Turkish Navy Replaces The Flagship Of SNMCMG-2

Turkish warship A-577 TCG Sokullu Mehmet Paşa replaced A-579 TCG Cezayirli Gazi Hasan Paşa as the flagship of Standing NATO Mine Counter Measures Group 2, on 23rd January 2012. The Turkish Captain Abdulhamit Şener is commanding this task force.

Actually both ships are more or less same. They were originally built for the German Navy as Rhein class tenders. Four ships of this class Elbe, Donau, Isar and Ruhr were transferred to Turkish Navy in 1980’s. Isar was the first   TCG Cezayirli Gazi Hasan Paşa. She was replaced by Donau. Similarly Ruhr was the first TCG Sokullu Mehmet Paşa; she was replaced by Elbe.

When not used as flagships both ships are used for long distance training sails of Turkish Naval Academy and Turkish Naval High-school cadets.

It was just the Turkish Navy that replaced the warship it has committed to this task force.  This is the current composition of SNMCMG-2:

This was the composition of SNMCMG-2 in November 2011:

Standing NATO Mine-Countermeasures Group 2, is a multinational, integrated maritime force – made up of vessels from various allied nations, training and operating together as a single team – that is permanently available to NATO to perform a wide range tasks, from participating in exercises to crisis response and real world operational missions. Usually the Force is employed in the Mediterranean area but, as necessary, will be available anywhere NATO requires it to deploy.