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Comment by yasp | Hacker News Reader

I've heard rumors of something similar about US anti aircraft systems, and this being a motivating factor in Turkey buying S-400s.

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The S-400 is just objectively better than anything US is selling. The possibility of Patriot having a US killswitch is an afterthought if it was considered at all. It's also equally probable that the S-400 has a Russian killswitch.

The actual motivation for Turkey to pick the S-400 was entirely political. They are signalling allegiance to Russia. The US is now cancelling Turkey's F-35 order in response.

Turkey also wanted to have a technology transfer while having patriots. So, Turkey can use it for its own missile defence system. Apparently, It didn't happen.

Yet ironically, Turkey didn't get a technology transfer from the S-400 either. Once Putin got Erdogan committed, Putin knew he didn't have to offer much - Erdogan couldn't suffer a reversal.

https://www.defenseworld.net/news/23561/Tech_Transfer__Local...

Note that he doesn't have anything specific to point to - that's because he's merely trying to justify Erdogan. He must know that Turkey is going to get very few tech transfers:

https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3409158

Turkey has already a rocket-missile company [0]. So, I'm pretty sure Turkey does not need everything but only specific parts. What I think is that Roketsan will be able to manufacture its own s400-capable Triumph missiles. So, Everytime Turkey launches its own missile, It won't need Russia to replace its stockpile.

[0]: http://www.roketsan.com.tr/en/

It's likely that Russia will allow Turkish missiles. However, that would not be a significant technology transfer. Technically Russia could do this merely by passing on protocols to 'talk' with the S-400, and letting the Turks create their own missile.

Even if some missile tech were to be transferred (I rather doubt it), the key part of S-400 is not the missiles - but the very sophisticated radar, control and EW systems.

Either way, it doesn't get Turkey much ahead in designing their own missile defence system, and leaves them dependent on a potential (even likely) enemy.

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