Bosphorus Naval News Is On DefencePoint (UPDATED)

25 Nov 2011 4 Comments

The DefencePOint, one of the few Greek military blogs that is worth of reading has published my story about the ESSM test of Turkish Navy.

They have also used the photo showing the firing of the missile from this blog.

Unfortunately the bloggers at this blog (initially) forgot to mention my blog as the source of the photo and their story. But the photo is visible and you can compare the photo and wording that story to mine.

Well I am not surprised anymore to see my stories or photos being used by other web sites or blogs that conveniently forget to mention this blog as the source.

But I am surprised by the remarks such as “As illustrated by the remarkable site” or “this portal is distinguished by seriousness and professionalism”.

UPDATE:

The DefencePoint made yesterday an announcement that have made the above mentioned omission without any bad intention.

I accept this announcement and thank them for their kind words about me and my work.

I am only happy to  reciprocate their good natured wishes in a same manner and courtesy.

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Filed under Blogging Tagged with , , ,

>Problems With The Infiltration Boats Or Is It Just A Journalistic Fart?

31 Jan 2011

>

Last week Zaman newspaper run a story about alleged irregularities by the acceptance of special forces infiltration boat.

According to the article during the acceptance test the commission noticed a number of deficiencies in the main propulsion system and speed and handling performances of the boat. Although the inspection team did not approve the acceptance of the boat, the newspaper states the boat was never the less accepted by Turkish Navy an admiral in charge took the responsibility and admitted the boats despite the deficiencies. 

After the publication of this article, Turkish Defence Ministry released an announcement on the subject saying that the responsibility of the acceptance of the boats lies within Undersecretariat for Defence Industries as the procurement agency and all acceptance test are conducted by UDI. According to the statement there are some deficiencies with second boat which was only temporarily accepted. It is hoped that this reported problems will be rectified before the permanent acceptance.

The ministry also mentioned that this was the official acceptance procedures for all ongoing naval projects. 

Well Zaman newspaper is openly anti military and the article has some obvious gross mistakes in it such a mixing the term LOA with the turning radius. They have also not much clue how the acquisition process between the end user, the manufacturer and the procurement agency works and who is responsible for what. But they were quick to jump to a conclusion that something fouls was within the navy.  

Interestingly they seem to have removed the above mentioned article from their website. We thank Google for its cache in times like these.

On the other hand Yonca Onuk needs to work on the performance issues of these boats as mentioned by the statement of Defence Ministry.

Filed under Equipment Tagged with , , , ,

>Submarine News Around The Region

10 Jan 2011 5 Comments

>As I go trough the backlogof stories accumulated while I had no PC, I found these two news of special interest:

Zaporizhzhya with engines running.
Photo: e-Crimea
  1. The work on Zaporizhzhya: Zaporizhzhya is Ukraine’s sole Foxtrot class (Project 641) submarine. She has entered into overhaul in February 2010. She is being overhoauled in 13th Repair Unit with Russian help.

    According to Ukrainian website e-Crimea, the diesel engines of the submarine were tested. Ukraine schedules to end static tests by 15 February 2011 and start sea trials. The submarine is expected to return to active duty after completing her sea trials in May 2011.

  2. Papanikolis in active service: On 22 December 2010, the first Type 214 submarine of Greek Navy, HS Papanikolis entered into active fleet. She was commissioned in 3 November 2010, after a unique and long history of procurement
    Papanikolis in Kiel, a 2009 photo.

    For years Hellenic Navy refused to accept HS Papanikolis claiming the boat was not meeting the requirements. Poor performance from the AIP system, problems with the ISUS combat system, poor surface sea keeping in high seas, and hydraulic system issues were among the major flaws reported. And these flaws were mentioned again and again in printed in internet media to such extend that today it is very difficult (may be impossible) to convince the Greek people that theses flaws were remedied by the Germans.

