Turkey’s Armed USV to Take Part in NATO Drills

Turkey’s armed unmanned surface vessel (AUSV) MARLIN will take part in the upcoming NATO exercises, making it the first such platform to be represented in the alliance’s drills.

The Dynamic Messenger 2022 exercises will see nearly 100 flying-floating and unmanned diving vehicles participating. It consists of two parts and will be held in Portugal by the end of September. In the first part, experimental and conceptual studies with high research and development (R&D) dimension will be carried out with unmanned vehicles.

AUSV MARLIN is produced by Sefine Shipyard and Aselsan under the leadership of the Presidency of Defense Industries (SSB).

In the NATO exercise, the vessel will undertake special tasks such as underwater and surface reconnaissance and surveillance, intelligence, electronic warfare, target detection and identification, and support for amphibious operations, Turkish news outlet TRT Haber writes.

MARLIN is approximately 15m long and has critical capabilities related to surface warfare, underwater warfare, electronic warfare (EW) and asymmetrical operations. The AUSV which embodies the capabilities of gunboats, can even be a naval warfare platform that can be used more flexibly than gunboats at some points.

The EW system currently on MARLIN is the first in the world and also the first AUSV to carry EW systems, as per Daily Sabah. It will be able to conduct EW from an unmanned surface platform in a way that cannot be used on a manned platform.

Furthermore, sea-to-sea or sea-to-land versions of Türkiye-developed air-launched Kuzgun ammunition can also be fired from MARLIN during the exercise. Thus, the solid propellant Kuzgun will pass the tests in the next six months.

Kuzgun was developed by the Defense Industries Research and Development Institute (SAGE) of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye (TÜBITAK).