Turkiye cut F-16 procurement budgets without giving up on missiles and ammunition. The new plan without modernisation kits is limited to $7 billion.
Turkish Defence Minister Yaşar Güler presented the ministry’s 2025 budget to the Parliament and provided detailed information about the most recent procurement programmes.
It is known that Turkish–U.S. negotiations over F-16 procurement have been at a stall for a long time. The U.S. DSCA announced the procurement plans with $23 billion on January 26, 2024. The initial plan included the procurement of 40 F-16 Vipers, modernisation kits to upgrade 79 F-16 jets to Block 70 level, and various missiles and ammunition.
According to Güler’s statement, Turkiye will acquire 40 F-16 Viper as planned. The modernisation kits are no longer in the interest as Turkiye will continue with the Özgür Project. Turkiye will also acquire ammunition and missiles.
Even though it is not officially declared, Turkiye is expected to continue on the ammunition acquisition programme. The missiles and ammunition to be procured would, therefore, include 858 LAU-129 guided missile launchers, 952 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) AIM-120C-8 or equivalent, 864 GBU-39/B Small Diameter Bombs Increment 1 (SDB-1), 401 AIM-9X Block II Sidewinder missiles, 96 AGM-88B High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missiles (HARM); 96 AGM-88E Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missiles (AARGM and M61 Vulcan cannon. The initial plan included 850 Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM). It is unclear whether these kits are included in the new programme.
The initial procurement included 149 AN/APG-83 Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) Scalable Agile Beam Radars (SABR). This number is understood to be reduced to 50 as 40 are installed, and there are ten spares. 169 Modular Mission Computers (MMC) 7000AHC was reduced to 50 as 40 were installed, and ten spares. 159 Embedded Global Positioning System (GPS) Inertial Navigation Systems (INS) (EGI) with Selective Availability Anti-Spoofing Module (SAASM) or M-Code capability and Precise Positioning Service (PPS) reduced to 48 as 40 installed, eight spares. 168 Integrated Viper Electronic Warfare Suite (IVEWS) or equivalent Electronic Warfare (EW) systems were reduced to 50 as 40 were installed, with ten spares.
Even though it has not officially been declared, the remaining $16 billion is very likely to be allocated to the Eurofighter acquisition programme.
