All 10 AH-1W Cobra attack helicopters transferred from the Land Forces were included with their tail numbers in the platform section of the official website of the Turkish Naval Forces Command. Tail numbers of the helicopters were determined as TCB 80, TCB 81, TCB 82, TCB 83, TCB 84, TCB 85, TCB 86, TCB 87, TCB 88, TCB 89.
10 AH-1W attack helicopters from the Land Forces were started to be transferred to the Naval Forces to be deployed in LHD Anatolia, which will increase the amphibious operations capabilities of the Turkish Naval Forces once it is put into service. With this, the Navy got its first attack helicopters. At the beginning of April, the AH-83W attack helicopter with the tail number of TCB 1 with marine camouflage was taken by photographer Oğuz Eroğuz while flying around Karamürsel.
Rear Admiral Alper YENİEL (Naval Air Commander), who made a speech at the "Naval Air Projects" session held within the scope of the 10th Naval Systems Seminar, in his presentation, said that within the scope of the "Attack Helicopter Project" of the Turkish Naval Forces, within the scope of the protocol signed with the Land Forces in March 2022, announced that it plans to take delivery of the attack helicopter.
In the presentation, the images of the light attack helicopter T129 ATAK and the Heavy Class Attack Helicopter ATAK-II, or T-929, were included in the image regarding the supply of attack helicopters. Within the scope of the signed protocol, it is thought that the AH-1W Super Cobra attack helicopters, which are in the inventory of the Land Aviation Command and built on a sea basis, will be delivered to the Naval Air Command. In the recent past, it was stated that the force was interested in Atak helicopters.
It is known that the force wants a heavy class solution like Atak-II in the long term. In case of supply, AH-1W Super Cobra helicopters will be infrastructure preparation for heavy classes as an intermediate solution during the transition period. Currently, there is an approach to deploying heavy class attack helicopters on ANADOLU class and similar platforms. In addition to the heavy class higher ammunition capacity, they can perform tasks in more difficult sea conditions as platforms with high sea stance.
Source: defenceturk
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