What is your take in the Istanbul class against that of the FDI ?
I'm not sure yet of the total number of cells on the Greek FDI frigate. The Greek Moderator in our forum mentioned that 16-cell A50 will take place in their FDI. Only thing which is certain that the Aster-30 will take place in these cells of FDI.
As a naval missile, the Aster-30 Blk1 is a capable missile system for area defense and when it enters Greece's inventory, it will certainly make a huge leap forward in capability. Turkey has the Siper long-range missile system, which we will use as a naval missile and which we can accept as the Aster-30 equivalent. In Siper, there will be a Ka band seeker technology with a longer range engagement capability than the Aster-30 Blk1 as area defence range and Siper will have a Ka band technology that is superior to the Ku band in the Aster30 Blk1 as Rf seeker head technology. Ka band offers more precise target detection in a wider sector and longer ranges. In addition, the Siper missile will have an IIR sensor along with the Rf seeker to further increase its effectiveness. We will have the opportunity to see the firing tests of this system until 2023.
It was said that the Greek FDI frigate will also lack ECM sensors. ECM sensors and capabilities are one of the strongest areas of Turkish ships. Even in the Barbaros class frigates to be modernized, Ares series systems with very high output power will be used.
As anti-ship missiles, Turkish ships are equipped with 16 Atmaca in order to perform saturation strikes. This means superiority compared to its competitors carrying 8 missiles.
Although the 16-cell MDAS VLS, which will be in the Istanbul class, seems less compared to the FDI (if it will have 32 cells), it is known that Turkey is working on quad pack missile technology in mid-range systems. With Quad pack technology, Turkish ships will have a very effective area defense capability.
FDI's has a state of art radar system with fixed type and GaN-based AESA technology developed by Thales and I think this is where FDI is strongest. On Istanbul class, It was intended to use the Smart-S Mk2 PESA radar, but the embargoes worked for us. This PESA radar has been replaced with its domestic counterpart, the Cenk-S GaN based AESA radar and according to the information received from the Engineers in IDEF21, the Cenk-S radar range is close to 2 times that of the Smart-S mk2. This shows that the Istanbul class will have a longer range radar system than the Thales SeaFire radar that has a surveillance range of 300 km in FDI.
