A129 Mangusta Win ATAK

[Mangusta CBT]

Turkey favors Italian Alenia in attack helicopter tender

The winner of Turkey’s lucrative attack helicopter acquisition tender is Mangusta A 129 of Italy's Agusta Westland.

Turkey on Thursday selected Italy's Agusta Westland's Mangusta A 129 model in its long-standing attack and tactical reconnaissance helicopter acquisition project, eliminating South African Denel's Rooivalk.

The most important reason for Mangusta's selection was the price differences with Denel, Defense Minister Vecdi Gönül said at the end of an around three-and-a-half-hour meeting of the Executive Committee of the Undersecretariat for the Defense Industry (SSM), the top decision-making organ in Turkish arms procurement.

The committee is composed of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Minister Gönül and Chief of General Staff Gen. Yasar Buyukanıt.

"The project [for attack helicopter acquisition] has been finalized after 12 years," said Mr. Gonul.

When asked, Gonul stated that the project cost for the production of 50 helicopters would be around $2.7 billion.

TUSAS Aerospace Industries (TAI) will be the main contractor and Alenia will be sub-contractor in the project, Gonul added, noting that the project would be called T-129 from now on, marking a Turco-Italian joint partnership in developing the helicopters.

Though the minister did not reveal the figures, Denel reportedly offered slightly less than 50 percent of Alenia's bid for the production of the helicopters with a high local content. With earlier speculation that the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) favored the US Apache or King Cobra for an off-the-shelf purchase, the SSM Executive Committee decision to select Italy's Alenia came as a surprise.

But Turkish industry sources do not rule out the possibility of Turkey buying off-the-shelf attack helicopters from the US in the future, bearing in mind that the delivery of Turkish-Italian joint production attack helicopters could take longer than expected.

US companies cannot bid in Turkey's major arms procurement projects due to contract terms and conditions, under which only companies that can obtain government authorization for the transfer of export licenses may offer bids. US law prohibits issuance of export licenses before companies have won the bid in question.

Gonul also announced the selection of local Otokar for the local design and development of around four to six prototypes for an estimated cost of $500 million. Once the prototypes are produced the SSM will decide on the production of 250 tanks under a separate deal. The local FNSS-BMC partnership is also competing in this project.

As part of Turkish policy to increase local production in military projects, the SSM Executive Committee has also decided to contract local Dearsan for the production at its İstanbul shipyards of new 56-meter-long patrol boats. The project is estimated to cost around 400 million euros.

 

[Rich]

Pretty slick of the Turks. Using arms purchases to also increase their high tech manufacturing sector. Any info on the chopper? And is that Patrol boat that heavily armed corvette that was mentioned earlier in another thread?

 

[Mangusta CBT]

From Wikipedia

T129: New Turkish attack helicopter, winner of the ATAK-II tender. The T129 is based on the A129 International, but has several key improvements in line with the requirements of the Turkish Army: The number of Hellfire/TOW missiles which the helicopter can carry are raised to 12 from the original 8; a stronger engine has increased the maximum hovering altitude by 20%;[verification needed] two launchers for Stinger AA missiles (a total of 4 can be carried) have been added to the exterior sides of the pylons; and a mast radar, similar to that of Apache Longbow but based on IAI/ELTA's (Israel) surveillance and targeting radar with SAR and ISAR capability, has been added on the top of the rotor. The radar can identify land and sea targets from at least 30 kilometers.[citation needed]

http://www.aeronautics.ru/agusta/a129_mangusta/a129-022-international-prototype.jpg

 

[Waylander]

I will believe it when I see them flying, not earlier.
Remember the KA.50 Erdogan?

 

[orko_8]

Pretty slick of the Turks. Using arms purchases to also increase their high tech manufacturing sector. Any info on the chopper? And is that Patrol boat that heavily armed corvette that was mentioned earlier in another thread?

They are 400t patrol boats which will have 40mm gun, 2 x 12.7mm STAMP remote controlled turrets, depth charges and ASW rockets and will replace Turk, PGM-71, K, T and Hisar classes in inventory. A total of 16 will be procured.

 

[beleg]

Some update on ATAK project from S&H defense magazine;

Price of the project is estimated to be 2,7b$ for 50 platforms. All helicopters will be produced in Turkey by TAI. The productions lines will be transferred to TAI by Agusta, so there wont be any more production lines in Italy anymore. the needs of Italian Army or any other 3rd party will be supplied from TAI facilities. There are no restrictions on TAI or Turkey for exporting to 3rd partis as well.The engines which will be used in T-129 is planned to be LHTEC T802 the which was designed for Commance. Thats around %15-17 increase in hp over the old engines of CBT.

Denels Rovivalk is said to have lost its chances mostly because of an unexplainable and unacceptable last minute price increment and the engine problems with French Eurocopter..

Aselsan is said to be working on a MMW radar for T-129 helicopter. The work on 3rd gen ASEL-Flir 300 is completed and it will be used on T-129 if it passes the tests.

The gossip of a request from USA for some AH-64D is still out there. It is said that turkey requested a proposal for availability and pricing of AH-64 from USA

Italy and Turkey are increasing the partnership in several areas. It is a vague memory now that Turkish people burned their Benetton t-shirts on street for protesting Italian government for allowing terrorist Ocalan to stay there.