In the fall of 1999, 12 frigates were planned under Turkey’s ‘MILGEM’ ‘National Ship’ program, four Istanbul-class frigates, four Ada-class corvettes and four TF2000-class air-warfare destroyers were to be built for the Turkish Navy. However, after purchasing three Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates from the USA, this number was reduced to eight. According to the first TF-2000 project, it was planned to be commissioned between 2003-2008 by being built at Gölcük Shipyard and private shipyards at a cost of approximately 3 billion dollars. Because of the economic crisis after the 1999 earthquake, on 17 August 1999, Turkey's naval modernization plan for the project was reduced to four frigates. In mid-2001, the acquisition effort was suspended.
In 2010 Turkey revived the ambitious program to build six TF-2000 anti-air warfare frigates to bolster its Navy's defense capabilities. The Undersecretariat for Defense Industries, Turkey's defense procurement agency, in early March 2010 collected information from several foreign and domestic companies seeking to take part in the TF-2000 program, which was expected to cost around $3 billion. The program was expected to be completed in 10-12 years and provide the Navy with its next generation frigates. As of 2012 the first ship was planned to enter service in 2018.
Turkey originally designed the program in the late 1990s, but the 2001 financial crisis then prompted Ankara to shelve it indefinitely. In 2006, Turkey's top procurement body, the Defense Industry Executive Committee, decided to revive the project and called for the manufacture of six TF-2000 frigates, instead of an earlier-planned eight.
The TF-2000 frigate was expected to have a displacement of over 6,000 tons. Naval warfare helicopters and pilot-less aircraft also were planned to take off from the TF-2000s.
The timetable called for completing the design by 2011, with a Batch I contract signed for two vessels in 2014, and commissioning in 2021 and 2022 by one account. The first ship was planned to enter service in 2018, according to another source. Batch II, with three vessels, will proceed from 2023-28. Few details are known about weapons and sensors, but each ship will have 32 VLS cells, a Mk 41 launcher that fires Standard SM-2 and ESSM antiair missiles, two helicopters, a 127-mm. gun, antiship missiles and antisubmarine-warfare torpedoes.
The Undersecretariat for Defence Industries (SSM) initiated the TF-2000 Program to meet the Anti-Air Warfare Frigate requirement of Turkish Naval Forces Command. In this regard, Request for Information (RFI) was issued 15 January 2010 by SSM to gather administrative, financial and technical information for the systems from relevant companies/organizations for planning purposes of the Program.
By June 2012 Lockheed Martin was left as the only bidder in the $3 billion project for the joint manufacture of six frigates for the Turkish navy after Ankara rejected the remaining contender BAE Systems’ proposal. BAE had offered the new Type 26 frigate, internationally known as the Global Combat Ship (GCS). But Turkey wants the Turkish company Aselsan's Multifunctional Phased Array Radar project (ÇAFRAD) to be inserted into the AN/SPY1, Turkish Havelsan's Genesis to replace Aegis, and this combination to be integrated with the SM3 system. The project may still not be awarded to Lockheed Martin if an agreement cannot be reached on the technical aspects of missile integration. Such an eventuality would cause the project to be shelved and then reshaped. Milgem could be re-designed to manufacture a light frigate for air defense warfare, named TF100.
The STM Defense Technologies Engineering and Trade Inc. has been building marine platforms and carried out modernization works at home and abroad. It was the main contractor building the 5th MILGEM vessel, the Istanbul Frigate (F-515). It signed related agreements with the Presidency of Defense Industry last April. The STM has worked with approximately 300 system providers and more than 400 building material suppliers and manufacturers in projects it has undertaken so far. It was responsible for the new vessel's design, weapons, electronics and main propulsion systems. The project has had Turkey's leading defense companies ASELSAN and HAVELSAN as its main business partners. It also has around 80 subcontractors work for more than 150 systems. Around two-thirds of those subcontractors are domestic while the rest are international companies. The target locality rate of I-class frigates will be at least 75%, while this rate was around 72% in the platform systems, excluding the main drive system, on the Ada-class MILGEM corvettes.
By the end of 2016 Turkish defense industry was moving towards the future with sure steps. The TF-2000 air defense frigate was the latest addition to these projects. The TF-2000 was a defense against ballistic defects in the air defense giants of the world, with very little in the hands of the world's....