TCG Anadolu

The carrier that lost its jets and invented a category — TCG Anadolu (L-400) is Turkey's largest-ever warship, a 27,000-tonne amphibious assault ship built to a Spanish Juan Carlos I design with a ski-jump meant for F-35Bs Turkey was never allowed to buy. Ankara's answer was to make it the self-styled "world's first drone carrier": Bayraktar TB3 combat drones have launched and recovered from its deck since November 2024, flew the first shipborne drone precision strike during NATO's Steadfast Dart exercise in the Baltic in February 2026 — and the jet-powered Kizilelma is promised next.

Overview

TCG Anadolu is the Turkish Navy's flagship and the centerpiece of its blue-water and naval-aviation ambitions: a 231-meter, ~27,400-tonne landing helicopter dock (LHD) built at Sedef Shipyard in Istanbul to Navantia's Juan Carlos I design — the same platform as Spain's flagship and Australia's Canberra class. It is a full amphibious warfare ship (well dock, vehicle garages for up to 29 tanks, ~700 marines, a 30-bed hospital) topped by a 5,440 m² flight deck with a 12° ski-jump that was added for the 32 F-35Bs Turkey planned to buy — until Washington expelled Ankara from the F-35 program in 2019 over the S-400 purchase. Rather than sail a jump-jet carrier with no jump jets, Turkey pivoted the ship into a UCAV carrier: Baykar's folding-wing Bayraktar TB3 performed the first fixed-wing drone takeoff and landing from the deck in November 2024 — autonomously, with no catapult or arresting gear — and began operational deployments in 2025. In early 2026 the ship led a Turkish task group into the Baltic, serving as a NATO maritime command vessel during Steadfast Dart 2026, where a TB3 struck sea targets with MAM-L munitions and flew an eight-hour teaming sortie with German Eurofighters. The "world's first drone carrier" framing is Turkish marketing with a real core — though China's Type 076 and Iran's converted Shahid Bagheri now contest the niche, and the promised Kizilelma jet UCAV has yet to touch the deck.

Development

Turkey selected Navantia's Juan Carlos I design for its amphibious ship tender in December 2013 — originally without a ski-jump — and signed the build contract with the Navantia–Sedef consortium in May 2015, adding the ski-jump when Ankara committed to 32 F-35Bs, per Wikipedia. Steel was cut in April 2016, the keel laid in 2018, and the ship launched in April 2019 — the same year the US removed Turkey from the F-35 program over the S-400 deal, deleting the air wing the ski-jump existed for. The ship commissioned on 10 April 2023 at Tuzla as Turkey's largest warship (cost declared over $1 billion), already rebranded as a UCAV carrier, per European Security & Defence. The pivot became real on 19 November 2024, when a Bayraktar TB3 made the first-ever fixed-wing UCAV takeoff and landing aboard — a 46-minute autonomous sortie off Muğla, ski-jump launch, unassisted recovery — per TWZ and Naval News; Baykar validated four fully autonomous sorties in the Gulf of Saros in April 2025 and operational TB3 deployment began that September. In January–March 2026 Anadolu made its first Baltic deployment, commanding NATO sea operations in Steadfast Dart 2026 — a first for Turkey — during which a TB3 flew the first shipborne drone precision strike (two MAM-L hits on sea targets in freezing Baltic conditions) and an 8-hour, ~1,700 km manned-unmanned sortie with German Eurofighters, per Naval News. The planned sister ship Trakya was deferred; Turkey instead began building the ~60,000-tonne MUGEM carrier in January 2025.

🔒 The rest of the TCG Anadolu file is for BattlePolicy Pro members. Stop here and you miss the part that actually matters: what the ship can really embark versus the 30-to-50-drone claims, the unproven Kizilelma question, how it stacks up against the Type 076 and America class, the complete specifications table, and our analysts' program, supplier and assessment notes. Unlock the full file with BattlePolicy Pro →