Turkish Amphibious Assault Ship Enters Service Next Week, Will Be Equipped With The Latest Bayraktar TB3 Drone

JAKARTA - Turkey's largest warship, the multi-purpose amphibious assault ship Anadolu, will be delivered to the Naval Command on Monday next week, marking an important milestone for the country's defense industry, said Ismail Demir, head of the Defense Industry Presidency (SSB) on Thursday.

Anadolu is an amphibious landing helicopter dock (LHD) modeled after Spain's Juan Carlos LHD.

Türkiye's LHD will be able to accommodate battalion-sized troops as well as aviation and commando personnel. Although its flight deck is not long enough for classic fighters to land and take off, Anadolu has six points where medium load, attack, or multipurpose helicopters can land and take off, along with two more that provide landing platforms for cargo helicopters. heavy.

Anadolu can carry many light and heavy armored vehicles, including wheeled and tracked vehicles. The ship can carry up to 30 wheeled vehicles on its light deck, including an armored amphibious vehicle and an armored personnel carrier.

Meanwhile, the ship's hangar allows at least 12 medium-loaded helicopters to be transported. At the same time, the number could be increased by additional helicopters carried on the light vehicle deck, depending on the ship's mission. The heavy vehicle deck at the top of the carrier pool provides the transportation of heavy and tracked vehicles, such as tanks, along with other heavy armored vehicles.

Not only that, Anadolu is capable of transporting up to almost 45 tanks, depending on how the vehicles are positioned on them and the ship's mission, from amphibious warfare to power transfer, along with non-military tasks such as humanitarian assistance, search, and rescue, medical assistance, or natural disaster assistance in various fields.

The launch pad built on the Anadolu deck provides a vertical landing for aircraft, such as the STOVL (Short Take-Off/Vertical Landing) F-35B fighter jet from Lockheed Martin.

In addition, the carrier will enable the landing and take-off of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), specially designed for the Turkish defense industry, to be a world first.

Demir said the integration of this drone, Bayraktar TB3 developed by Turkish drone company Baykar, into the Anadolu vessel is expected to be completed this year, launching Daily Sabah on April 6.

It is known, the Bayraktar TB3 is the short runway version of the world-famous Baykar drone, the Bayraktar TB2.

It is planned that TB3 will be exhibited and appear for the first time on the sidelines of Turkey's largest aviation, space, and technology festival, Teknofest, which is scheduled to start at the end of April.