S-400 missile: Turkish $2.5 billion money is simply thrown away

Turkey called the purchase of the Russian S-400 a waste of money. Turkey ran several interception tests using S-400 surface-to-air missiles against drones and fighter jets. Turkish media published several pieces of evidence S-400 failed to detect low altitude and low RCS objects such as drones.

A fact also highlighted by 48N6E3 carrying 3 times bigger warhead in order to compensate for its poor accuracy (180 kg vs. 64 kg). All long-range missiles of S-400 (48N6E & 40N6) suffer from the exact problem.

Israeli-made kamikaze drone destroyed Russian Nebo-M VHF radar in the Nagorno-Karabah conflict. Nebo-M is a VHF surveillance radar for S-400.

The S-400’s real-world tracking range doesn’t quite live up to the brochure figure as clearly demonstrated in Ukraine with S-400’s inability to handle Mach 2.5 class GMLRS rockets despite having more than >90 seconds engagement window on paper. If it has so much trouble handling Mach 2.5 GMLRS rockets which can be detected from boost-phase (with much bigger RCS), how well do you think S-400 would fare against much faster ballistic targets with roughly similar RCS?

Turkey was dissatisfied with the colossal expenses for acquiring the “useless” Russian Triumph S-400 systems, which allegedly began to rot, claiming that it was just wasted money. According to Yeniçağ publication, Erdogan’s purchase of Russian systems was a very serious mistake, since these systems are useless at the moment, and in addition to losing the contract for F-35 fighters, Turkey ran into very serious sanctions from Washington.

Destroyed Nebo-SVU radar. Screen capture from Ukrainian MoD video. Nebo-SVU is a surveillance radar for S-400 missile system.

“Why buy this? Turkey can already use these systems. Systems will rot. Our money will be thrown away. We were already free, and we received so much money. R.T. Erdogan was again deceived, and we were punished ”- said One of the Turkish publication.

It should be clarified that Turkey intended to adopt the S-400 for its military in April, after which the dates were missed for May, and even later for June. However, to date, these systems have not yet been adopted by the Turkish army, which has caused serious criticism of Russian weapons.

According to reports, Turkey spent $2.5 billion to purchase the first set of S-400 Triumpf systems, while the cost of the second set is estimated at $1.2 billion, however, a deal between Ankara and Moscow has not been concluded due to poor performance of S-400 surface-to-air missile.

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