Turkiye is conducting intensive studies in line with maritime security and defence requirements. Turkish Defence company Roketsan developed Barbaros with its resources.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency, the General Manager of the Roketsan, Murat İkinci, shared detailed information about Barbaros. The project started to develop mobile coastal defence infrastructure. The system can carry four anti-ship Atmaca or up to six Çakır surface-to-surface missiles. Barbaros is an agile platform that enables deploying or leaving a position for around five minutes, depending on environmental conditions.
İkinci stated that they conducted a few months ago the first fire tests of Çakır at Sinop Fire Range and noted that the Çakır was engaged at a target at sea.
Barbaros can be effective against different targets thanks to their missile variety. While Atmaca offers engagement capability for major surface combatants for its heavy warhead or long-range elements, Çakır provides a cost-effective solution for small vessels, such as fast attack crafts. The system is suitable for network-centric warfare and integrated into the HAVELSAN’s ADVENT combat management system, Turkish indigenous hardware and software infrastructure. A land-based surface-to-surface weapon can launch a missile with information obtained from forward-deployed radar illumination thanks to its datalink capability.
This provides mission flexibility, increases possible success rate due to enhanced situational awareness and intelligence advantage, and reduces the probability of intercept.
Threat asymmetry is increasing for various reasons, such as costs, human resources issues and international relations. Terrorist organisations as well are another face of the problem. Thus, countries are searching for cost-effective weapons against small, asymmetrical crafts. The United States developed AGM-114L Longbow Hellfire integration solution for Surface-to-Surface Mission Module in Littoral Combat Ship Programme. Turkiye is taking care of naval asymmetry in weapon studies. Turkish Navy also tested the Yalman weapon station, equipped with Roketsan-made Cirit and L-UMTAS and capable of combined use of both weapons in the past.
