Turkey has begun testing the Anadolu universal amphibious assault ship (L400 Anadolu). It will become the largest ship in the history of the Turkish Navy. But the Anadolu will not be carried by American F-35 fighters, but by the Bayraktar drones (the marine version) that have become famous in recent years. Why did this replacement happen and will it benefit the Turkish navy?
Anadolu was conceived in a different political era. Now the Turks are known for their military actions in Syria, drones over Karabakh and in Ukraine, and their expansion is tied to their own borders, except for those places where they were entrenched earlier. But in the late 2000s and early 2010s, the situation was different.
Turkey has been actively acting as a global player, penetrating Africa, the Persian Gulf, supporting regimes that are politically friendly to Erdogan. The Turkish special services were followed by industrialists. People involved in foreign economic activity well remember the breakthrough of the Turkish "promka" in Egypt, Pakistan and other similar places in those years. The Turks were actively thinking about foreign bases. And in order to protect all these investments and trade, it was necessary to be able to quickly deliver troops to the problem point.
Only the navy has such an opportunity. And the most effective tool for landing a military formation from the sea is what is called in Russia by the words "Universal landing ship" – UDC.
At the beginning of glorious deeds
What do such ships have in common in different fleets? Firstly, the strength of the ground group that disembarks from it is about a battalion of infantry at normal load, with vehicles and military equipment.
Secondly, the presence of a docking chamber in the stern, from which loaded landing boats and special amphibious armored vehicles with high seaworthiness can leave.
Thirdly, the presence of a large helicopter deck, from which helicopters with the first wave of troops (approximately a reinforced company) can be lifted in a very short time, and sometimes attack helicopters with them.
Part of the UDC can also carry aircraft. Firstly, vertically taking off attack aircraft and fighters (for example, "Harrier" or F-35B) and light aircraft with normal takeoff and landing, capable of taking off from short platforms and stopping on them (for example, OV-10 Bronco).
There are always operating rooms at the UDC, as the removal of the wounded goes through them, and often there are command centers well equipped enough to manage the amphibious operation from there. There are also stocks of material and technical means, fuel and ammunition for the landing. For example, on the American UDC type "Wasp" (Wasp) there is a reserve for four days of military operations for an amphibious group, which in our country would be like a motorized rifle regiment supported by a helicopter regiment – on one ship.
At the same time, the UDC is always a compromise. The landing requires a lot of space – and this does not make it possible to make a large hangar and ensure the repair of aircraft. A wide landing deck for tanks and armored personnel carriers requires a wide hull, and he will not allow such a ship to be built quickly – the hydrodynamic resistance of the hull will be too great. For the same reasons, there is nowhere to put defensive weapons on the UDC, and if so, then it must be protected by other ships.
Even if the UDC can carry planes, its air group will never be able to fight for air supremacy. This means that either fighter aircraft is needed somewhere near the area of combat use, or an enemy without aviation at all.
The Americans use their amphibious combat groups rather to make the world afraid of a raid by special forces from such a ship. Because the forces that are there are not enough to break even the smallest country, and the basis of their influence is the American flag on the mast, behind which there is really a lot of things.
These ships appeared as a result of rethinking the landings from the sea in Vietnam. The experience of those operations said that a ship was needed from which a mechanized marine battalion could come ashore already deployed in combat order, and an airborne landing group should land in front of it. Immediately after the armored vehicles – tanks from hovercraft, and behind them the rear units. It was a completely working concept, which even now allows you to land a large mass of troops in one wave. And this opportunity is why we need such, in many ways, compromise, but expensive ships.
Today, there are UDC in many fleets. And when Turkey had global ambitions, the Turkish leadership wanted the same opportunity for itself – to land a limited contingent somewhere in Somalia in a matter of hours. The UDC was ideally suited for the landing of the advanced echelon of such a contingent, but the Turks themselves did not know how to build such ships. In the early 2010s, however, other considerations began to overlap with all these.
Appetite during meals
The Spanish Juan Carlos I type UDC was chosen as the basic design for the Turkish Navy. This ship is considered a model of the UDC in the world today, in which the balance between its capabilities is not suitable.
In fact, this ship is like a Swiss knife. It can perform all types of amphibious operations and a lot of useful tasks for the expeditionary forces, but all with reservations. So, planes with short take-off and vertical landing can fly from it. In order to be able to lift the Harrier with a significant load from the short (compared to the American giants) hull, a springboard was made in the bow of the ship. But as an aircraft carrier, the Juan Carlos is very weak, and the number of take-off positions is reduced by the springboard, making it difficult to conduct an air landing.
