10260 [TURQUIA] Turkey To Buy Landing Dock Ship for Overseas Missions
NOTICIARIONAVAL
By UMIT ENGINSOY And BURAK EGE BEKDIL
ANKARA — To gain a capability for NATO- and peacekeeping-related
overseas amphibious force deployment, the Turkish Navy is preparing
to buy its first landing platform dock, able to carry up to eight heli
copters, for more than $500 million. The prime contractor will be a
local company, but with heavy foreign industry involvement because of
the high degree of technology transfer required, procurement of
ficials said.
The Undersecretariat for Defense Industries (SSM), the Turkish
government’s defense procurement agency, in late February sent a
request for proposals to Anadolu Deniz Insaat, Celik Tekne Sanayi,
Dearsan Gemi Insaat, Istanbul Denizcilik, RMK Marine, Sedef Gemi
Insaat, and a partnership of Desan Deniz Insaat and Meteksan. These
Turkish companies are expected to establish partnerships with foreign
counterparts.
Foreign companies interested in the program include Italy’s Fin
cantieri, South Korea’s Hanjin Heavy Industries & Construction,
Spain’s Navantia, the Netherlands’ Merwede Shipyard Nieuwbouw,
France’s DCNS Group, the U.S. Northrop Grumman Ship Systems, Britain’s
DML Devenport Royal Dockyard and Germany’s Thyssen Krupp Marine
Systems-Surface Vessel Division, said procurement officials and
business sources familiar with the program.
The landing dock will be required to be able to deploy up to 1,000
troops and personnel, eight utility helicopters, three UAVs, 13 tanks
and 81 armored vehicles.
The expected price tag of more than $500 million for the landing dock
does not include the helicopters to be deployed on the ship.
The Defense Industry Executive Committee, Turkey’s top decisionmaking
body on defense procurement, is expected to select a winner next
year. The committee’s members include the prime minister, the defense
minister, the chief of the Turkish General Staff and the SSM chief.
A landing platform dock, or LPD, is an amphibious warship that em
barks, transports and lands elements of a landing force for expe
ditionary warfare missions.
“We have long needed this capability for NATO rapid deployment and
peacekeeping missions in over seas lands ranging from Bosnia to
Somalia and Afghanistan,” one Turkish military official said.
Presently, the naval fleets of more than 10 countries, including
Britain, China, France, India, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the
United States, include LPDs.
Launching Turkey’s LPD program, the SSM issued in 2007 a request for
information, to which 31 domestic and foreign companies responded,
ahead of the request for proposal in late February.
Some analysts criticized the project’s high cost.
“The program is fine but too expensive. The fact that the SSM has
released a request for proposal means that it has found finances to
fund the program,” one defense analyst here said.
“But if you arrange business class flights for your troops and hire
commercial ships to send your weapons and equipment, it would be a
more cost-effective solution,” the analyst said.
One procurement official countered: “If you want to be influential in
world politics, you have to spend for defense. And this NATOand
peacekeeping-related program is needed.” Turkey this year is expected
to spend slightly more than $4 billion for defense procurement. In
recent years, it has focused on Navy programs, including the
multibilliondollar joint production with Germany of six modern
submarines and mostly local manufacture of 12 corvettes. ■