According to the Turkmen media, Turkmen Navy’s largest navy vessel got in the inventory. The ship is called Deniz Han, while Gülhan and Dearsan joint venture constructed it. President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov attended the ceremony. The ship will protect the shores of the Caspian Sea. The ship has ASELSAN’s Gökdeniz anti-aircraft defence system on board.The joint venture Gülhan & Dearsan was created specifically for the joint design and construction of military ships and signed a contract to construct one corvette 92 meters long for the Turkmen Navy. It is claimed that it is possible to build several more ships of this type for Turkmenistan in the future.
The corvette construction was carried out by assembling from sections delivered from Turkey at the shipbuilding and ship repair plant of the State Border Guard of Turkmenistan in Ufra in Turkmenbashi (formerly Krasnovodsk).A model of the 92-meter long corvette project developed by the joint venture Gülhan & Dearsan was first presented at the IDEF-2019 defence exhibition in Istanbul in April 2019.The corvette was named in honour of Deniz Khan (Tengis Khan) - one of the sons of the legendary ancestor of the Turkmens (Turks) Oguz Khan. Accordingly, in the Turkic tradition, Deniz Khan symbolizes the sovereignty and domination of the Turkic state in the seas.
The Deniz Han corvette is equipped with a mixture of Turkish and Italian weapons and equipment, including eight launchers of the MBDA Otomat Mk 2 anti-ship missile system, a vertical launcher of the MBDA VL MICA short-range anti-aircraft missile system, 76-mm / 62 Leonardo rapid naval gun. Deniz Han is the first user of ASELSAN’s 35-mm twin anti-aircraft artillery system. The system is converted from Korkut system and using 35mm Air Burst Ammunition. The ship has two 25-mm STOP and two 12.7 mm STAMP), Turkish 196 mm six-barreled Roketsan ASRLS rocket launchers. The ship has a landing area for a medium class helicopter.
