F-247 TCG Kemalreis


F-243 TCG Yildirim


41 Drazki


770 Valentin Pikul


260 Amiral Petre Barbuneanu

You took the pix on Sunday or Monday morning it seems.. I was lucky enough to take pix in sunny Saturday.. Erhan (my 7 yr old son) enjoyed the ships and kept asking questions abt the ships. He wanted to visit Turkish frigates but they were not open for public visit so he was disappointed. He also chatted with the naval officers and told them he is Fenerbahce fan.. Why am i telling these? Maybe we should meet more often guys ;)

Dear Devrim,

Thanks for sharing.

Great Pics...Cem...

How dare you forget these babies?

@All:

It was Saturday noon. And my girlfriend was waiting inpatiently. Therefore I did what I can do. I am glad you liked it.

Nice pictures Saturn and Orko.

The hull of the 260 Admiral Petre Barbuneanu (Romanian I presume) is devided in two different shades, the front has a light colour while the back has a dark colour. Is there any logic for this difference, to devide the shades of the hull along the vertical axis?

That is probably a camouflage scheme for the ship.

Arda..tell me about the 2 babies...
what are they?

@Cid: The Romanian ship does not have any funnel in conventional sense. The hot gasses from the machinery are released from the side of the ship. Over the time the unburned particles in hot exhaust gasses make the hull of the ship dirty. The two way coloring scheme prevents us to see how dirty the hull really is. And it also provides some kind of camouflage as well.

@Lord: These babies are small auxiliaries from Istanbul .

Cem,

You are talking about my babies or naval ones?

:secret:

Thanks that explains it.

41 Drazki was a Belgium frigate that was just handed over to Bulgaria last year. Note the NATO/western weapons platforms like Sea Sparrow and Exocet launchers at the stern as well as other radar and fire control systems throughout the ship. Hard to believe that just 15 years ago this was a Warsaw pact enemy country operating totally different weapon systems.

Drazki's armament is all French CADAM 100 mm gun, Exocet MM-38 etc. but the hull looks very Royal Navy like....reminds me of the Leander Class.

Efeler, thats exactly what i talked with a Turkish Navy officer waiting in Dolmabahce harbor for the foreign captains with some serious looking SAT commandoes. I asked him if it was weird to see a former enemy now a NATO ally.. He smiled and didnt comment on this. Just said Turkey is the stabilising country in the region especially in the Black sea. This is clearly seen to be true by the recent withdrawal of US offer to expand Active Endavour into Black Sea.

41 Drazki was Belgian warship Wanderlelaar of Wielingen class.

The Wielingen class was made of three ships: Wielingen, Westdiep and Wanderlelaar.

The first two ships are still serving in the Belgian Navy today.

The Wielingen class is considered as a well-armed and compact. The ships are designed by the Belgian Navy and built in Belgian shipyards. The project started in 1973 the construction of the first ship started in 1973.

The armament of Wielingen class is as follows:
4 x Exocet SSM
1 x Mk 29 SeaSparrow launcer and aprox. 24 RIM-7P
1 Creusot-Loire 3,9 in (100mm) dual purpose gun
2 x 533mm torpedo launchers. These are inside the ship and are fixed.
1 x 6 barreled 375mm ASW mortar.

Electronic suite:
SEWACO IV combat data system
2 x Sagem Vigy 105 optronik directors
Signaal DA05 search radar,
Signaal WM25 fire control radar,
Signaal Scout navigation radar,
Computing Devices Canada SQS-510 sonar


Well the Drazki is not the only NATO ship that has change the sides of fthe former Iron Curtain. After they have entered into NATO Poland, Bulgaria and Romania all have bought second hand warships from NATO countries.

Poland has acquired 2 Perry class frigates from USA and 4 Kobben class submarines from Norway. Bulgaria has acquired Drazki from Belgium and Romania has bought 2 Broadsword (Type 22) frigates from England.

Both Romania and Poland has to a certain degree a strong local ship building industry. So why did they need to buy second hand ships when they could built new ships for themselves?

My answer to this question is money and time. After joining the NATO all these three countries had to reorganize their armed forces according to the military standards of NATO. The existing warships of these countries were built during the Cold War or immediately after the end of it. Thus these ships were not according to NATO standards. The cheapest way to obtaining ships in NATO standards in the shortest time was to get second hand warships from NATO countries.

Regarding it's weapons platforms, the Drazki (minus it's Sea Sparrows, 2-D radar and WM-25) very closely resembles our Burak A-69 Aviso Class corvettes. And we have 6 of them.

Burak Class:

2 x Exocet SSM
1 x Creusot-Loire 3,9 in (100mm)
2 x 20mm
4 x L5 torpedos.
1 x 6 barreled 375mm ASW mortar
plus space for a Mistral/Stinger AA mount



Bulgaria still has a whiles to go before creating a capable navy.

Dear Cem,
I am sure you have realised too that the ship was fitted with only 3 Exocet launchers. One of the launcher rails was empty. It is common too see the ships to be fitted with less weapons than they can. Our Meko class frigates all have 4 Harpoons installed for peacetime duties. But what is the logic behind removing only one exocet launcher? It seemed funny an asymetric.. I hate asymetric stuff :gang beat:

Dear Beleg,

I am very well aware of the fact that Druzki has only 3 Exocet launchers on board. But what I wrote was the armament list of the Wielingen class in general.

The Druzki may have only 3 Exocets but her sisters in Belgian navy do carry the full load.

Yes. So the question still remains. What do you think is the logic behind removing only one missile?