The Turkish Navy commissioned its second Landing Ship Tank (LST) ‘Sancaktar’ in a ceremony on April 7, the Turkish undersecretary for defense industries announced.
The commissioning of TCG Sancaktar comes almost exactly a year after the lead ship in the class, the TCG Bayraktar, was commissioned on April 14, 2017.
Sancaktar was launched in July 2016.
The two 139-meter ships are built by Anadolu (ADIK) Shipyard under a contract signed with the Turkish defense ministry in May 2011.
With a displacement of over 7200 tonnes, the LSTs are capable of transporting up to 1.200 tonnes of cargo (18 tanks or 24 armored personnel carriers).
The mono-hull vessels reach speeds of 18 knots and have unlimited operational capabilities up to sea state 5. They have an endurance of 5,000 nautical miles at full load displacement and at a speed of 15 knots.
Sancaktar and Bayraktar carry Aselsan’s STAMP remotely operated weapon station, two Phalanx close-in weapon systems, chaff and infrared decoys and torpedo countermeasures.
Additionally, the ships are equipped with two command and control centers (one for ship’s CIC and the other for joint amphibious command and control purposes) and four landing craft (each can carry 40 Marines or 8 t cargo).
They feature three onload/offload gates (fore, aft, and port side) and have an 18 m trifold bow ramp. A fore draft of less than 2 meters makes the ships suitable for beach landing operations.