The way I see it; Greeks, like many westerners have a platform fetish. They think F-35 would be a silver bullet that will finally hand them air dominance. I think that is a grave mistake. Will they have deep strike capability? Yes. Will they be able to 'snipe' our air assets? also yes. Will this guarantee them air dominance? hell no.
- In a few short years, we will have a very robust stratified air defence umbrella. It's going to be network centric. That would pose a significant threat even to the vaunted F-35.
- We have good EW capability and it's going to be better. HAVA SOJ is a thing, and even if it's rendered useless, we are distributing our EW capability to smaller drones via EW pods now. Who even knows how that factor would play out? If I were betting man, I'd say it would be a major, if not deciding factor.
- We know for a fact that we can produce MALD like decoys. Maybe make them a cornerstone of our strategy. What are they going to do when they see 500 F-16s on the screen?
- We know for a fact that TAF can conduct air operations on a massive scale, with more than 100 airframes over enemy territory. I'll concede that these are bombing raids but it still speaks to the level of organization TAF has. I don't think any other country can boost such capability, except US and maybe France.
- Platforms such as Akıncı will be able to fire BVRAAM missiles. If we get, say, 40 of them, that's 40 more flying things that should be shot down, at a significant range.
- We don't know how 100+ TB2s in the air will affect a peer-to-peer air war. What if they suffer massive casualities but deplete enemy air defense? What if they force other air assets to 'reveal' themselves? How would it work? I can't even guess. But it's more than hundred expendable air assets. That's going to make a strategic impact. And also, newer kamikaze drones.
- Our country has significant strategic depth, and we can transfer assets from other places or shoot missiles from way inlands.
- Our submarines are matched or better already. Reis class will be way better. Didn't we launch a ballistic missile from one in the past year? That's gonna affect things. Have fun searching for Turkish subs in the Ionian Sea.
- This is always brought up in these discussions, but that's because it's true: we have a massive ballistic missile card up our sleeve.
Our nightmare scenario is all of our air assets destroyed, our infrastructure bombed to bits, and our land forces are in a shattered retreat towards İstanbul. Things can't be worse than that. This scenario is simply not possible. Greeks can't coordinate an air campaign that can cripple our entire military infrastructure in a short enough timeframe, their land forces are not able to take, let alone hold a city as large as Edirne, their navy is sort of useless in the the offensive context in the Aegean front, as is ours BTW.
Aging F-16s and the usefulness of Kızılelma can and should be debated. They are valid issues. But when it comes to the Greek military, I believe the whole picture is brighter than most think. The real problem is US bases around the sea of islands, and the endless hypocrisy of westerners when it comes to us. Whatever happens, we will always be seen as monsters and may even face harsher punishment than Russians.
Anyways, my vote is we wait 10 more years and let Greeks be destroyed by its demographic winter. And nuclear deterrence to avoid full scale westoid invasion.
