Autonomy gives Turkey a chance to outflank established naval shipbuilders
STM’s Tengiz extra-large UUV, designed for operations at depths of up to 400m. (Photo: STM)
Turkish shipbuilders have sold ships from Asia to Europe, but autonomy and swarm technology could give them a fairer fight against Western European rivals.
Turkey’s naval industry has spent years trying to convince Western Europe that it can build warships to the standard of the continent’s established primes. In uncrewed systems, it may not need to.
STM, a Turkish naval engineering company which describes itself as the country’s largest, has built an export order book spanning Pakistan and Malaysia in Asia and Portugal and Ukraine in Europe.
Yet it is the company’s push into autonomous maritime systems, rather than its conventional hulls, that may prove the more disruptive play in a market where Turkish yards have long been outgunned by their European competitors.
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