Turkish Navy Starts Deniz Yıldızı 2012 Exercise

F-511 TCG Heybeliada, the Milgem class corvette on her northbound passage in Bosphorus prior to the Deniz Yıldızı naval exercise.

According to the official announcement made from Turkish Navy website the naval exercise Deniz Yıldızı 2012 has started today.

The exercise will be conducted in the Black Sea and Marmara Sea. 8 frigates (half of the inventory), 1 corvette, 3 submarines, 7 fast attack craft, 4 auxiliaries, 4 maritime patrol aircraft, 6 helicopters and various special forces and EOD teams will take part in the exercise. The non navy units taking part in the exercise are 13 coast guard vessels, 2 coast guard helicopter and various planes from Turkish Air Force.

Live missile firings will be performed during the exercise.  Inebolu, Sinop, Samsun, Ordu, Trabzon, Rize, Hopa  and Novoroski ports will be visited by the participating units.

The aim of the exercise is to test the ability and the capability of Turkish Navy to performs its duties especially in the Black Sea. In this context a section of the Deniz Yıldızı 2012 will be conducted with the participation of the BlackSeaFor (which was activated on 6th April). This joint training will improve the ability of the Black Sea navies to make joint operations and to increase their readiness and training levels.

The Turkish Navy schedules the annual Deniz Yıldızı exercise  to be at the same time with the Spring activation of the BLACKSEAFOR. During the last couple exercises one decommissioned ship was sunk as target during the live firing part.