Turkey may buy Russian MI-28 attack choppers to bridge gap

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rock45

Active member
Turkey may buy Russian MI-28 attack choppers to bridge gap
Turkey plans to buy 32 Russian MI 28 attack helicopters as a stop gap measure in its fight against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has intensified its attacks in the past year, Turkish defense industry sources have said.
"Until the attack helicopters that Turkey will produce in cooperation with AgustaWestland over the next five years begin to enter service, Turkey plans to buy Russian attack helicopters to bridge the gap," said the same sources.
Turkey has around seven Cobra Whiskey AH 1 attack helicopters out of around 12 in its military inventory, and the shortage in attack helicopters means that it is unable to fight effectively against the PKK, said a retired Turkish military source. However, sources from the Turkish Undersecretariat for the Defense Industry (SSM) were not immediately available to confirm the reports.
Nevertheless, well-informed sources said the SSM has been conducting secret negotiations with a Russian company, Rosoboronexport, for the purchase of 32 attack helicopters at a cost of about $1 billion.
Earlier this year, Turkey asked the US to sell it Cobra helicopters to meet its urgent requirements. But due to the unavailability of the US-made Bell Cobras, Washington suggested Turkey buy Boeing-made Apache helicopters instead.
"Ankara turned down the US's Apache proposal out of a fear that it may kill its attack helicopter deal with the Italian AgustaWestland," said the Turkish defense industry sources.
Though Ankara signed a deal worth around $3.5 billion with AgustaWestland for attack helicopters in June this year, the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) have refused AgustaWestland's offer of selling off-the-shelf A129 Mangusta attack helicopters as an interim solution.
TSK turned down the Italian offer on the grounds that the existing A129 helicopters would not have met its urgent requirements.
Turkey's attack helicopter project with Italy went into effect in late June this year, but it was overshadowed by speculation that those helicopters would be delivered late, in addition to several alleged technical shortcomings in meeting the Turkish requirements.
The project envisages the joint production of 50 helicopters with an option of another 41 at the facilities of Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI), the main contractor in the project, using the maximum amount of local resources. The helicopters to be produced at TAI are to be named T129, which will be based on the Italian A129, but configured to meet Turkish requirements.
The first T129 helicopter is scheduled to be delivered to the Turkish Land Forces Command on June 24, 2013. The remaining 49 helicopters are planned to be delivered within four-and-a-half years after that date.
Turkish plans to buy attack helicopters to meet what the TSK has commonly described as "urgent needs" date back to the early 1990s, when the current SSM undersecretary, Murad Bayar, was a junior project officer.

13 December 2008, Saturday
LALE SARIİBRAHİMOĞLU ANKARA
Link
http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=161151&bolum=100
 
I don't see this happening. Lale Sariibrahimoglu isn't the most reliable source in regards to Turkish defense news. In fact, among our defense circles she's known to be very biased, partial and have an agenda of her own, probably financially motivated. She has written many articles that later turned out to be hot air and/or outright lies.

Just who are the "Turkish defense industry sources?" The janitor at TAI or the guy who puts the garbage out at Aselsan?

Go get laid Lale, if you can. And leave journalism to real journalists.
 
MI-28N

As far as I know this helicopters isn't in production yet. Its been made, but where is it?
 
LOL 13th, yeah. :)

Guys, the thing is, there would be several significant issues with such a procurament:

(1) Turkey is already having problems and is very unhappy with its current fleet of Mi-17s, most of which were transferred to Turkey in the 90s. Some of Russia's Turkish Eximbank debts at the time were written off in return for arms. Most of the Mi-17TRs have been awaiting maintenance in Etimesgut AFB in Ankara for years due to technical issues and n outstanding service-related disagreement with Russia. As we all know, Russians aren't exactly famous for their brilliant after-sales support.

(2) Russia has already proposad the Kamov Ka-50-2 helicopter for Turkey's attack helicopter tender, and even offered to share tech and produce them locally in Turkey. They lost the tender to Italian Mangusta, T129.

