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The United States warned Turkey against moving ahead with plans to buy a sophisticated Russian missile defence system that the Pentagon believes would threaten its advanced F-35 fighter aircraft.
The State Department made the remarks on a day when the head of US European Command spoke to politicians on Capitol Hill and said Turkey should reconsider its plan to buy the S-400 from Russia this year.
"We've clearly warned Turkey that its potential acquisition of the S-400 will result in a reassessment of Turkey's participation in the F-35 programme, and risk other potential future arms transfers to Turkey," said deputy spokesman Robert Palladino on Tuesday.
The US agreed to sell 100 of its latest fifth-generation F-35 fighters to Turkey and has so far delivered two of the aircraft. But Congress last year ordered a delay in future deliveries.
[...] The S-400 can track a large number of potential targets, including stealth targets such as the US F-35 fighter jet. Other advantages included its high mobility, meaning it can be set up, fired and moved within minutes.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday March 06 2019, @06:36PM (7 children)
Well, it's at least "good enough". It's a little hard to understand the opposition to Turkey acquiring it. If the S-400 has capabilities that our missiles don't have, then we ought to encourage Turkey to get a bunch - and give a couple to us for research purposes. We should always be looking for opportunities to study what a potential enemy is doing.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday March 06 2019, @06:39PM (6 children)
I assume the US already has some, tested them, and discovered that the F-35 has no defense against it.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday March 06 2019, @06:52PM (5 children)
I've never looked at them, but you need not go very far out on a limb to guess that the S-400 uses a long wavelength radar. We've known for quite awhile that our "stealth" craft are clearly visible on old radars that we consider obsolete. But, Russia never stopped using those radars. They aren't fooled in the least by our fancy aircraft. Let me find some kind of article on it - five year old article here: https://news.usni.org/2014/07/29/chinese-russian-radars-track-see-u-s-stealth [usni.org]
It's a bit like the Emperor who had no clothes. Or, children who cover their eyes, and tell you that you can't see them. The US has blinded itself to the low frequencies, then built a craft that is hard to see at high frequencies, then declares that no one can see their craft in operation. The Russians just shake their heads in wonder. "These are the Americans who defeated the Soviet?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 06 2019, @08:54PM (1 child)
Low frequency radar breaking stealth* has been publicly known for 20 years, but while it is great for detection it is a poor choice for targeting. Modern AA batteries use Doppler radar to track the plane's wake. Even a StarTrek tier cloaking device can't hide from that.
*Project Aurora was mostly likely research into overcoming this, but it has other problems like a 4000*F heat signature.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday March 06 2019, @11:25PM
Just use a couple or more radar stations on the ground to track the target and forget about making the missile that smart; that 'smartness' will be destroyed anyway.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by fyngyrz on Thursday March 07 2019, @12:16AM (2 children)
...the Soviets pretty much defeated themselves. Their governance and methods of production were corrupt and inefficient; their workers unhappy, unproductive, and poorly treated; they tried to outspend (or at least match) the USA's spending; and they simply ran out of what it took. Boom. Rotting navy, ill-equipped and poorly trained ground forces, cratered economy. Bye-bye, Soviets.
If you want to run a communist country and make it work, pretty sure you're gonna have to root out all the corruption, shovel-leaning*, and kingmaking, and then keep it that way. Might be easier today (or soon-ish) with cameras and AI, but... even so, easier doesn't mean easy.
* There's an old Soviet saying, "you pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work."
--
After my girl turned vegan, it was
like I'd never seen herbivore.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 07 2019, @11:19AM
Communism's failing, whether ingrained in the form of governance, or caused by the people who rose to the top, is what killed it, not the ideals behind it (not unlike the US Constitution, its history to present, and particularly its erosion from the Drug War, Clipper Chip/Anti-Encryption, Columbine, and Patriot Act erosions to our freedoms.)
You can't stop stupid. The USSR fell to it, America may be falling to it, and if China's leadership continues on its current course, it may fall to it too. Assuming the Big Brother singularity doesn't strike first, in which case the plebs will stay forever shackled and unable to learn about nevermind make the moves necessary for organized dissent.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by loonycyborg on Thursday March 07 2019, @02:58PM
Lately I think that communism's so called "inefficiency" is mostly PR story about imaginary world. What killed USSR is Stalin's paranoia, which affected the way leadership is chosen, in favor of "trusted" ones instead of skilled ones which made it work out like hereditary aristocracy in medieval kingdoms. This is in total opposition of how Lenin wanted it work. Whether nation wins or loses is determined by actions of leaders, not by ideology. And both capitalism and communism are horseshit made up by uneducated or too idealistic westerners.