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I have attended the first day of the SSM exhibition and conference. It was not quite as I was expecting. Mr. Serdar Demirel, Head of the Naval Department, Tuzla was delivered to the Turkish Navy on 4 January 2011. Currently Turkish Navy is conducting its own acceptance tests before this boat is officially commissioned. In an unprecedented move, Turkish Navy decided to give a proper name to these boats. In Turkish Navy tradition, such boats were called TCG ABxy. AB is the abbreviation of A(vcı) B(otu), which means hunter/patrol boat and xy is the last two numbers of the boat pennant number. But the first boat of this class is christened as TCG Tuzla in honour of the most important shipbuilding region of Turkey. 
Before handing the boat over to the Turkish Navy, Dearsan realized 63 FAT’s, 81 HAT’s, 71SAT’s and a 2400-mile-long cruise. The trial’s speed was 2,5 knots over the contract value. The shipyard had more fuel tanks than demanded. These additional fuel tanks increase the endurance of the boats from3 days to 7 days. During the trials, the boat covered 1300 miles at 14 knots %30 more than specified in the contract. 
Mr. Akkaya stressed through his presentation that Dearsan’s in-house designing team was responsible for the design of these boats from sketch. This might be in defence of the rumours that these boats resemble very much RAN’s Armidale class. He also mentioned the difficulties they have experienced with the subcontractors. Most of the sub-contracts were chosen from companies that previously participated in the Milgem project and know-how to work for a naval shipbuilding project.
Nevertheless, some subcontractors did not have the necessary security, class and quality certifications and these companies were financed by Dearsan for the certification process. This highlights one important weakness of the industry: creating, maintaining and updating documents such as user manuals, quality and warranty certificates and such. An interesting point in Mr. Akkaya’s presentation was when he mentioned an article about the contract they had signed for this project. According to Article 14 Turkish State, as a party to the contract promised that all state institutions would provide all the possible help for the fulfilment of this contract. This is a very odd clause and is an obvious sign that Turkey takes these shipbuilding projects very seriously.
What Mr Akkaya did not say during his presentation was the fact that Dearsan succeeded in selling two of these boats to Turkmenistan. The estimated contract value is 100 million USD. Following this presentation was a question-and-answer season with Mr. Akkaya and Mr. Demirel. I will not write all the questions and answers in length, just highlights that I found worth sharing:
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- Turkish Navy and Undersecretariat for Defence Industries are very proud of Milgem and the impact the Milgem project had on the Turkish shipbuilding industry. The Milgem project achieved an important change for a civilian market-oriented industry that had no idea about military shipbuilding standards.
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- UDI regards the second ship of the Milgem class TCG Büyükada as a second prototype. Some changes and improvements were incorporated in this ship, that were previously unthinkable or considered too bold. But soon a private shipyard will be selected as the producer for the remaining Milgems.
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- Marine propulsion is set as the next important milestone by UDI. This fact was emphasised again today. UDI is currently in talks with MTU, MAN and other marine propulsion manufacturers for production in Turkey. Marine propulsion is regarded very critical:
a) It is the most crucial system that is not produced in Turkey.
b) If Turkey manages to install indigenous built propulsion in locally built warships a very big hurdle in exporting Turkish warships will be overcome.
- UDI sees considerable export potential in Milgem, NTPB and Fast LCT classes as these provide original solutions for navies. And the foreign sales of these ships are officially supported by UDI.
The trade fair will continue till Friday, 28 January. The conference will end tomorrow evening.
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