Thread: Who has the strongest military in Europe?

I think you are confused and I doubt you have much of a military background. You are confusing mythology with reality. The Turkish armed forces is largely tied down and probably has the lowest deployable force numbers. After two tours at Incirlik and several at other Nato countries I can tell you that you are vastly overestimating. The army is not very well tested against a serious opposing armed force in many generations and before that they had as many spectacular defeats as victories.

Just to set the record straight...

I believe the reference above is remarking on Turkish Army and not the whole of Turkish Armed Forces. Those are two distinctively seperate entities.

Turkish Army ranks 9th in the world in the number of serving personnel. This number fluctuates between 500.000-525.000 depending on the draft period. Of this, 400.000-420.000 serve with the Army branch of Turkish Armed Forces.

These 400.000+ personnel are grouped under 4 Army Group commands of which 3 are active and 1 is a semi-training command. Also the Gendarmarie General Command needs to be included under the Army branch for ease of calculation.

These army groups and the Gendermarie General Command contain the following active combat organizations :

Army Command :
2 Mech.Inf Divisions
1 Inf. Division
14 Mech.Inf.Brigades
14 Armored Brigades
12 Inf. Internal Security Brigades
5 Commando Brigades

Gendermarie Command :
4 Gendermarie Commando Brigades
8 Gendermarie Mountain Commando Battalions (detached)

Also not included here are various Special Forces regiments, Naval Forces Amphibious Units, Police Forces Special Operations units and various other units not counted in the above 400.000+ figure.

Of the above forces 2 Mech. Inf Brigades, 12 Inf. Internal Security Brigades, 5 Commando Brigades, 4 Gendermarie Commando Brigades and 8 Gendermarie Mountain Commando Battalions are regularly conducting internal security operations. With each of these units containing app. 5000 personnel (1000 for battalions) we may calculate that around 125.000 active duty personnel are "tied down". I will make this 150.000 for ease of calculation.

This gives us a figue of roughly 250.000 personnel not included in any "tying down" activity. Let us subtract another 50.000 (a generous overestimation) for various other reasons i.e. Gendermarie general security forces, training commands...etc.

One could safely assume that Turkish Army could field another 200.000 aside from all personnel that are "tied down". Please bear in mind that this figure will include 8 of the 14 Armored Brigades, 6 of the 14 Mech.Inf. Brigades and 2 Mech. Inf. Division app. 80.000 men who represent the majority of Turkish Army's firepower. Also bear in mind that most of the modern equipment of the Army is distributed throughout these units including Leopard 2s, upgraded M60s, MLRS units, and various other up-date equipment.

I believe the above figures are enough to indicate that the current state of the Turkish Army is well established to meet a conventional threat with a significant force structure; and that the force is not tied down as indicated in the previous post.

With regards to being tested in combat, very few countries (luckily and thank God) can claim to be tested and certified in combat throughout the world. Turkish Armed Froces Land and Air units can claim such a title, as both services have been continiously operating against PKK terrorism in SE Turkey with units being regularly rotated. The last conventional operation the Turkish Army conducted was the Cyprus Operation in 1973 in which the objectives were achieved with particular success. Before that it was the Korean War, where the achievements of the Turkish Expeditionary Brigade are well documented. I believe all military operations, defeats and victories before this date are out of the scope of this thread.

Among European Armies, Turkish Armed Forces, United Kingdom Armed Forces, and Russian Federation Armed Forces can certainly claim to be the only three with actual combat experience against serious opponents.

I think spending several hours at an Air Force Base are not enough to judge the operational capabilities of an Armed Force. Moreover, very few Armed Forces in the world can claim to be well tested against serious opposing armed forces. Turkish Armed Forces is certainly to be included in this list.

Originally Posted by Ucar

Among European Armies, Turkish Armed Forces, United Kingdom Armed Forces, and Russian Federation Armed Forces can certainly claim to be the only three with actual combat experience against serious opponents.

While you gave a thorough analysis, it seems that your definition of "combat experience against a serious opponent is rather vague". I'm not suer what you mean by that. What would be the date of expiration for the experience? After WWII since you ignored mots of it's participants. Also what qualifies as a serious opponent? I don't recall the RF Armed Forces facing any serious opponents unless you count Afghanistan, which was the Soviet Army a compeltly different thing from the modern Russian Army, or Chechnya which was really more of a major counter-insurgency operation rather then a war.

The definition in the previous post was vague to start with. Thus I could only come up with a generalized definition of what a serious armed opposition is.

To keep the argument in a "modern" sense I tried to think of the instances where armed conflict on a significant scale i.e. not a small border post clash occured since 1980s. Thus, for example for the RF forces Afghanistan, and the Chechen war are good examples of serious struggles. Although the scales are limited when compared to WW II or Vietnam, they are still credible instances of armed conflict between RF forces and serious armed opponents. To date RF forces are reported to have lost 10.000 personnel in the Chechen conflict, which I believe has merit to be considered a significant issue. Same for the ongoing PKK terrorism and Turkish Armed Forces losses in SE Turkey which has passed the 37.000+ mark since early 1980s. Certainly the experiences of such conflicts are being passed on through staff schools and education. I personally know how the lessons are being implemented in the Turkish Armed Forces staff schools.

The definition of war is cause for much debate, so I do not want to go into that argument under this thread.

Captain,

A question. Why is it hard for Turkey to post more than a brigade to Afghanistan? From the looks of it, a division should not be out of the question.