Naval News Network reported that Turkey’s "Anatolia" amphibious assault ship is about to complete sea trials in the near future. Navy News Network predicts that the ship will officially join the Turkish Navy in 2022. Strangely, the Turkish Industry Directorate did not mention the Anatolia in its 2022 outlook.
As the largest displacement ship currently built in Turkey, the "Anatolia" started construction in 2016 and is scheduled to enter service in 2021. In 2019, the "Anatolia" under construction suffered a fire. Although the earthworks claimed that the fire had little impact on the construction, it was a foregone conclusion that it would not be able to serve as scheduled. Of course, judging from the current progress, the progress of the "Anatolia" is only delayed by one year, and the impact is not huge. What really has a huge impact on the ship is that the F-35B carrier-based aircraft originally planned to be equipped have basically been scrapped.
"Anatolia" amphibious assault ship sea trial
In the original design, the "Anatolia" was just a "pure" amphibious assault ship . Since then, due to changes in Türkiye's needs, it is planned to equip the ship with F-35B. Therefore, the designer, Spanish Navantia Company, modified the relevant design and added a ski jump deck. The newly designed "Anatolia" is similar to the Spanish "Juan Carlos" strategic delivery ship. It can carry ski-jump takeoff/vertical landing fighter jets, be used as a light aircraft carrier , and can also inherit the traditional amphibious landing mission. According to public information, when used as a light aircraft carrier, the "Anatolia" can carry up to 10 F-35Bs, and its combat capabilities cannot be underestimated. However, as relations between Turkey and the United States have cooled down, there is no hope of purchasing the F-35B. Without the fixed-wing carrier-based aircraft, the combat effectiveness of the "Anatolia" will be significantly reduced. In order to solve this problem, Turkey plans to develop the TB-3 carrier-based drone based on the TB-2 drone , turning the "Anatolia" into a drone mothership. Judging from the published information, the TB-3 has a similar layout to the TB-2, but uses a folding wing design and the maximum load capacity is increased to 280 kilograms. Since the thrust weight of the drone is relatively low, it is difficult to take off from the aircraft carrier on its own power, so it can only be equipped with the catapult . However, this requires major improvements to the "Anatolia", and Turkey does not master catapult technology. At present, Turkey plans to install a roller system to facilitate the take-off of TB-3, and will also install a blocking net to ensure the landing of TB-3.
TB-3 unmanned attack aircraft
In fact, even if Turkey has solved many technical problems and the TB-3 can operate effectively on the "Anatolia", its effect is far less than that of the F-35B. As a medium-sized UAV, the main weapons of TB-3 are various anti-tank missiles and precision-guided rockets. The threat to small maritime targets such as missile boats is also very limited. When targeting ground point targets, the TB-3 can play a certain role, but its strike effectiveness cannot be compared with that of manned fighters. In terms of situational awareness capabilities, because TB-3 is not equipped with the radar with a large search range, it is only equipped with a photoelectric probe with a limited field of view, and its role is also very limited. It can be seen that due to the constraints of the performance of the TB-3 and the original design of the solution boat, building the "Anatolia" into a drone mothership is more of Turkey's helpless move after being unable to obtain the F-35B. Innovation The meaning is actually limited. From the current point of view, not only the strength of the carrier-based aircraft supporting the "Anatolia" has been greatly reduced, but its supporting ZAHA amphibious armored vehicle will not be able to serve for a while. From this perspective, even if the "Anatolia" can be successfully put into service in 2022, it will still be basically in a "semi-naked" state. Perhaps this is why the Turkish Defense Industry Bureau does not want to mention "Anatolia" too much. The reason for the number.
