EN TR

News

Turkish Defense Industry Capabilities in Underwater Warfare Technology

During the last two decades Turkey has quietly developed an indigenous defense industry that is poised to be a significant player in international military procurement. Today, Turkey’s domestic industry has reached a certain level of capability to provide state-of-the-art NATO standard defense systems within a large range consisting of both wheeled and tracked armored combat vehicles, naval (surface & underwater) and air platforms, high-tech defense electronics, software, weapon systems, ammunition and logistics required by the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF), the second-largest standing military in NATO.

Date: Issue 108 - July 2021

Realizing almost ¼ of the turnover and 15% of the exports, the Defense Electronics sector is likely one of the strongest and fastest developing sectors of the Turkish Defense Industry. Thanks to the capabilities of domestic industry the TAF already has fielded advanced communications and information systems on par with the top technologies found in modern militaries. Among the top electronics technologies under development are land, air and naval-based command and control systems (combat management systems), network-enabled technologies and sensors. As with other modern militaries, Turkey views network-enabled command and control system capabilities as a significant force multiplier for all platforms and infrastructures in which it has invested over the last two decades. Indigenous tactical command and control systems in particular have been receiving substantial investment since the early 2000s.

Some successful designs such as GENESIS, GENESIS ADVENT and MUREN Combat Management Systems (CMSs) have been fielded during the last two decades. GENESIS and GENESIS ADVENT Combat Management Systems are designed for naval surface applications and MUREN CMS (based on GENESIS ADVENT) is designed for naval underwater applications. The 3,640-ton GABYA Class (ex-US FFG-7 Perry Class) Frigates of the Turkish Naval Forces (TNF) were modernized locally during May 2007 - August 2012 at Golcuk Naval Shipyard with the integration of the indigenously developed GENESIS (Ship Integrated Combat Management System) CMS, which has greatly enhanced their capabilities compared to the original design (with GENESIS GABYA Class that can track over 1,000 tactical surface and air targets simultaneously, while in the original configuration only 64 targets can be tracked simultaneously). Developed by the Turkish Navy Research Center Command (TNRC-C/ARMERKOM) and implemented by the Turkish company Havelsan, GENESIS is a fully integrated CMS suite that encompasses all ship functions, including navigation, communications, sensors, and weapons. Its open architecture allows greater interoperability and integration of upgrades to individual capabilities. It provides for modern sensor data fusion and automatic threat evaluation. GENESIS also permits integration of Link-16/22 tactical data links. The first two of four ADA Class Corvettes constructed under the MILGEM Project and commissioned during 27 September 2011 – 29 September 2019 were integrated with GENESIS while the last two platforms received the network-enabled version ‘GENESIS ADVENT’. With its integration capability with a wide variety of sensors and weapons, the ship-borne GENESIS ADVENT CMS is a powerful and scalable C4I System that provides planning, tactical picture compilation, decision making and weapons control to meet current and emergent threats. With approximately 550 applications having different tasks within the CMS and around 13 million lines of software code, ADVENT CMS is one of the most comprehensive combat systems in the world. The GENESIS Combat Management System on-board the GABYA Class Frigates, has 3 million lines of code, while the system on-board the TCG Bayraktar (L-402) LST ship has 3.9 million lines of code.