TR Navy Navy|News & Discussions

[Pokemonte13]

 

[Pokemonte13]

Turkish Navy Confirms 2032 Delivery Date for MUGEM Aircraft Carrier - Naval News

Rear Admiral Hakan Uçar, Commander of the Turkish Navy’s Naval Technical Command (formerly head of the Design Project Office), gave a detailed presentation on Türkiye’s indigenous aircraft carrier MUGEM at the Combined Naval Event (CNE) 2026, held in Farnborough, UK, from 19 to 21 May.

www.navalnews.com

 

[Pokemonte13]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/2063582257093185992

Looks like our FAC will be launched at the beginning of next year

 

[Pokemonte13]

Free real estate for the navy basically

 

[Oublious]

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https://twitter.com/i/web/status/2063588495566725314

 

[dBSPL]

EXCLUSIVE NEWS | Two More Tank Landing Ships (LST) to Be Built for the Turkish Navy!

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/2063625151992709465

The news that the Turkish Naval Forces will proceed with hulls three and four of the Bayraktar class is genuinely good, What I want to raise is a design question that becomes more relevant with each new hull: why are these new hulls still going to sea without a hangar?

The existing pair, TCG Bayraktar and TCG Sancaktar, have a quite large flight deck that could accommodate even a heavy-lift helicopter, but the ships lack a hangar. That is a meaningful operational gap, and it is worth being precise about why.

An LST without a hangar can land a helicopter. What it cannot do is sustain one. The flight deck is exposed to weather, corrosive salt spray, and operational tempo. A helicopter sitting on an open stern through a transit or a multi-day operation is burning maintenance hours and accumulating airframe wear with no return.

The crew cannot turn it around for a follow-on sortie efficiently, cannot arm or refuel it under cover, and cannot protect it during high sea states. The result is that the embarked rotary asset, when one is carried, functions as a passenger rather than an organic capability. It does one job and then becomes a liability on deck.

This is not a theoretical problem. It is one the Royal Australian Navy ran into directly. When the RAN acquired two former US Navy Newport-class tank landing ships in the mid-1990s, the first thing they did before putting either vessel into operational service was add a hangar. A hangar for three Sea King or four Blackhawk helicopters was added, while the aft helicopter deck was reinforced. The conversion took years and was expensive, but the RAN's judgment was clear: an LST without organic rotary sustainment is a fundamentally less capable platform according to their doctrine. HMAS Kanimbla and HMAS Manoora subsequently served in East Timor, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami response, and multiple coalition operations in that configuration. The hangar was not a luxury addition; it was the thing that made the ships operationally flexible.

The design logic is also visible at the lower end of the displacement range. The Makassar-class LPDs operated by the Indonesian Navy displace in the same general bracket as the Bayraktar class and were designed from the outset with integrated hangar facilities. The LPDs feature helicopter landing spots and hangar facilities to support the operations of light and medium-sized helicopters. The first two ships can carry three helicopters while the third and fourth ships can accommodate five helicopters each. This is not a comparison between different tiers of platform; it is a comparison between two approaches to the same rough displacement category, and the Makassar design chose to invest in sustained air capability while the Bayraktar design did not.

The operational implication for the Bayraktar class is specific. These ships are not replacements for TCG Anadolu; they operate in contexts where the LHD is either unavailable or inappropriate. Island contingencies, lower-intensity coastal operations, humanitarian response with a military component, or distributed operations where the amphibious force is not concentrated under a single task group commander.

In exactly those scenarios, the ability to sustain an organic helicopter around the clock without dependence on a shore facility or another ship is the difference between a platform that can act independently and one that needs to wait for support.

A hangar integrated into the superstructure of hulls three and four, sized for two to three medium helicopters, would not require discarding the current vehicle and troop capacity. It would require a deliberate design decision at the outset, which is precisely the moment the program is at now. Retrofitting it later, as the RAN discovered, is technically feasible but operationally disruptive and expensive.

The Bayraktar class is already a capable platform. The question is whether the Turkish Naval Forces want hulls three and four to be capable platforms or more capable platforms. The hangar is the most straightforward answer to that question.

The alternative path, procuring one or two dedicated LPDs to fill the same gap, would deliver comparable or greater rotary capability but at substantially higher unit cost and with a longer construction timeline. Integrating a hangar into hulls three and four achieves the core capability gain within a program that is already contracted, at a fraction of that cost.

 

[dBSPL]

Gözünüzü seveyim ya, bir de bizim Sahil Güvenlik güclerine el atalim amk...

I miss news and progress for TCG.

The contract for 2+6 National Coast Guard vessels was signed in July 2025, with the first vessel planned for delivery in 26 months. This means delivery in 2027, commissioning in 2028, and delivery of the second vessel in 2028. The construction of the 6 vessels under option is expected to be quite rapid.