(3) Mi-28 doesn't meet TSK's performance criteria, as it's mainly a heavily armored, anti-tank oriented gunship and can not climb or perform well in Turkey's high mountainous southeast. And especially not a very suitable chopper for use in assymetric anti-terrorism warfare, which is Turkey's #1 security issue at the moment.

(4) Turkey has already signed the Mangusta deal and can simply wait until they start rolling out. We already have a number of Cobras and Supercobras, as well as a large fleet of Blackhawks. Since we're not going to be hunting tanks in Hakkari, these platforms are definitely enough for the time being. BTW, AFAIK they're all functional. One is even being used as a test bed for the Cirit LGM and UMTAS ATGM as well as for Turkish avionics to be put on the T129.

(5) Integrating this gunship to Turkey's existing NATO data network would be nearly impossible, unless they agree to use Turkish mission computers, data links and/or avionics. Networking and real time distribution of tactical data is critical. Since this would be an off the shelf buy of a pretty limited number of aircraft, the Russians obviously wouldn't agree to use of Turkish hardware.

AH1W_10603.jpg
 
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rock45 said:
As far as I know this helicopters isn't in production yet. Its been made, but where is it?
Click to expand...
Rock, Mi-28 is the Havoc. They're in use in Russia and Venezuela.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mil_Mi-28

There's no way Turkey is buying 32 Havocs. Lale Sariibrahimoglu loves pulling bullchit news out of her arse.

The next attack helicopter to fly for TSK will be the T129:

A129_635_423.jpg


By the way, TAI isn't only going to manufacture 100% of this baby in Turkey, TEI (Turkish Engine Industries) will also be producing Honeywell's LHTEC T800 engine under license. This is the engine that powered the 'stealth' RAH66 Commanche! T129 is going to be the Porsche of attack helicopters. A light, fast, high flying, super maneuverable terrorist hunter. Of course, it'll also carry state of teh art guided anti-armor missiles (Hellfire II, UMTAS, TOW, Spike), FIM-92 AAM and laser guided rockets (e.g. Roketsan's Cirit) as well. If we excersize the +40 option (which I think we will as things never get boring in the Middle East) TSK will be flying 91 T129s, 7 AH-1Ws and 23 AH-1Fs, along with 20 S-70As, 28 S-70A-17s, 30 S-70A-28s and 48 S-70A-17/S-70A-19 Black Hawks. :rolleyes:
 
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Not correct

I don't beleive this not because of the soruce but because this helicopter project is almost 20 years in the makings. People wonder why they still sell the Hind-35.

Try and find a picture or other info on 43, a Russian tall story.


Reported to be the first plan again Russia fast talk

  • 118th Helicopter Regiment - Dmitriyevka, Oblast, Operates 21 Mi-28's with over ~80 to be on hand by 2013.
Click to expand...
These 21 are in different states of competition some aren’t flyable and the kicker is 80 to be on hand by 2013, Russian wishful thinking. If you look below at the Venezuelan numbers if production was really current and ongoing it wouldn't take a year to build 10 if Russia had 43 in service in one unit and another 21 in a different one.
Venezuela

  • Venezuelan Air Force - 4 Mi-28N/MMW delivered by 2009 and 10 more by 2010[9]
    Click to expand...
  • Russian has changed engines on this helicopter at least twice let’s see if they get 20 flying by 2009. Chavez order does help the process, money has a way of making things move a little. Venezuela also tried ordering the Yak-130 as well but ended up ordering the K-8 from China. A good portion of Venezuela’s order has not been filled to date.
    icon12.gif
 
More Information

I went out look around and from what I could find there are 6 or 7 produced.




Russia Commits to Multi-Year Buy of 67 Mi-28 Attack Helicopters

20-Jul-2006 05:52 EDT

MI-28NE – click to view
MAKS 2005 ground display
The Mi-28A “Havoc” first appeared at the Paris Air Show in 1989, but was never produced in numbers due competition from the Ka-50 “Black Shark” and Russia’s financial situation in the aftermath of communism. An improved Mi-28N (see also Rostvertol profile) with full day/night capabilities was introduced as a prototype in 1996, but the Mi-28N would wait until 2004 for the first flight by an improved second prototype, and only began flight testing with the Russian Air Force in June 2005.