    According to Greek blog Strategy Report the Greek Defence minister made the following statement:

    “From 2006 until today, yet the public is poisoned with myths and rumors. This submarine is part of today in power in the country is the “submarine tilted”, the “floating coffin”, the “submarine with fins. It should really be ashamed of those who cultivate this systematic undermining of a public asset and a strategic, I would say more precisely, the operational advantage of the National Armed Forces. [Grammer, wording and syntax of Google Translate]

    And the Greek Navy found it neccessary to make the following statement to malicious reports:

    ” From the Navy General Staff announced that a day before the ceremony admitting the submarine “Papanikolis” the fleet, after the ship for more than two months sailed by controlling all the means available under extreme weather conditions, from the Norwegian Sea at Kiel and thence across the Atlantic and the Mediterranean to Greece, some circles make a last attempt to undermine and discredit the most modern and well ship the Greek Navy. The mythology, however, “on the submarine tilted” denied in the most solemn manner.The Navy further states categorically that the “current story” of journalistic [notorious] defencenet.gr page is not accurate and has no “source” within the Navy (as in the original version said), nor was any attempt to cross before the posted Internet. [Grammer, wording and syntax of Google Translate]

    By the way, Papanikolis may be the most modern submarine in the region but she still lack an adequate punch.

Filed under Equipment, Ukraine Tagged with , , , , , ,

>How do you spell "Copyright" in Greek?

15 Apr 2009 5 Comments

>Well. When I write to my blog or publish photos I share them with the whole wide world. I want my writings to be read, to be discussed, and to be commented. I want the photos I publish to be looked at. And I expect, rightfully to be acknowledged as the source of information if some is going to use my writings or my photos on their websites. This is the right way to do things. This is also the netiquette.

But this is not what I want. On Monday (13th April) I have put some information about the multinational naval exercise Egemen 2009 executed in March 2009. A Dutch participant, showed the courtesy to share some photos he had taken during the exercise. From these photos I have completed a list of the participating ships and put in on my blog with some photos.

The next day, editors of the Greek defense portal defencenet.gr found this information useful. They have cut-pasted the photos and some of the information directly from my blog to their website.

So far, so good. But apparently these gentlemen were ashamed to give credit for this information to my blog. Therefore they have omitted this critical information and pretended as if this was their success and their story.

Click here to see the imposting page in English, and here in Greek.

This is not the first time that the defence press in Greece uses my photos from my webpage without my information or consent.

Last year in August a Greek magazine called Defence Bible published by now notorious Defencenet Media printed a photo of a Turkish minesweeper I have taken and posted in my webpage.



I guess old habits die hard. By the way; how do you spell copyright in Greek?

Filed under Uncategorized Tagged with , ,

>Internet Censorship in Turkey

25 Oct 2008 1 Comment

>Today when thousands of blogger.com users tried to log on to their blogs or millions blog reader tried to read their favorite blogs saw this: were unable to do so.

Today when thousands of blogger.com users tried to log on to their blogs or millions blog reader tried to read their favorite blogs saw this:

Apparently a judge in Diyarbakır decided it was for the good of Turkish people to deny them to access to blogger.com as well. It is good to talk whether to regulate the content on the internet or not and how to do it if necessary. But to deny access to a whole nation is ridicules.

There are over 1000 internet websites that are not accessible from Turkey; Youtube, Kliptube and Geocities among them.

These bans show clearly that the law makers and law enforcers are still not capable to grasp, why freedom of speech is important to the well being of a nation, why government based bans and filtering of internet is failing, why trying to ban internet makes you look stupid and finally how internet works. I personally think that it is good that they do not understand how internet works or otherwise I would not be able to write this.

I sincerely hope that the power of free speech will prevail in Turkey but it will be long and hard struggle.

Because of the banning of blogger.com by Turkish Government I may not be able to post and update regularly. I am sorry for this inconvenience.

Filed under Uncategorized Tagged with , ,

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