 

[Pokemonte13]

I just notices that they changed the design of the radar layout. Now 3 UMR are at the front and 1 at the back

 

[Sanchez]

Turkish Navy Confirms 2032 Delivery Date for MUGEM Aircraft Carrier - Naval News

Rear Admiral Hakan Uçar, Commander of the Turkish Navy’s Naval Technical Command (formerly head of the Design Project Office), gave a detailed presentation on Türkiye’s indigenous aircraft carrier MUGEM at the Combined Naval Event (CNE) 2026, held in Farnborough, UK, from 19 to 21 May.

www.navalnews.com

"More interesting is the accommodation number: 2,500 personnel is much higher than the 800 crew figure that was mentioned earlier. This likely reflects the total accommodation capacity including the air wing personnel, staff, and other embarked forces, not just the ship’s company."

2500 personnel. An Istif carries 125. Gabya carry 220, Barbaros carry 180. Anadolu have 300+, carry up to 700 marines, and some 50 flight crew. MUGEM will not have a welldeck, and air cav ops would hamper the actual fixed wing operations; we can surmise it won't ever carry a marine battalion like Anadolu is supposed to.

We can deduce some small numbers. We know drones still require lots of flight personnel, air wing will be much larger as well. But I don't really understand that 2500 number. That's still 20 frigates worth of people. As a comparison, QE's have about 700 personnel and can accommodate 1600 people. We already have issues with navy personnel numbers. Looks like MUGEM will be very light on automation.

 

[Huelague]

EXCLUSIVE NEWS | Two More Tank Landing Ships (LST) to Be Built for the Turkish Navy!

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/2063625151992709465

Are these the preparations for our „12 Islands“?

 

[Sanchez]

Are these the preparations for our „12 Islands“?

Old Bey Class LSTs are ancient, they are goners. Osmangazi will probably stay. Just much needed modernization of the amphibious fleet. LCT buildup is the same, there's no real increase in numbers; just replacing the old ones usually on a one by one basis. Increasing capability while keeping the numbers. Which is okay as we already have a pretty large amphib fleet.

 

[boredaf]

"More interesting is the accommodation number: 2,500 personnel is much higher than the 800 crew figure that was mentioned earlier. This likely reflects the total accommodation capacity including the air wing personnel, staff, and other embarked forces, not just the ship’s company."

2500 personnel. An Istif carries 125. Gabya carry 220, Barbaros carry 180. Anadolu have 300+, carry up to 700 marines, and some 50 flight crew. MUGEM will not have a welldeck, and air cav ops would hamper the actual fixed wing operations; we can surmise it won't ever carry a marine battalion like Anadolu is supposed to.

We can deduce some small numbers. We know drones still require lots of flight personnel, air wing will be much larger as well. But I don't really understand that 2500 number. That's still 20 frigates worth of people. As a comparison, QE's have about 700 personnel and can accommodate 1600 people. We already have issues with navy personnel numbers. Looks like MUGEM will be very light on automation.

Mate, check the crew numbers of other aircraft carriers. 2500 is middle of the road for carriers, nothing out of the ordinary.

 

[TR_123456]

Mate, check the crew numbers of other aircraft carriers. 2500 is middle of the road for carriers, nothing out of the ordinary.

Compare it to the Est. 80,600 tonnes (79,300 long tons; 88,800 short tons) full load Queen Elizabeth AC of the UK Royal Navy.
679 crew, not including air element; total berths for up to 1,600.

 

[Samba]

Would you prefer MUGEM or 6 modern submarines?

 

[mehmed beg]

Would you prefer MUGEM or 6 modern submarines?

Submarines

 

[TR_123456]

Would you prefer MUGEM or 6 modern submarines?

Depends on what you want to be as a country.
A blue water navy needs an AC.
Even the smartest of the middle powers South-Korea is planning an AC.

 

[boredaf]

Compare it to the Est. 80,600 tonnes (79,300 long tons; 88,800 short tons) full load Queen Elizabeth AC of the UK Royal Navy.
679 crew, not including air element; total berths for up to 1,600.

I stand corrected, I thought that was around 2,500 as well. However, it still makes sense to me given that we will have 3 different type of aircraft (perhaps 4), multiple VLS, RCWS, CIWS, PDMS, USVs and UUVs on the ship and if we go with 3 shifts to have 24 hour coverage without burning out the crew + air wing, we can't just have a skeleton crew.

Then again, we could have simply not have this masterpiece to vanity but.. oh well.

Would you prefer MUGEM or 6 modern submarines?

Submarines, without a doubt. We have 3 potential enemy navies (at least) in the Mediterranean, the French, Greeks and Israelis, alongside their air forces. 6 more submarine would help us far more than an aircraft carrier to secure Mediterranean and would cost much, much, much less, even without accounting for every single other ship we need around the carrier.

 

[Sanchez]

Would you prefer MUGEM or 6 modern submarines?

We will have 12 modern submarines and a MUGEM.

 

[Pokemonte13]

Timeframe for Milden will likely be the same with reis 2032-33 first one and then every year one more.
I wonder how many nükden our navy plans min would be 4

 

[dBSPL]

Would you prefer MUGEM or 6 modern submarines?

