-When i look at Turkish navy ships and when i look at S Korea(example) i feel sorry for Turkish navy .
The biggest difference between Korean and Turkish naval buildup was the fact that Korea didn't comission second-hand ships once we started building our own ships in FF and PCC, and also that we didn't license surface combatant designs but sticked with our own. More importantly, once the lines crossed in 1979, Korean economic growth curve was much steeper + Korean industry, especially shipbuilding has been world-class since at least two to three decades.
The thing is, pretty much all of earlier Korean ship designs were already obsolete on arrival. Korea was planning to buy an American design for their first FF and PCCs but the negotiations with American naval architects collapsed and Korean shipbuilders had to go on their own. In hindsight this turn of events would've helped massively in fostering domestic designing capacity. This was 1975~1976 btw, when Korea was still quite significantly behind Turkish economy both in terms of per capita production and national production, so there was some critical decisions, but I think there's a valid reason Turkiye was not able to choose the option of domestic design this early on.
On one hand, the reason Korea was able to just stick with such obsolete designs was because the naval threat was marginal during the 20th century and the first decade of 21st century. China was more of an afterthought throughout this period and only serious threat was North Korean spec ops infiltrating through sea and their amphibious forces landing on Korean coastal islands on the eastern and western coastlines. Hence although obsolete, Korean domestic designs had what it take to be adequate naval deterrence to the threat it faced. It had good speed and had some real heavy ASuW firepower in 76mm and 40mm guns (most of them had 2 76mm guns coupled with 2 or 3 40mm + 4 to 8 SSMs so you know what I'm talking)
On the other hand, in my view, the Turkish Navy had no luxury that the South Korean Navy was able to enjoy, being able to stick with ships of old but still adequate design on a more lax naval environement. While Korea was facing North Korean Navy, Turkiye was facing Soviet Black Sea Fleet. Since the end of Cold War you guys have major dispute with Greece in form of UNCLOS implementation so the maritime threat was just always there and the difference is absolutely stark. You guys were forced to hit that perfect balance between right amount of ships with adequate capabilities in more unforgiving naval environement so there was pretty much no time to wait for a good domestic design to appear, and 2nd hand ship was the best option since after cold war, there were plenty of which being decomissioned from the western navies.
For starters, Turkish Navy operated more ex-USN FRAM destroyers than South Korean Navy, had multiple SSM equipped FACs since Kartal class while the South Korean Navy had built only 8 such ships (Baekgu class based on US PSMM design) during the same period. The first Turkish naval ship with SAM was contracted in 1983 and comissioned in 1987 based on MEKO 200 design, whereas the first Korean ship with SAM, DDH-I was first contracted in 1989 and comissioned in 1998. Not to mention the G-Class, which was far capable than any Korean ship until the comissioning of DDH-2 in 2003. By 2003 Korean economy was already twice the size of Turkish economy and we were using that money to design and build our own ships for the last 3 decades by that point.
But now, Turkish economy has been catching up in the speed of growth ever since the 2000s. Although Turkiye seems to have been trying to cultivate domestic defense industry for quite a while, I think that also really kickd in once the economy started growing faster during the 2000s. As a result, MILGEM class is very capable and up to date design. Compare Ada class with FFG-I for example, in service since roughly the same period and it's surprising really, how fast the catch-up was considering Korea was designing their own ships since way earlier. Of course there are more context when comparing the two beyond just how it looks but I think you'll be able to get the jist.
So there's no need to feel sorry for the Turkish Navy. Actually by now you'd have realized that the Korean Navy and its sailors probably would've suffered more for a longer time for having worse ships than the Turkish Navy. This really showed when a PCC was sunk by a North Korean submarine. At least Turkish sailors were sailing on a ship with adequate AAW and good ASW capabilities.
