If we forget MUGEM, we can have the funds to build all the Istif class plus 8 new 4500 ton frigates.
This is something people who cheers for a carrier conveniently forget, this is an obscenely expensive project. (
I am going to rant again, so, feel free to skip if you saw me do this before.)
Anadolu cost us around or over a billion dollars, at least that is the price mentioned around. Queen Elizabeth class carrier cost 3 billion each, Indian Vikrant cost 3 billion, Charles de Gaulle cost 4 billion, even America's shorter and lighter carriers cost around 3 billion. So, we can't assume we are going to be able to build it for less than 3 billion dollars.
And this is just the price of building the carrier. Without adequate protection around it, a carrier is a floating target practice. Most countries who operate carriers place 2 or 3 destroyers, 2 or 3 frigates, 1 or 2 nuclear submarines and at least one supply ship. Istanbul cost us about 500 million dollars, there is no way in hell TF-2000 is going to cost us anything less than a billion each, we also need a supply ship capable of keeping up with the carrier (I don't know if Derya is capable of that) which should be another several hundred million, and we don't even have a nuclear submarine to accompany it. So, if we put 2 Istanbul, 2 TF-2000 and 1 auxiliary ship around it we need another 3,5 billion at least.
Don't forget, this is just the cost of having these ships build to protect the carrier, we also need ships to protect the sovereignty of our own waters. Even bloody Royal Navy, which has about 3 times the tonnage of our navy, has had troubles with forming carrier groups without leaving themselves short around Britain, that's why they have agreements with Netherlands to use their ships in carrier groups for missions. We won't have that luxury, so, for every ship we put around the carrier, we have to build one for our own waters as well.
Then, we have the airwing issue, so let's work our way up.
Right now, we don't even have enough helicopters for our ships without a carrier or ships around it. We had to transfer helis from the army on it, which is disgraceful. Gökbey has just entered land inventory and we haven't seen anything about its navalization other than it is going to be done. We have seen T-925 models (don't get me started on not having a ramp in it, just don't) it hasn't flown yet, navalization is still far, far away AND we don't have an engine for it, only murmurs of a bigger engine after TS-1400. So, we need to helis for the carrier, the destroyers, frigates and the auxiliary ship(s) as well, we can't just shuffle our tired helis around infinitely.
And then, we have the jets for the carrier, well, actually we don't. We simply don't have a carrier capable jet. For over a year now, the focus has been on a naval Hürjet, turning a trainer into a naval jet to use in 2030s onward against 5th, perhaps even 6th, gen planes and ever improving air defence systems. One that wouldn't even be able to carry our heaviest ordinances. A trainer that we don't have an engine or an engine project for, making us dependant on the yanks for the future of our carrier airwing. And we barely heard a pip about a naval version of Kaan.
Oh, and we have to find the pilots for Hürjet as well, while we (and every air force on the planet) have been having trouble finding pilots. Seriously, this is also a big fucking concern as we also need those pilots for our air force as well.
And even after all of that, even after sinking billions of dollars and material and manpower into building this carrier group, we are stuck in the Mediterranean. Open a world map people, we don't have open access to any ocean, which is the main reason to have an aircraft carrier! If Suez or Gibraltar is closed to us, that carrier is stuck within our own bloody backyard. Sure, we have access through them now, but there is no fucking guarantee that it is going to be the case if a war broke out.
We can't use it in the Black Sea, within the easy reach of Russian jets and land based anti-ship missiles. We can't use it in the Aegean Sea, because, well that should be obvious. So, it sits in the Mediterranean doing, what exactly? We are building a carrier so that (in the worst case scenario) it can sit in a sea filled with Israeli, Greek and French submarines and ships. Yeah, that seems really smart way of using our limited resources.
Real life is not a bloody video game. You don't click an aircraft carrier button and build one. We are investing ungodly amount of money and resources to build a ship that we neither need nor have a proper use for, all for propaganda purposes or to satisfy the vanity of a few people. All the while, all branches of our military desperately needs more funding and resources. It's a bloody fucking disgrace.
