do you build your own submarines !?
6 U-214TN submarines (German design, Turkish built) are being constructed in Turkiye at present. First submarine is called PiriReis. Turkish industry contributes to U-214TN around %81 for per submarine. That is a good indication to reveal the maturity of Turkish industry.
U-214, designed by Germany, has actually caused many problems to costumers. The first costumer of U-214 was Greeks. This submarine in the hands of Greeks arised many serious problems in trials. One of the major problem was about stability issue so Greek Navy refused to accept those submarines until Germans solve the problems. Later, S.Korea purchased same submarines. The submarines produced by S.Koreans were the one that design optimisations are applied.
The solution to the stability problem of U-214 by Germans was to add weights to certain places in the submarine in order to create a stability for Turkish variants. But Turkish Navy was not satisfied and so come up with its own solution where the center of gravity of the submarine was relocated by adding extending the length of the submarine. The solution has to be validated by Germans and this is one of the delay in the Turkey’s U-214TN project. This also means that Turkish Navy is re-designed seriously in submarine and problems solved with solution of Turkish design team. In the end Turkish Type 214 submarines will be a few meters longer and heavier than the other nations Type 214 submarines.
U-214TN is considered to be the last submarine construction project where Turkiye cooperates with a foreign shipyard to construct it. The name of national submarine program “MilDen” to be designed, developed with Turkish subsystems and components will come into our agenda after 2020. According to admiral Bostanoğlu, The Milden have following domestic features:
Long range land attack missile (Gezgin) launching capability (VL)
Sub-Atmaca SSN launching capability
Locally developed torpedos (Akya)
Link-16/22 capability
Enhanced COMINT, SIGINT capability
New generation snatiınal sonars
National AIP technology
National battery technology
National torpedo and mine counter measure systems