Modernizing Turkey’s Tanks

Turkey, with its fleet of more than 3,000 tanks, maintains one of the largest armor forces in NATO. Until recently, this very large fleet was also an old one. Equipped with U. S. Grant Aid Korean War-vintage M47 and M48 tanks, Turkish armor forces were no match for the Russian T-64s and T-72s just across their borders. Equally as worrisome, their fleet was becoming more and more unsupportable, as 30- year-old stocks of repair parts began to dry UP. For Turkey, as well as for NATO, this was an intolerable situation. A quick look at a world map tells us why. Turkey - bordered by Bulgaria, Russia, Syria, Iraq, and Iran - stands alone as an island of stability in a sea of unrest. Its vast open plains and semi-desert areas offer excellent high speed avenues of approach that favor fast, modern armored warfare. Therefore, it wasn’t a question of whether or not Turkey needed to upgrade its tank fleet, but of how and when. Based on lessons learned during the 1967 Seven-Day Arab/Israeli War, Turkish Land Forces Command began to investigate possible ways of modernizing its fleet. However, it wasn’t until the 1970s that serious joint discussions were held between the U. S. and Turkey concerning tank modernization. These early discussions centered on the purchase of new tanks from the U. S.. But it soon became apparent that equipping the large Turkish fleet with M6Gseries tanks would be prohibitively expensive. With the advent of the 1973 ArabIIsraeli War and the subsequent depletion of available U. S. stocks of M6Gseries tanks, the whole question of new procurement became moot. By late 1974, when the modernization program was still in the “how to” discussion phase, a major setback occurred in the form of the 1975 U. S. Congressional arms embargo. Imposed to protest Turkey’s invasion of Cyprus in support of the Turkish Cypriots, the embargo ended virtually all joint U. S.1 Turkish tank modernization efforts for the next four years. It also suspended much needed logistics support for the Turks’ rapidly aging Korean War-vintage tank fleet. Joint U. S./Turkish military cooperation was renewed when the embargo was finally lifted in 1978 and the tank modernization program was at the top of the list of things to do. The question remained, how to do it. The U. S., having successfully modernized its own M48 tanks, strongly supported an M48A5 conversion program for Turkey. This concept also appealed to the Turks. It allowed them to use many existing components, such as hulls and turrets, and to avoid the additional expense of new-item procurement. The conversion would also yield a tank the equal of an M60, equipped with a diesel engine and a 105-mm gun at a fraction of the cost of anew tank. Both sides agreed that the M48 conversion appeared to be the best solution. Planning proceeded in this direction with the establishment of the Tank Project Management Office under the direct supervision of the Chief of the Turkish Land Forces Command Technical Department (then Colonel, now Brigadier General Sitki Sunday Orun). A U. S. project officer was also designated by the Joint United States Military Mission for Aid to Turkey (JUSMMAT) to assist the Turkish effort and coordinate necessary U. S. support. In the fall of 1979, these oficers visited Anniston Army Depot, Alabama, where the US. M48AS conversions were accomplished. This visit was to determine how much, if any, of the conversion work could be accomplished at existing depots in Turkey, march-aprill985

"The M48 conversion seemed to be the best solution" the specific work required, the equipment needed and, of course, the costs involved. This first visit confirmed the feasibility of the project, but it also generated additional concerns by clarifying the magnitude of the program. To put it in perspective, this was to be the largest and costliest single program ever undertaken by the Turkish military. It involved the procurement and in-country production of 25,000 separate parts per tank, the translation of 30,000 technical drawings and a production cost of almost one billion dollars. In terms of technical difficulty, it was like trying to have your local garage convert the 1954 family car into a 1984 model from spare parts. Nevertheless, the program was set in motion with both sides resolved to produce a Turkish M48A5 by 1983. By 1980 the planning efforts of the project office began to bear fruit. A U. S. Tank Automotive Command (TACOM) team, headed by Mr. Charles Baldwin of the M60 Project Manager's Office, completed a survey of the two Turkish depots where the conversions were to be accomplished. This visit determined that with the addition of some heavy industrial equipment, which was available from U. S. surplus defense stocks, production could begin in time to make the 1983 roll-out target. By late 1981, the necessary equipment was identified, and the following year, it was leased to Turkey and on its way to the depot at Kayseri, which was designated as the first of two factories to come online. This initial lease proved to be the first of four leases that provided 53 pieces of heavy machinery valued at $2 million. The cost to Turkey was $186,300. However, receipt and installation of this machinery was only part of the production equation. It permitted the factories to perform the necessary machining and assembly operations, but it did nothing to solve the procurement, production and storage problems of the various components necessary for the conversion. There remained a host of other questions that still had to be answered. For example, which parts could be produced in Turkey? What technical data would the U. S. make available for in-country production of parts? And, of course, the most important question of all - what would the final cost be? Using Anniston's experience, the 25,000 separate parts needed for conversion were grouped into manageable units of 55 subkits. The 55 subkits represented one complete conversion kit for one tank, with each subkit consisting of related components required to accomplish one facet of the conversion process. These components ranged from the Continental Teledyne 1790- 2D engine which became subkit number 30A, to the relatively simple canvas gun shield cover which was designated as subkit number 15. For the first two tanks built in Turkey, all 55 subkits were provided by the U. S., with subkit packaging accomplished at the Anniston Army Depot. The contract for these first two kits was signed early in 1982 and was followed shortly by contracts for an additional 400 kits, with Turkey manufacturing four of the subkits in-country. This large quantity buy of 400 kits was actually accomplished under three separate Foreign Military Sales (FMS) cases, but was combined into one procurement to take advantage of lower costs in quantity. However, it was again becoming more and more apparent that the project had grown beyond the limited capabilities of two Turkish officers and one U. S. officer to manage. The logistics efforts alone was staggering. It required the services of at least one full-time ordnance officer to insure that, during the life of the project, all 165,000 subkits (consisting of 75 million parts) were ready at the factories when needed. Also, little substantative planning had been made to support and field the tank once it rolled off the production line. In retrospect, the formation of a combined/colocated project management office staffed with the appropriate U. S./Turkish expertise should have occurred at the onset of the project. This didn't occur, however, until June

