TURKISH NAVY
The Turkish defence procurement agency has contracted four shipyards, Anadolu, Sedef, Sefine and TAIS, and a government-controlled defence engineering firm, to build three more Istanbul class general-purpose frigates. The ships, Izmir (F-516), Içel (F-517) and Izmit (F518), will all be constructed at the same time for delivery to the Turkish Navy in 2026.
The lead ship, the future TCG Istanbul (F-515), was launched on 23 January 2021 and is scheduled to enter service later this year. Under the MILGEM national warship building programme, the 3,000-tonne ships are of 100 per cent national design with 80 per cent domestic material content, much of it produced by Aselsan, Turkey’s largest defence contractor.
The newly developed home-produced systems include the CENK 3D search radar, AKREP fire control radar, Gökdeniz weapon system…