The Turkish government said the capability of the Russian-made S-400 anti-air attack missile system exceeds the capability of similar US-made missiles, the Patriot missile.
Turkey and the US are members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO. Both are at loggerheads over plans to purchase the S-400 by the Turkish military, which will arrive next week.
The US is worried that the purchase of the S-400 could endanger the stealth features of the F-35 made by Lockheed Martin, which is the fifth generation or the latest fighter jet. Turkey is one of the countries that participated in the program for making and purchasing fighter jets.
In contrast, Turkey considers the radar system of the S-400 not to endanger the F-35.
The US has offered Turkey to buy the Patrio missile system manufactured by Raytheon Co.
"One S-400 is equivalent to three Patriots. If the conditions are the same as the S-400 agreement, we will buy Patriot missiles. But if the conditions are not the same, then we must think about our interests, "Erdogan said in an interview with the S-400 television station as reported by Yeni Safak quoted Reuters on Monday, July 1, 2019.
The S-400 missile system is Russia's mainstay, which has been ordered by a number of other countries such as China, Qatar and India. This missile system has four types of sophisticated missiles capable of chasing targets such as fighter jets, drones to enemy missiles with different range and distance.
At present, Russia is starting to produce a new missile system, the S-500 Prometheus, which is not sold to other countries.
While the Patriot missiles were used by US forces in 2003 during the Iraq conflict. This missile has a long range range for all weather and is able to intercept various types of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and sophisticated fighter jets.
Patriot missiles are used by many other countries such as Germany, Greece, Israel, Japan, Kuwait, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates and Taiwan.
Patriot missiles have the ability to shoot targets that move at a speed of 8 kilometers per hour. While the S-400 missile can target a higher speed target of 17 kilometers per hour.
Defenseworld site launches Patriot missiles capable of attacking 36 targets at once with radar tracking the movements of 125 targets at the same time.
While the S-400 is able to attack the target twice as many as 72 targets with a radar system able to track the movement of 160 targets at the same time.
The Patriot missile takes about 25 minutes to launch while the S-400 missile only takes 5 minutes.
In addition, the US still has another alternative, the THAAD missile system, the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense. This system has been installed in the South Korean region, which borders North Korea. This is in anticipation of the North Korean missile attack, which had several times launched ballistic missiles in the Korean Peninsula region.
THAAD missiles have the advanced ability to intercept enemy missiles, which come at an altitude of about 40-50 kilometers. This makes this missile unsuitable for chasing enemy fighter jets, which fly at much lower altitudes. "The THAAD missile system is not like the S-400 missile defense system or the Patriot," the Defense World website reported.
Quoting a source in the defense industry, this site launched a country that wants to survive a ballistic missile attack and sophisticated fighter jets must buy Patriot and THAAD missiles.
While the S-400 can perform these two functions together so that they are considered more effective and cheaper than American-made missiles.