1982. Fortunately, it wasn't too late. Housed in JUSMMAT Headquarters, this office consists of a U. S. Army lieutenant colonel, a Turkish lieutenant colonel, two Turkish majors, one U. S. major and eight Turkish lieutenants; the latter selected for their mechanical and civil engineering academic backgrounds. The formation of this office provided the manpower and talent to accomplish the multitude of tasks that had to be done - frequently simultaneously. As a combined office, the Tank Project Management Office responds to both the Chief of the Technical Department of the Turkish Land Forces Command (BG Orun) and to the Chief of JUSMMAT (MG Elmer D. Pendleton, Jr.). With this procedure, the project office enjoys the mutual support of a general officer from each country. In An M48 tank hull stripped and mounted for milling.

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I. “This program has been a model of cooperation... the words of the present project offce chief, LTC Ed Bennett, “This has proven invaluable in expediting external planning efforts and solving unilateral issues among a host of various supporting U. S. and Turkish agencies.” With the organization in place to effectively manage everything from logistics to training, the tempo of the operation increased dramatically. The first subkits began to arrive at the Kayseri factory in the spring of 1982, as did the initial heavy industrial machinery required from the U. S. Defense Industrial Equipment Pool. To the project officers, this marked the completion of one major milestone and the start of another. One immediate concern now was to provide storage for the kits at the factory. This was initially accomplished by using temporary outdoor storage, then supplemented by adding adjacent depot warehouses. Equally as critical was the installation of the heavy machinery and on-site training for the factory workers. These tasks were accomplished through the assistance of a Turkish cadre, previously trained at Anniston, and a U. S. consulting team hired by Turkey and headed by Mr. Ernest Brown from Anniston. Brown had recently retired from Anniston with 30 years of service, having been a key figure in the U. S. M48A5 conversion program, prior to leaving government service. His expertise, as well as that of his late colleague, Dave Stanley, proved instrumental in the success of the project in the months to come. The preparation of the Kayseri Factory dominated the early efforts of the Project Management Office. Turkey had negotiated for the purchase of additional kits which, by the late summer of 1982, were on the way. If these subkits arrived before the factory was ready, a monumental logjam would ensue, almost certainly causing a production start-up delay. Time was clearly the most precious of all commodities. At Kayseri, the period between August 1982 and May 1983 was marked by intense activity. The heavy machinery had arrived and was installed under the supervision of Brown and Stanley. Anew machine shop was built and specialized welder training was in progress under the supervision of personnel from the Anniston Army Depot. Concurrently, the project office was monitoring and assisting the efforts of the factory as well as looking down the road in terms of surveying the user training base, identifying spare parts and support tool requirements and studying technical data packages for possible future in-country production of some parts and components. Although improvements to the Kayseri factory would continue well into the next year, by May, 1983 sufficient progress had been made to start production. Marked by a ceremony that was hosted by General Kemal Yamak, chief of staff of the Turkish Land Forces Command and attended by MG Pendleton and BG Orun, the first five M48s went on the assembly line on 10 May 1983. While these first five tanks were not considered prototypes - they did serve to verify production procedures which were, up until this point, untested in Turkey. They also served as a learning exercise for the Kayseri factory workers. With few exceptions, the production process went as planned. These first tanks established a cycle that would be repeated many times in the months to come. In essence, this cycle involved stripping both hull and turret to bare metal, remachining where required and adding on the subkits in a prescribed order. Initial testing of the first five M48ASTI tanks (the TI designation to differentiate the Turkish production model) was completed in September 1983. These tanks were accepted into the Turkish Army on 11 October 1983 during a ceremony attended by some very happy officers from the Joint Project Management Office - including LTC Tuncer Erki, the Turkish deputy project officer chief who had been with the program almost seven years. While this ceremony marked the completion of a major milestone, it in no way meant that the job of the project office and allied support activities in the U. S. and Turkey was over, or even reduced. User-level training requirements, the start-up of the second factory, in-country production of parts, operational testing of potential product improvements, and assisting with actual fielding of the tanks all lay ahead. The responsibility to organize and coordinate these tanks fell on the Joint Project Management Office. Even before the first tanks entered the Kayseri production line, the project offce was busy formulating and coordinating user and support level training. Required publications were identified and ordered. Additionally, arrangements were made with the Turkish armor and ordnance schools to translate these publications as they arrived. A total of 73 different types of technical publications were ordered with approximately 48 requiring translation. U. S. parts manuals did not require translation: they have been used in Turkey for many years, the soldiers referring to the appropriate part picture and stock number. Even so, the translation effort was a big job which required the efforts of five full-time Turkish officers at each school. Of course, the availability of publications was only a small part of the total training requirement. Since the M48ASTI represented a technology departure from the gasoline engine and 90-mm gun on the M48 tank, hands-on training conducted by experts in both automotive and turret maintenance procedures was essential. With the assistance of TRADOC, this training was provided by two Mobile Training Teams (MTTs) from USAREUR units. One team was designated to teach organization through battalion-level maintenance subjects at the armor school. The other was responsible for depot-level maintenance subjects at the ordnance school. Both teams consisted of four U. S. NCOs, ranging in grade from E-5 through E-8. These teams arrived in November

