The Turkish Navy is getting two more used U.S. Perry class frigates, one as a gift, and the other for cash. The two ships were recently retired from U.S. service, and will be refurbished at American expense. The Turks already have eight Perrys. The new LCS (Littoral Combat Ships) is sort of replacing the 1970s era Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates (4,100 ton ships that would cost about $125 million to build today) in U.S. service. The big difference between the frigates and LCS is the greater use of automation in the LCS (reducing crew size to 75, versus 176 in the frigates) and larger engines (giving the LCS a speed of about 90 kilometers an hour, versus 50 for the frigates.) The 3,000 ton LCS also has a large "cargo hold" designed to hold different "mission packages" of equipment and weapons.

The U.S. Navy operated as many as 51 Perrys, but only 30 are in service now. The Perrys carry anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles, as well as torpedoes, a 76mm gun and a helicopter. These ships proved very reliable, and were able to survive battle damage well.

Old but they still do the job, like the Phantoms. They need Aegis/SM-2 upgrades to face the threats of the near future though.



TCG Gaziantep of Turkey

Nice. Good thing about American hardware: upgradeable.

Kind of a shame, though, we've only got one LCS (Freedom) operational, and one (Independence) still fitting out - and that is all that the Navy is currently authorized to build. The Perry-class is 30 years old, and doesn't really suit the US Navy's current mission profile (it's mainly designed for ASW). Most of the current US versions lack the missile rails, and there are plans to strip the 76mm gun from them as well. They're becoming steadily more useless to us - which makes it even better that other nations are willing to take them and refurbish them for use.

Turkey mostly uses hers for AAW roles.