Five Turkish ‘Bayraktar TB2’ unmanned combat aerial vehicles are currently operating over Syria.

The Open Source Intelligence Twitter account SkyWatcher Intel often follows such flights in the region, if you don’t follow them then I’d suggest you go do that now if you’d like to see what’s going on as it goes on.

https://twitter.com/skywatcherintel/status/1359815628488642562

According to Scott Crino and Andy Dreby in ‘Turkey’s Drone War in Syria – A Red Team View‘, Turkey’s armed forces gained worldwide attention when its air force launched a remarkable and innovative airpower show-of-force against Bashir al-Assad’s Syrian Army.

As part of a combined air and ground operation, the Turkish air force used its Anka-S and Bayraktar TB2 drones to conduct hundreds of strikes against Syrian Arab Army units.

You can read more about Turkish drone capabilities here.

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George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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bambam
bambam
3 years ago

If we can see the drones on this website why doesn’t Assad just have someone watching it 24/7?

farouk
farouk
3 years ago
Reply to  bambam

I think that if Assad decided to take out the Turkish UAVs, They should expect to be punished heavily by the Turks (like they did last Feb where after the Syrians killed 33 Turkish troops, Ankara hit back killing at least 329 (others cite over 3000) Syrian government troops ,destroying five helicopters, 23 tanks, 10 armoured vehicles 23 artillery and howitzers, five ammunition trucks, one SA-17 and one SA-22 air defence systems, three ammunition depots, two inventory depots and one headquarter building When that happened the Islamist terrorists Turkey is supporting in the North west of Syria went on the… Read more »

ChariotRider
ChariotRider
3 years ago

Interesting, the difference in approach between the US and Turkey with regards to design of their drones. The US want deniability and long endurance for the War on Terror. Turkey on the other hand doesn’t seem to mind who knows they’re throwing their weight around. The difference in requirement means they can build cheaper drones and simply build replacements. This would also lend itself to rapid ongoing development as you simply replace the ones you lose with improved versions. Cheaper also means more units which gives you force depth, something the UK could do with. I would suggest that the… Read more »

Monty
Monty
3 years ago
Reply to  ChariotRider

The US has a large variety of drones. RQ-11/RQ-20 size up to RQ-4/RQ-170 size. Variety of missions too.

farouk
farouk
3 years ago
Reply to  ChariotRider

CR wrote: Turkey on the other hand doesn’t seem to mind who knows they’re throwing their weight around. Turkey is a country to watch, Its current leader has made it quite clear he wishes to bring back the Ottoman empire (of sorts) back to life. Knowing that this would entail sanctions from Western nations, he set about building his own arms industry , which has resulted in Turkish made Tanks (granted its based on the South Korean K2) Turkish made Helicopter Gunships(based on the Italian Mongoose) Turkish made Self propelled artillery (based on the South Korean K9) Turkish made missiles… Read more »

Last edited 3 years ago by farouk
Daveyb
Daveyb
3 years ago

The issue with drones is that they take time, money and resources to target and knockout. If we are talking about the larger drones, i.e. those generally that are fixed wing and not quad-copters etc. Then these are controlled via data-link either through a satellite relay or from direct line of sight. Either method makes it harder for your opponent to jam, as they have to be nearby or preferably between the transmitter and receiver to overpower the transmit signal with white noise or find some way to hack the control signal. Furthermore, there are only a few countries with… Read more »

Last edited 3 years ago by Daveyb
AlexS
AlexS
3 years ago
Reply to  Daveyb

Why you say that “effective range” of 57 MK110 has the same meaning as the “effective range” of Russian 57?

Daveyb
Daveyb
3 years ago
Reply to  AlexS

I don’t think I did? The 57mm gun used in the 2S38 Dervaciya PVO SPAAG has a published effective range of 6km. Whereas, the BAe Mk110 57mm gun with 3AP ammunition has a published effective range of 8km. That is a 2km difference. What is more, the BAe Mk110 states that this effective range is against a low level target. From this statement you can extrapolate that the effective range against a target above low level is even further, which is based on simple physics. From BAe’s blurb, the Mk110, which is based on the Bofors 57mm, has a barrel… Read more »