1983. For the first week they worked in the project management office, becoming familiar with the program itself and preparing the necessary lesson plans and visual training aids they would need at their respective schools. The objective of the training was to teach a small school cadre, who would in turn become the principal M48A5TI instructors for new trainees attending these schools and selected cadres from units designated to receive the

M48A5TI.

The actual training lasted through the first week in December, with a total of approximately 175 hours devoted to hands-on instruction at each school and using the first tanks produced by the Kayseri factory. This training also served as a second check of the factory’s quality control procedures, with 40 march-aprill985 feedback from the teams provided directly to the project office. In May 1984, the mobile training team chiefs conducted a follow-up visit to Turkey. The purpose of this trip was to visit unit personnel who had recently completed M48A5TI instruction and provide assistance if necessary. This follow-up visit showed that they had done their initial training jobs well -no follow-on instruction was required. For the project office, the maintenance MTT was only one of many events occurring during this period. Turkey now had kits for 920 tanks on contract, with credit funding for the program provided by the U. S. This allowed Turkey to take advantage of lower component costs by buying in quantity prior to yearly cost increases. Turkish industry was also gearing up to produce up to 36 of the 55 subkits in country. This meant that the project office had to maintain close interface with the various local producers to insure timely deliveries and head off production line delays. Additionally, the second factory was scheduled to come online by January 1984 in ASi-ye, Turkey. This added to an already hectic work load. While valuable lessons had been learned during the start-up of the Kayseri factory, the Arifiye start-up brought with it a whole new set of problems. Not the least of these was that it was changing over from a German-sponsored M48 conversion program to begin the M48ASTI program. The entire transition was scheduled to be completed within 30 days and amazingly enough, this happened. The Arifiye factory came online as scheduled on 13 January 1984. By the summer of 1984, the first M48A5TI battalions were fielded and both factories were climbing the learning curve in terms of producing more tanks each month, with fewer initial re-jections due to quality control deficiencies. Although the factories were still below their monthly production goal of 20 tanks apiece, they were producing a quality tank and actions were underway by both the Turkish Land Forces Command and the project management office to obtain more manufacturing equipment and the additional factory workers needed to meet the 20-tank-per-month goal. These steps are now well underway, with the first group of factory workers now undergoing training at both factories and the additional The first Turkish M48A5T1 rolls off the line at Kayseri factory. equipment enroute from the U. S. In the future, the continuation of the conversion program for the remaining M48 fleet appears to be a certainty, keeping both factories busy well into

1991. In the Tank Project Management Office, the support of the production efforts is a primary concern, but new horizons are also being explored. The addition of state-of-the-art equipment such as laser rangefinders, tank thermal sights, improved suspension systems, and add-on stabilization, are well beyond the planning phase with operational testing to begin shortly. Although at this point it is impossible to predict just what the ultimate configuration of the M48A5TI will be, the intent is to make it a viable deterrent to any potential threat into the next century. Based on the success of the program thus far, and given the determination and initiative displayed by both Turkish industry and the Turkish Army, this appears to be an attainable goal. In fact, this program has been a model of cooperation between allies. U. S. industry, the Army Materiel Command, the Training and Doctrine Command, U. S. Army Europe and thousands of others have joined together with their Turkish counterparts to help produce a first-class fighting vehicle for the tough, dependable and combat-ready Turkish Army.

MAJOR FREDERICK J.

MOLL, 111, was commissioned in Armor upon graduation from Widener University in 1968. He has served as a tank company commander, an armor battalion S-3 and an armor battalion XO. He is a graduate of the Armor Officers Advanced Course, the Army Command and General Staff College, and holds a masters degree in Human Resources Management from the University of Utah. He is currently assigned to the Joint US. Military Misson for Aid to Turkey as a tank modernization project officer.

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