In a historic milestone, Türkiye on Monday commissioned its long-anticipated largest warship, bolstering its naval capabilities and making the country one of the few nations in the world with a domestically built aircraft carrier, APA reports citing Daily Sabah.
Set to be Türkiye’s flagship, the multipurpose amphibious assault ship TCG Anadolu was due to be delivered to the Naval Forces Command on Monday.
Being more than Türkiye’s first carrier, the ship will also be the world’s first vessel with an air wing mainly consisting of unmanned aircraft.
Based on Spain’s flagship, the Juan Carlos I, the TCG Anadolu is a landing helicopter dock (LHD) type amphibious assault ship.
It is 231 meters long and 32 meters wide and boasts a displacement of 27,436 tons. It has a top speed of around 21 knots, a range of 9,000 nautical miles, and can operate at sea for 50 days.
The ship was ordered in 2015, laid down in February 2018 and launched in April 2019. Its inauguration was scheduled for 2021 but has been delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The TCG Anadolu was initially intended to operate like similar amphibious assault ships and carry a fleet of helicopters and short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) fighters, such as Lockheed Martin’s F-35B variant of the fifth-generation stealth aircraft.
Yet, any such prospect diminished after the U.S. removed Türkiye from the multinational program developing the F-35 fighter jets over Ankara’s decision to acquire Russian-made S-400 air missile defense systems in 2019.
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