Turkish Naval Forces Fleet Strenghtened with F-512 “Büyükada”
On the anniversary of Preveze Maritime Victory, the second ship of the MILGEM project has been handed over to Naval Forces Command at a ceremony. The delivery ceremony of the TCG “Büyükada” ship, which was designed and integrated completely with the national resources, was held in İstanbul Shipyard Command at Pendik. President of the Grand National Assembly and Acting President Cemil Çiçek and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Chief of General Staff General Necdet Özel, Minister of National Defence İsmet Yılmaz, Minister of Transportation, Maritime Affairs and Communications Binali Yıldırım and many military and civilian officials attended the ceremony. In his speech, Commander of Turkish Naval Forces Admiral Recep Bülent Bostanoğlu mentioned that the seas were becoming more and more important in economic, political and military aspects, and that they constituted a base for economic struggle and that they were indispensable for human beings. Bostanoğlu expressed that the ideal of reinforced naval forces as an objective and government policy has always been important during the Republic period. He added that the national ship manufacturing and repairing industry was founded in the early republican years.
Bostanoğlu said that following the manufacturing of the Gölcük Oil Carrier, cooperation in military ship building with foreign countries started and continued in the manufacturing of submarines, torpedo boats and frigates after 1970’s and added: “In 1990’s, the know-how and experience we accumulated in military shipyards encouraged us in designing and building a national battleship in our country. With this confidence, the design and manufacturing studies of the MILGEM corvette that has been designed completely with national resources with the contribution of domestic institutions and companies under the leadership of Naval Forces Command and MILGEM Project Office were launched in 2004. MILGEM Project is a project developed nationally by Turkish workers and engineers demonstrating what could be achieved on a global scale with national resources and gathering all the critical task systems in a single platform. Our Ship Integrated Combat Management System known as Genesis has been developed nationally as well and has been used in a national platform for the first time within the scope of the project and as a result Turkey entered a league of few countries with combat management and integration system. Two years ago today, MILGEM Project’s first ship “Heybeliada” went into service and has been waving our flag in the Atlantic Ocean and surrounding seas ever since, made many visits to the harbors of friendly and ally countries, successfully accomplished all her assignments in operations and exercises and thus won the confidence of the Turkish people”.
Bostanoğlu stated that he believed Heybeliada’s sister Büyükada would be serving the Turkish Nation successfully and announced that building of Burgazada and Kınalıada ships were also to be executed at Istanbul Shipyard Command.
Later in the ceremony, command pennant and service certificate were handed out to the Commander of TCG Büyükada. The Commander of the ship took an oath at the ceremony and the ship personnel were dispatched. First breeder of the third ship Burgazada was accomplished after the Commander Pennant was embedded.
President of the Grand National Assembly and Acting President Cemil Çiçek and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the accompanying delegation toured TCG Büyükada.
8 Ships to be Manufactured in MILGEM Project
MILGEM was first taken into consideration in 1993 as a concept and was launched on 14 May 2004 with the resolution of Defence Industry Executive Committee. According to this decision, a project model was formed and design, building, system integration, performance responsibility and liabilities regarding the compliance with the schedule regarding the TCG-Heybeliada ship were assigned to İstanbul Shipyard Command where supply of material, services and system required for the design and manufacturing processes were provided by the Undersecretariat for Defence Industries.
Within the scope of the Project, the system/material and services and a part of the design services required for the ships’ manufacturing and equipment were covered by domestic resources as much as possible and therefore the development of domestic facilities and capacities related with the military ship building was accomplished. With this Project, the design, development and manufacturing of a corvette typed battleship only with domestic resources that could meet the requirements of Turkish Naval Forces was achieved.
MILGEM Project includes the national design, manufacturing, equipping, integration and supply of 8 “Patrol and Antisubmarine Warfare Ship” that could execute activities concerning reconnaissance and surveillance, target sensing and identification, base and harbor defence through early warning tasks, antisubmarine warfare, surface warfare, anti-air warfare, amphibious operations and patrol operations.
