MSI NAVAL SYSTEMS SEMINAR 2017 Naval Systems Seminar Turns Potential into Practice The 8th Naval Systems Seminar was total of 46 presentations were delivered during the event held in Ankara on October 16 and by various in stitutions and organisations in the ecosys- Atem, and 36 stands were set up in the foyer area. During 17. Organised biennially, this year the seminar, hints were made on the future of the industry. The National Submarine, İ class frigates, the Fast Patrol Boat, the event hosted many high-ranking TF-2000 air defence frigate, the ADVENT combat management guests, including Vice Admiral Adnan system and the YAKAMOS sonar were at the top of the agenda. Engineer (M. Sc.) Captain (R) Zafer Betoner delivered the Özbal, Commander of the Turkish Naval opening speech of the seminar on behalf of the organisation Forces, and Prof. Dr. İsmail Demir, committee, during which he said: “With its unique and un- precedented structure, this seminar has become a regional Undersecretary for Defence Industries. brand and is taking confident steps towards becoming a world In contrast with previous years, the brand... Consumption without production brings disaster. I’m not only speaking about manufacturing the products that are Naval Forces Command personnel already being produced; what really matters is to generate showed great interest in the seminar and create innovation. I wish this gathering will conduce to the on both days of the event. The special production of many newly developed products.” issue prepared for the seminar by MSI SSM’s Projects are Unrelenting Following the speech by Betoner, Alper Köse, Head of the TDR was also greatly appreciated by the Naval Platforms Department at the Undersecretariat for De- participants. fence Industries (SSM), took the stage. Köse first provided general information on the SSM’s procurement approaches Şebnem ASİL / [email protected] and projects. Ümit BAYRAKTAR / [email protected] The periodical procurement approaches of the SSM and ex- K. Burak CODUR / [email protected] ample projects carried out in the defence industry based on Alper ÇALIK / [email protected] these approaches are listed as follows: Birol TEKİNCE / [email protected] n Off-the-shelf Procurement (until 1990): AH-1W Cobra Vehbi TUNCA / [email protected] attack helicopter, AB-412 helicopter, MLRS 16 - December 2017 Zafer Betoner Alper Köse Rear Admiral (Lower Half) Mehmet Sarı n Co-production (1990-2000): Armoured Combat Vehicle, n Battleship Projects Group: MİLGEM Project İ Class Frigate Light Transport Aircraft, Basic Trainer Aircraft, (5th, 6th, 7th and 8th Ships), MİLGEM Project İ Class COUGAR helicopter Frigate Main Propulsion System, MİLGEM Project n Partial Design (Main Platforms, 2000-2010): İ Class Frigate Vertical Launch System, PREVEZE ALTAY, MİLGEM, ANKA, HÜRKUŞ Class Submarine Mid-Life Modernisation Project, n Indigenous Design (Domestic Production, 2010-2020): BARBAROS Class Frigate Mid-Life Modernisation Project Helicopter Development Programme, Turkish Fighter n Patrol Boat Projects Group: Turkish Type Assault Boat Development Project, GÖKTÜRK-3 satellite Project, Fuel Ship Project n Basic and Advanced Technologies (2020-2030): The projects that will be on the agenda in the near future are Absolute indigenousness, life cycle management, as follows: performance-based logistics n TF-2000 Air Defence Frigate A total of 530 projects are underway in the SSM. Of these, n Multi-Purpose Offshore Towboat 300 are already signed with a total contract price of approx- n Port and Coast Towboat imately $40 billion and a further 230 projects are continuing n Landing Craft Air Cushion to progress in the pre-signing processes. The distribution of n National Submarine Conceptual Design the projects by the procuring authorities is given in Table 1. n Search and Rescue Boat Project Köse shared other data regarding the industry as shown in n Mine-Sweeping Ships Figures 1, 2 and 3. n New Type LCT Twenty-eight of the projects for which SSM entered into con- n Class 600 Coast Guard Boat tracts are maritime projects. Their total price is in excess of Köse then shared his opinions regarding the future with the $12 billion. The projects that are in the proposal evaluation participants. Noting that one or two companies lead the mar- phase are as follows: itime sector as platform producers in developed countries, he n Amphibious Ship Projects Group: Floating Dry Dock said: “Currently, many shipyards are active in Turkey; how- Procurement Project ever, we believe that cooperation is necessary. Turkey should n Support Ship Projects Group: Research Ship Project, have a brand and we support the companies in this field.” Fleet Replenishment Ship Construction Project, Köse concluded his speech by listing the critical subsystems Multi-Purpose Open Sea Towboat Procurement Project that Turkey needs to develop: Table 1. Distribution of projects signed or to be signed by the SSM by procuring authorities Procuring Authority