INFOGRAPHICS OF COAST GUARD VESSELS #6: The large patrol vessels of the Turkish Coast Guard

Written by D-Mitch

The Turkish Coast Guard 1,700-ton Guven. Photo by Yoruk Isik

This is the sixth post about infographics of various coast guard vessels and coast guard fleets from around the world. Following on my previous post about the offshore patrol vessels of the Hellenic Coast Guard and due to the very recent incident between the two countries where their largest ships were involved (Umut from Turkish side and Gavdos from the Greek side), I created an infographic where I depict the large patrol vessels (>100tons and >34 meters) of the Turkish Coast Guard (Türk Sahil Güvenliği), as of February 2018. It should be mentioned here that the Turkish Coast Guard has much more large patrol boats (55 boats larger than 30 meters including nine 31-meter Kaan 29 class boats) than the Hellenic Coast Guard (Λιμενικό Σώμα), has built several new and highly sophisticated patrol boat classes locally, and the majority of those ships have or received modern electro-optical sensors and remote-controlled stabilized machine gun platforms (RWS). Moreover, 33 boats are equipped with 40mm gun turrets except the usual armament of a pair of manually remoted 12.7mm heavy machine guns. Notice though that Turkey currently has only four (very) large offshore patrol vessels while all the rest are smaller than 41 meters. There are plans to replace older classes such as the Type 80 class.

Rebuilt SAR 33 class PB, modernized with an EO sensor among
others. Photo: turkeythroughmycameralens.com

35m KAAN 33PB and 31m KAAN 29
Photo by alper boler

40-meter Type 80 PB with eo-sensor
Photo by alper boler

Electro-optical sensor on a
TCG vessel. By turkishnavy.net

STAMP RWS. Photo by Aselsan

In comparison with Turkey, Greece has just five boats larger than 47 meters while all the rest of its boats in the fleet are smaller than 30 meters. There is no single boat between 30 meters and 47 meters (Arkoi) in the Greek fleet. In order to fill this gap, Greece will acquire at least three (4 + 2) boats between 35-40 meters, fully armed with RWS, in the near future, as it was reported in the previous post.  Also, except the three Sa'ar 4 class OPVs and the three CB-90HCG PCBs, the rest of the patrol boats are armed with just one or two machine guns manually operated.

The Turkish Coast Guard large patrol vessels as of February 2018. High resolution image here.

Sources:

• http://www.sahilguvenlik.gov.tr
• https://turkishnavy.net
• https://tr.wikipedia.org