Article about early Turkish republican navy

Perhaps, but it is also important to remember that until very recently, Turkey had very little domestic industry of any kind (there is in fact very few natural resources such as iron ore, oil, etc. in Turkey), and of course, for the first part of the 20th century, Turkey was either at war with its possessions (Balkans) and predatory European powers, war with much of Europe (WW1), broken up by the victors (Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia), and revolution, followed by fallout from the Great Depression, WW2, and then the Cold War and constant threat by Russia/USSR.  Not too easy to get industrialized under such circumstances, and certainly many other nations fall into the same category, and many more not even that far........ The fact that Turkey is now in a position to not only build its own warships, but to have the capacity to export them as well, is, and should be a source of great pride for the Turkish people!

kapudan_emir_effendi wrote:

as a footnote, last month Turkish naval yard launched the stealth corvette TCG Heybeliada. It's the first warship which is %100 Turkish designed and built with all Turkish produced components, inluding computer software. Pakistani Navy already ordered six of this new "Ada" class while others will be built for Canadian Navy. Just 100 years ago, we were unable to conduct even moderately complicated repairs and refits in our own yards. Thus, Heybeliada's launching was an indescribable moment of pride for everybody feels attached to the Turkish maritime world.

 

It is a major milestone.  But in comparison to many other countries which had also started to build a domestic warship industry practically from scratch, 100 years is still a very long time to reach it.

kapudan_emir_effendi wrote:

searat12 wrote:  kapudan_emir_effendi wrote: Here is a wonderful short article about the birth of Turkish republican navy. As a Turkish student of the subject, I could not have written a better one. http://www.avalanchepress.com/TurkishNavy.php I have a book you might interested in that I bought some years ago at a very cheap price.  The title (in Turkish) is TUHFETUL-KIBAR FI ESFARI'L BIHAR, by Katip Celebi.  It is a paperback, all in Turkish (which sadly, I cannot read!), but without illustrations (which I had hoped to find!).  If you are interested, I could let you have it for postage. Searat thank you very much for your offer, however I already have this book which is one of the most important original sources ever about the Ottoman naval history. "Tuhfet-ul Kibar fi Esfar-il Bihar" means "Gift to the Elders (rulers of Ottoman State) about the Naval Campaigns". It was written by Katip Celebi (1608-1656), who is known in the west as Haci Khalifa and more than once called as "Turkish Descartes" by scholars. He was a very important bureaucrat and scholar, and the first person in the Ottoman Empire who realized what is really going on in the western world. He urged the ruling circles for a vigorous study of western civilisation and rationalisation of Ottoman state apparatus. He was unique in his time for his knowledge of latin and he translated Mercator's "Atlas Minor" to Ottoman Turkish. He was one of the participants of 1649 imperial naval council, which discussed the conversion of Ottoman Navy from galleys to galleons. It was Katip Celebi who convinced the council that in this most heated period of Cretan War against Venice, such a revolutionary step would paralyse the navy for a total lack of trained personnel. The book we discuss is considered Katip Celebi's masterwork. He first gives a short summary of Aegean history from western sources, then tells the Ottoman Naval campaigns from the time of Mehmed the Conqueror to 1646 battles in the Dardanelles. In the following chapter, he gives magnificently detailed written descriptions of Ottoman oared warship types, both with structural measurements and rolls of crews. In the last part, he tells his ideas about how to use galley fleets most effectively in his time of technological and tactical change. My professor, dean of Ottoman Naval history Idris Bostan, is preparing a complete new edition of Tuhfet-ul Kibar; with the complete english translation of original text included.

Excellent!  I do so look forward to an English translation!

Thank you for that explanation, Kapudan. And let me add that I, for one, am glad that the Turks are our allies.

subfixer wrote:

That was a well done article, Kapudan, but a little short like you stated, perhaps. It made me want to learn some more about the Turkish Navy. And just why was Dumlupynar the best named warship in WWII?