Submarine or aircraft carrier? Both MUGEM and MILDEN are progressing very concretely in their respective fields, and by the mid-2030s these ships will be strategic elements of the navy. I think we passed this part of the debate years ago. Political will and Staff planning gave the answer as "both". My humble opinion is that the real gap, which is still not attracting attention, is happening elsewhere: the increasing need for enabling platforms. That is, intermediate platforms that strengthen operational linkage and mission continuity between the fleet's elements.

Look at where the surface fleet is heading. By the mid-2030s it centres on MUGEM and TCG Anadolu, screened by the TF-2000 destroyers and the İstif-class frigates (In addition, modernized Barbarossas and perhaps, a heavy frigate idea might come to fruition in 6-8 years) the Ada corvettes, the Hisar OPVs, and a submarine force past sixteen boats. Four Bayraktar LSTs carry the amphibious lift. And feeding all of this at sea are possibly two Derya-class ships. Derya is a genuinely capable platform, 26,000 tonnes, two-sided RAS, ADVENT, with a second hull probebly on the way. But its design logic is built around one task: keeping the Task ( strike or amphibious) group fuelled. Spread that across two or three task groups operating at once, add the new basing footprint in Libya and Somalia and beyond, and two replenishment ships start to feel like a thin margin, If the ultimate goal is a NATO independent naval power when necessary.

There is a second gap that bothers me more, because it is structural rather than just a numbers problem. The Bayraktar LSTs can put vehicles and troops ashore, but they cannot sustain themselves offshore for long without close support. Anadolu gives us air operations and amphibious command, but it cannot also be a Role-3 forward surgical hospital and a replenishment node at the same time. The layer between the capital ships and the assault force, the platform that holds the maritime support area and keeps everything alive, simply does not exist in our inventory. A ship that never puts its own ramp on the beach, but enables the force that does.

This is not a new idea, and it is worth looking at how others solved it. The Dutch Karel Doorman put logistics, a Role 3 hospital, and a large hangar into a single 28,000-tonne hull, and took criticism for trying to be everything at once. The Danish Absalon went the opposite way, a small 6,300-tonne hull with frigate-level weapons but very little cargo room. Neither is a clean template for us, but together they mark out the space. What we need sits between them, and closer to the logistics end than the combatant end.

In my head the platform looks like this: Somewhere around 200 metres and 18,000 to 20,000 tonnes, able to hold 16 to 18 knots so it can actually keep station with a frigate group rather than trailing behind it. Fuel capacity deliberately modest, because this ship is not a second Derya; it tops up escorts and LSTs at the margins while Derya does the heavy oiler work. Two-sided RAS so it can service two ships at once. A hangar for four helicopters and a deck that can take a Chinook for vertical replenishment. And the parts that actually justify a new hull rather than another oiler: a fixed Role 3 hospital, because Anadolu and the LSTs only reach Role 2 and we have no afloat Role 3 anywhere in the fleet; and a proper USV mothership capability, stern ramp or heavy davits plus a control centre that can run a dozen unmanned platforms at once. That last piece is where this concept earns its place in a navy that is leaning hard into unmanned systems.

On weapons I would keep the philosophy simple: this ship defends itself, it does not go looking for a fight. Two GÖKDENİZ on the hangar roof for the hard-kill close-in layer, ATOM airburst rounds being exactly what you want against both sea-skimmers and kamikaze USVs. One pedestal GÖKSUR forward to push the intercept envelope out to fifteen kilometres, a layer the guns alone cannot give you, and a system that has now actually intercepted a sea-skimming target rather than just sitting on a brochure. Two SMASH 30mm on the beam for fast boats and surface drones, four STAMP 12.7mm for close-in work, a torpedo countermeasures suite and a simple hull sonar for warning. No towed array, no VLS farm, nothing that turns it into a pseudo-frigate; so it is not a "jack of all trades" ship. Sensors and command on CENK 350-N and ADVENT, almost same combat system already working on Anadolu, which means if a flagship goes down this ship can pick up task group command without breaking the network.

Where it pays off is in the scenarios. In a contested deployment it sits behind the surface action group, feeding the escorts and running a forward USV screen that pushes the group's eyes and reach further out. It holds the support area while the LSTs work the beach, keeps their fuel and ammunition cycle going, and takes casualties into the Role 3. The same hull turns into a base for evacuation or disaster relief with surgical capacity and helicopter throughput nothing else in the fleet can offer that far from home.

I am not going to pretend it is cheap, in return for this strategic value. A hull this size with the propulsion to hold 18 knots, a Role 3 hospital, and a full sensor and weapon fit is going to land somewhere around 400 to 450 million dollars even with high local content, and the machinery to make the speed is a real cost, not a footnote. But weigh that against what it protects.

The TF-2000-Tepe Class programme alone runs into billions. A task group that has to break off early because the logistics ran out, or a casualty with nowhere to operate, costs far more in operational terms than the ship that would have prevented it. Sefine proved with Derya that our yards can build a complex auxiliary on time, and every major system this thing needs is already in production. The capability is there. The real question is whether a LPDish support ship can ever win an argument against the platforms that are simply more exciting to talk about.