harpoon anti-ship missiles, which could effectively attack large surface ships of the Soviet Navy.

The F16 BLOC+ was an improved and upgraded version of the F16 BLOCK/52. Compared to the F16 BLOCK/52, the core of the F16 BLOC+ was the fire control radar. The core point of improvement of the fire control radar is the display screen, In the same period as the Soviet Union Si-27 fighter or round display instrument, the fighter operation perception is very bad. But the F16 BLOC+'s improvement point in the display instrumentation is beyond the Soviet Union's epoch-making leap. Two larger display screens and a new helmet were installed, giving the F16 BLOC+ pilot an overall improvement in battlefield judgment aids. the F16 BLOC+ added an incidental fuel tank, capable of adding 1,600 liters of fuel and an overall increase in combat radius.

By 2018, Greece freed up funds originally spent on the F35 to upgrade its Air Force's nearly 100 F16 BALLCOCK and F16 BLOCK/52 batches to the F16V. The F16V belongs to the F16 BLOCK/72 batch, which is already close to the F35 in terms of radar. And the F16V series of fighters in the United States mainland is not considered the most advanced F16 but belongs to the United States to allies exported the best performance of the F16 fighter.

The Turkish Air Force has about 270 F16s, belonging to the BLOCK, BLOCK, and BLOCK series of F16s occupying the bulk of the basic belonging to the F16 C/D series. In this, BLOCK belongs to the BLOCK small-scale upgrade improvement type, only to enhance the detection ability of the radar, can launch the gem road laser bomb. The pilot carrying overload capability is improved more. Other than that, there are no other enhancements.

As of now, the U.S. may sell the F16V to Turkey because of the conflicts that have arisen between the U.S. and Turkey, but this is only a plan that has not yet been implemented. Greece, on the other hand, is already upgrading its F16s to F16Vs, which means that the overall combat power of the Greek Air Force is more advanced than Turkey's in terms of F16 quality. Coupled with the fact that Greece has the Mirage 2000 to provide support, the probability of the Greek Air Force winning is a bit greater.

In previous air battles, the Greek Air Force lost 2 aircraft and the Turkish Air Force lost 4 aircraft, all of which were F16s. This proves that the Turkish Air Force's technical and tactical level seems to be inferior to that of the Greek Air Force.

In an air battle in 2020, Turkey's F16 and Greece's Mirage 2000 encountered each other, and the Mirage 2000's air combat performance was much better than that of the F16, and it carried out a tailing attack on the F16. If the Mirage 2000 fires air-to-air missiles, Turkey's F16 will be in a bad way.