Hello subfixer. If this article (written just as a wargaming supplement) aroused further your interest for a study of our navy, I can call it an excessively good dissertation even 

here is a scholarly article about the birth of current Turkish Navy:

http://www.ijnhonline.org/volume1_number1_Apr02/article_guvenc_turkey_navy.doc.htm

ultimate source about contemporary Ottoman/Turkish Navy:

http://www.amazon.com/Ottoman-Steam-Navy-1828-1923/dp/1557506590

as of Dumlupinar, I'm also quite surprised by author's statement It must be a fully personal opinion. Though it's a very important name for our history; Dumlupinar is the place where Turkish army inflicted the final rout to the invading Greeks in 1922.

as a footnote, last month Turkish naval yard launched the stealth corvette TCG Heybeliada. It's the first warship which is %100 Turkish designed and built with all Turkish produced components, inluding computer software. Pakistani Navy already ordered six of this new "Ada" class while others will be built for Canadian Navy. Just 100 years ago, we were unable to conduct even moderately complicated repairs and refits in our own yards. Thus, Heybeliada's launching was an indescribable moment of pride for everybody feels attached to the Turkish maritime world.

searat12 wrote:

kapudan_emir_effendi wrote: Here is a wonderful short article about the birth of Turkish republican navy. As a Turkish student of the subject, I could not have written a better one. http://www.avalanchepress.com/TurkishNavy.php I have a book you might interested in that I bought some years ago at a very cheap price.  The title (in Turkish) is TUHFETUL-KIBAR FI ESFARI'L BIHAR, by Katip Celebi.  It is a paperback, all in Turkish (which sadly, I cannot read!), but without illustrations (which I had hoped to find!).  If you are interested, I could let you have it for postage.

Searat thank you very much for your offer, however I already have this book which is one of the most important original sources ever about the Ottoman naval history. "Tuhfet-ul Kibar fi Esfar-il Bihar" means "Gift to the Elders (rulers of Ottoman State) about the Naval Campaigns". It was written by Katip Celebi (1608-1656), who is known in the west as Haci Khalifa and more than once called as "Turkish Descartes" by scholars. He was a very important bureaucrat and scholar, and the first person in the Ottoman Empire who realized what is really going on in the western world. He urged the ruling circles for a vigorous study of western civilisation and rationalisation of Ottoman state apparatus. He was unique in his time for his knowledge of latin and he translated Mercator's "Atlas Minor" to Ottoman Turkish. He was one of the participants of 1649 imperial naval council, which discussed the conversion of Ottoman Navy from galleys to galleons. It was Katip Celebi who convinced the council that in this most heated period of Cretan War against Venice, such a revolutionary step would paralyse the navy for a total lack of trained personnel.

The book we discuss is considered Katip Celebi's masterwork. He first gives a short summary of Aegean history from western sources, then tells the Ottoman Naval campaigns from the time of Mehmed the Conqueror to 1646 battles in the Dardanelles. In the following chapter, he gives magnificently detailed written descriptions of Ottoman oared warship types, both with structural measurements and rolls of crews. In the last part, he tells his ideas about how to use galley fleets most effectively in his time of technological and tactical change. My professor, dean of Ottoman Naval history Idris Bostan, is preparing a complete new edition of Tuhfet-ul Kibar; with the complete english translation of original text included.

kapudan_emir_effendi wrote:

Here is a wonderful short article about the birth of Turkish republican navy. As a Turkish student of the subject, I could not have written a better one. http://www.avalanchepress.com/TurkishNavy.php

I have a book you might interested in that I bought some years ago at a very cheap price.  The title (in Turkish) is TUHFETUL-KIBAR FI ESFARI'L BIHAR, by Katip Celebi.  It is a paperback, all in Turkish (which sadly, I cannot read!), but without illustrations (which I had hoped to find!).  If you are interested, I could let you have it for postage.

That was a well done article, Kapudan, but a little short like you stated, perhaps. It made me want to learn some more about the Turkish Navy.

And just why was Dumlupynar the best named warship in WWII?