Number of Projects Unless otherwise stated, all photographs: Turkish Armed Forces General Staff 26 Turkish Land Forces 102 Turkish Naval Forces Command 83 Turkish Air Force 103 General Command of Gendarmerie 14 Turkish Coast Guard Command 9 Turkish National Police 33 Undersecretariat for Defence Industries 69 Joint 85 © Other Public Agencies 6 MSI TDR Total 530 Figure 1. Distribution of SSM projects by project model (pcs.) December 2017 - 17 MSI NAVAL SYSTEMS SEMINAR 2017 Rear Admiral (Upper Half) Ahmet Çakır Prof. Dr. İsmail Demir Enver Küçükerman n Main propulsion and drive system components Shipyards at the Ministry of National Defence (MND). Rear Ad- n Combat management systems miral Sarı gave information on the MND’s Directorate General n Ship electronics of Shipyards. The Directorate General manages the Istanbul, n Integrated platform control and monitoring system Gölcük and Izmir Shipyard Commands and has 6,500 person- n Unmanned surface and underwater vehicles nel in total. Each of these shipyards is capable of performing n Small submarines maintenance and repair operations for numerous platforms n Composite materials and systems. For instance, Istanbul Shipyard can maintain and repair 120-130 different platforms, while Gölcük Shipyard Restructuring of Military Shipyards can maintain and repair 80 different platforms. Furthermore, The following speaker in the opening session was Rear Ad- each of them can maintain and repair 1,100-1,200 different miral (Lower Half) Mehmet Sarı, Deputy Director General of subsystems. 18 - December 2017 December 2017 - 19 MSI NAVAL SYSTEMS SEMINAR 2017 Behçet Karataş Mehmet Görgülü Cem Gürdeniz Rear Admiral Sarı also added that they saw many former em- were producing sonars... Therefore, we need to choose our ar- ployees retired from these shipyards in the defence industry eas of operation very well. When we have a look at the world, companies and that their presence contributed to the projects. we see mergers and acquisitions in almost every sector. We experienced an example of this with regard to the mine-hunt- Lessons Learned ing vessel. Lürssen and Abeking companies had submitted Following Rear Admiral Sarı, Rear Admiral (Upper Half) Ahmet proposals individually. Then the State’s Minister of Commerce Çakır, Naval Technical Commander at the Turkish Naval Forc- called them and set their shares as 51% and 49%, guiding es Command (TNFC), gave a speech. Rear Admiral Çakır sum- them to form a consortium... I would like to emphasise once marised the developments in the industry over the last 15 again the importance of guiding and shaping of the industry by years, highlighting the MİLGEM project, and said that lessons the SSM in this regard. As far as we are concerned, the SSM is needed to be learnt from deficiencies and mistakes in this the patron of this industry. As such, it needs to guide the entire process: “While making all this progress, it falls on all of us industry and determine how many more companies should to see our shortcomings and errors and learn from our mis- be allowed to operate in which areas, and which areas will be takes. The criticism and self-criticism we will carry out in this open to competition... To be honest, these are being done, but regard should never demoralise us; on the contrary, it should need to be done more effectively.” constitute our road map so that we can shape our future cor- Rear Admiral Çakır also spoke of the use of the subsystems rectly. We are sad to witness as one of our major troubles, developed in the projects as components of future projects: that despite our limited resources companies operating in the “We see and hear that domestic companies submit higher bids same field are neglecting and destroying each other. When we than their European counterparts, particularly with regard to launched the MİLGEM project, there were two LPI (low proba- electronic systems. This makes the bidding prime contractors bility of intercept) radar producers across the world. With the submit their bids with systems of European origin, rather than project, this number rose to five. First, an R&D organisation of national and domestic systems. As a result, it is our country that ours developed an LPI radar. Then, another company of ours loses... [On the other hand] The fact that the products of other set their mind on developing one, too. We invited them to come companies, including those of foreign origin, are preferred in together. Let’s combine our resources. After working together national projects rather than systems that have successfully for a couple of months, they separated their processes on the completed their certification and test processes, just for the ground that they were developing antennae of different polar- sake of reducing costs, results in losses for our domestic com- isations. In the end, we selected one of them, and the other panies... We tagged the products made in Turkey and used on company’s work went to waste.