Mi-28A head-on
(click to view full)
Defense-Aerospace relays a July 18 Rostvertol release, noting that Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation Sergey Ivanov repeated the 2003 pledge that the Mi-28N helicopter would be the basic attack helicopter for Russia’s armed forces; conflicting pledges from various officials and generals now exist regarding the Ka-50 “Black Shark’s” future role. Ivanov further pledged that 7 new Mi-28N “Night Hunter” helicopters would be purchased in 2006 , and that “due to helicopters high efficiency in fighting against terrorists… the MoD within 9 years shall buy from the Rostov enterprise 67 Night Hunters.” Publicly estimated costs for the Mi-28N vary considerably, from $10-20 million per machine.

Link
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com...year-buy-of-67-mi28-attack-helicopters-02447/
Mi-28A/N Havoc Attack Helicopter, Russia

http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/mi28/

I bet you this is one of the six produced on this link.
http://video.yahoo.com/watch/1023376/3840852
 
Well thanks for digging all that up Rock. I very much appreciate the effort. I think that is all the more reason for Turkey NOT TO consider a Havoc order. I have no idea what that stupid excuse for a journalist Lale Sariibrahimoglu is talking about. Turkey asked the US about a possible AH-1W order, but the US denied the request because the choppers were all in use by the Army, Marines, etc and Bell's production line for Super Cobras isn't currently running. Turkey will have to either buy some off the shelf A129s from Italy, or simply wait for TAI to roll out the new T129.

I really don't think it's that urgent of a need, if it was it'd have been done with a decade ago. PKK isn't a new threat, they've been around since the 80s. A modest fleet of armed UAVs (preferably Predators or if we have another year or two to wait TIHA-Bs) and a proper recon satellite should be higher priorities for TuAF, since what Turkey is lacking is real-time intelligence gathering of smaller terrorist movements in the mountains/valleys and spontaneous rapid response.
 
Question

Hi Lunatik
Why wouldn't Bell open their production line for a Cobra order? I kind of remember something about getting permission for engines or something like that please refresh my memory. Turning away business doesn't seem to make sense I would think Bell would jump at since the EADS got the UH-72A contract. I know I'm missing something here.
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Thanks
 
Hi Rock,

That's probably because Turkey wouldn't order a desirable (from Bell's point of view) amount of platforms as a stop-gap and it takes time & money to re-start a production line. Turkey was actually interested in the King Cobra (as our pilots love flying the AH-1W and are very happy with its performance) for the ATAK bid, but we also wanted local production and integration of a Turkish made mission computer along with indigenous avionics, subsystems as well as weapons. Despite pressure from Bell, US Senate wouldn't approve the transfer of tech and certain source codes to Turkey. Indeed, just because of this mishap the bid was delayed for a few years.

So we started considering AgustaWestland's A129 (Italy/UK), Denel's Roovialk (South Africa), the Tiger (Europe) and Kamov's Ka-50-2 (Russia). Best deal was offered by the A129 consortium: Full transfer of not only the tech/know-how, but also the production line, along with exclusive marketing rights of the new configuration, T129. Which is going to be a lot more advanced than the A129 International.

What you're referring to (engine permission) is why Turkey gave up on the Rooivalk, which had run a close race with AgustaWestland's offer. The engines were French made (Turbomeca) and Turkey and France aren't exactly the friendliest two countries around. :) Same thing with the Tiger.
 
Engine

Thanks Lunatik I knew something had to do with engines. You have refreshed my memory seems like more politics on the USA side of the ocean. The T129 seems like a winner and with Turkey's strong industry I'm sure will work out.
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Sure thing Rock, I hope so too. T129 will really come in handy as an anti-terrorism gunship and can easily assume anti-tank responsibilities in the east or the Turkish side of Evros river. 4 x wingtip mounted FIM-92s will provide limited AAM engagement capability as well; just a little something to keep the Greek AH-64 Longhorns in shape. :smil:
 
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