The number of troops on this ship is good, but only one LCAC type hovercraft is placed in the dock chamber, which limits the number of tanks that can be brought ashore from this ship by one vehicle at a time. And there are many such compromise solutions in this ship.
Turkey also had to solve its main task – the landing of troops. Therefore, the Turks wanted a flat deck with the provision of the maximum number of starting positions for helicopters. If you believe the media, and if what they write about would have been realized, then the Turks would have received a less versatile ship, but more successful as an amphibious one, at least by increasing the number of helicopters in the first ascent.
This was the original plan, but it did not last long. Turkey was a participant in the Joint Strike Fighter program, which resulted in the creation of a family of F-35 aircraft. And when the Spaniards were chosen as a partner in the production of the UDC in December 2013, the temptation to make an ersatz aircraft carrier out of it and deploy F-35B fighters on it turned out to be irresistible. From that moment on, the Anadolu was built with an eye to becoming an aircraft carrier rather than a landing ship.
And there the change of political course arrived. Instead of global Turkey, which is establishing centers of its influence around the world and transplanting country after country to its industrial products, Turkey has appeared, fighting with its neighbors, provoking Russia and leading expansion to where not everyone is happy with it. Now an effective landing in a weak country to support local pro-Turkish forces and protect business interests was no longer so relevant. But the symbols of the greatness of the new Ottoman Empire became in demand – regardless of their usefulness. How this turn happened is an interesting question and has not even been asked by anyone until now. But we are interested in the ship.
The ship was contracted in 2015, when Turkey was already climbing into Syria. In 2018, it was laid down, and a year later, in 2019, its hull was already launched for completion afloat. And in the same year, Turkey, which was starting to play empire, received a savory slap in the face – the United States threw the Turks out of the F-35 program.
Suddenly, the springboard and the entire radio engineering complex providing the use of aviation became things in themselves. There was simply no one to fly from the Anadolu springboard now.
The situation was comical. The pride of the Ottomans could not stand this. We needed a symbol of greatness that would allow us to say that all this was not in vain and justified. And a solution with such a symbol was found. Turkey is the leading manufacturer of unmanned aerial vehicles in the world. Since it did not work out to place fighters on Anadolu, and all the infrastructure is there, then we need to make it a carrier of drones.
Currently, it is believed that the sea variants of the Bayraktars will become one of the main types of aircraft on board the Anadolu. Bayraktar is a very good drone. Especially when it is used for reconnaissance. In this capacity, it is much more dangerous than when performing shock tasks. As a striking machine, he is also good, although he is not even close to such a super-weapon as they wrote about him after Karabakh, where the Armenian side openly exposed itself. Bayraktars could easily fly from this ship even without a springboard and land on it too. And the control equipment there would have to get up without any problems under any conditions.
And smaller drones can easily be launched from conventional rocket ships – from frigates and corvettes. And they can also conduct reconnaissance over the coast.
Closing the question
To summarize. If Turkey had built this ship immediately as a purely amphibious one, it would have been better than what happened. And drones would normally fly from it, it would even be more convenient from a flat deck.
Now Turkey, along with Australia, has a ship on which the helicopter lifting capabilities are slaughtered for the sake of a springboard, from which no aircraft from those for which it was intended will fly.
And if Turkey ever gets the F-35? Then the Anadolu will not be a full-fledged aircraft carrier anyway. Yes, the 35s are very serious machines, but it is impossible to ensure their regular and intensive combat use from landing ships. They are waiting for several departures in small groups and staging for maintenance in an inconvenient and small hangar.
For Russia, the main lesson is that it is not necessary to chase chimeras and cross the uncrossable – it will turn out funny. But it is necessary to support the mistakes of competitors and neighbors in every possible way, without interfering with them. Impressed by the new voiced role of Anadolu as a "drone carrier", for example, in Europe there was interest in specialized quasi–aircraft carriers - carriers of drones. On reasonable reflection, this decision seems absolutely unjustified from the point of view of the military economy, especially given the fact that unmanned aircraft flew even from Iowa-type battleships in 1991. We will not interfere with them and wait for the form in which the Trakia will be built – the second ship of this class for the Turkish Navy.
Alexander Timokhin