According to a report by Army Recognition on August 28, Turkey officially launched the "Steel Dome" multi-layer integrated air defense and missile defense system developed by Aselsan in Ankara.
This is the largest defense project investment in Turkish defense history. President Erdogan attended the launch ceremony, emphasizing that "national air defense no longer relies on external sources," and announced that the core facility, the Ouralbe Technology Base, has been officially put into operation.
Turkey emphasizes concepts such as independent R&D and not relying on external sources, trying to highlight its domestic characteristics to prove that it has already rid itself of reliance on the United States, Russia, and NATO in the field of air defense.
In reality, Turkey no longer relies only on Russia and the West, but this does not mean its defense system does not rely on other countries.
The so-called independent R&D of Turkey is actually only about self-manufacturing. The air defense weapons supporting the "Steel Dome" system have clear shadows of Chinese similar equipment.
The most typical example is the radar and medium-range air defense missiles. The similarity is precise up to two decimal places, which can be called a tape measure-level replica.
For example, the ALP 300-G long-range early warning radar developed by Aselsan is claimed to be completely independently designed, but the shape of the radar array, the tilt angle, and the arrangement of the transmit-receive modules are almost identical to the Chinese JY-27A long-range radar. The array tilt angle is approximately 25 degrees, with an error of no more than 2% compared to the Chinese prototype.
The number, spacing, and arrangement of transmit-receive modules are almost overlapping, and even the power density and cooling structure are extremely close.
Even more shocking is that the signal processing algorithm is highly consistent, and the beam control strategy is almost copied verbatim.
There are rumors that in 2021, during joint target trials in Pakistan, Aselsan engineers had access to Chinese-provided radar simulation data.
Turkish Air Defense System
Looking at the HİSAR-O medium-range air defense missile system, it's even more suspicious whether it directly got the blueprints of China's HQ-16B.
The dimensions of the HİSAR-O missile body are 0.34 meters in diameter and 4.9 meters in length, exactly matching the data of the HQ-16B, precise to two decimal places.
More obviously, the launcher, the HİSAR-O uses a four-cell vertical cold launch, which is almost identical to the layout of the HQ-16B launcher. The angle of the missile tube arrangement, the cold launch airflow channel, and the rail position are almost entirely replicated.
The fire control radar also follows the same copying approach. The Turkish KALKAN 400 fire control radar has the same frequency band, scanning angle, and pitch control method as the配套 radar for the HQ-16B, with performance parameters differing by less than 5%.
More importantly, the guidance logic is exactly the same: mid-course inertial navigation combined with data link correction, and terminal semi-active radar guidance. The entire algorithm is basically the same idea.
Turkish Air Defense System
If the radar and medium-range missile are large items, then Turkey has also achieved the ultimate precision replication in short-range defense.
The 35mm KORKUT airburst cannon was originally just a short-range point defense system, but after an upgrade, the fire control software performance doubled.
The new fire control algorithm suddenly added the ability to intercept two targets simultaneously, and could accurately predict the trajectory of multiple targets, which is almost a direct copy of the fire control algorithm of the Chinese 1130 naval close-in weapon system.
Although the calibers are different, one is 35mm and the other is 30mm, the ballistic calculation model, the programming method of the airburst shell, and the laser speed measurement combined with predictive calculation are completely the same approach.
Especially the time delay data of the KORKUT airburst shell is within 3% of the reference value of the 1130, accurate to the microsecond level.
It is said that in 2022, Turkey and China's North Industries Company conducted joint anti-rockets interception tests in Karachi, Pakistan. At that time, Aselsan engineers directly accessed some of the Chinese fire control calculation samples, and immediately applied them to the software of the upgraded version of KORKUT.
S400
Turkey's actions amount to disassembling and reassembling the entire Chinese Hongqi system.
The ALP 300-G radar is designed according to the JY-27A system, the HİSAR-O missile is made according to the interface of the HQ-16, the KORKUT uses the fire control calculation algorithm of the 1130 naval close-in weapon system, and the AKREP 1000 fire control radar is basically a simplified version of the HQ-22.
The only difference is that Turkey gave the entire system a TURAN digital backbone network, allowing it to be compatible with the NATO Link-16 data link.
On the surface, the "Steel Dome" is a multi-layer air defense system claiming to be completely independently developed, but those who understand can see at a glance that this is the result of China's teaching people how to fish.
Russia sold the S-400 to Turkey, but it could not be integrated into the NATO system, and thus was sanctioned.
China, however, provided Turkey with a systematic air defense architecture concept, radar system, fire control algorithms, and trajectory models. Although it did not directly deliver a complete set of equipment, what Turkey received was more critical — it learned how to make it on its own.
Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7543850202093683240/
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