Turkey & FNSS move forward with their Armored Amphibious Assault Vehicle

via Defense News.

 Turkey’s procurement authorities have decided to go ahead with a draft program for the local production of scores of armored amphibious assault vehicles.

Turkey’s procurement agency, the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries (SSM) and FNSS, the company that has been tasked to design, develop and manufacture the vehicles, held a “successful” review meeting over the program mid July.

“We know what we want [with this program] and the contractor knows why and what we want. The review meeting was a good step forward,” said one procurement official familiar with the program.

In March SSM and FNSS, a Turkish armored vehicles producer, signed a contract for the production of an initial batch of 27 armored amphibious assault vehicles.

Story here.

This is interesting. I'm not really getting what's happened here.  We have an announcement but we don't know if the design is frozen and if they're building the vehicles.  We know the initial batch but we don't know the timetable for delivery.

What does a go ahead for a "draft program" mean in Turkish defense circles?

Stuff like this makes following foreign defense programs a bit frustrating. The news is good but it's dangled out there with little clarity on what's going on. Kinda why I don't even bother trying to keep up with India anymore.  The procurement process is so confused, with so many starts/stops that it makes my head spin.

Europe and the US is much easier to keep track of.  Even Japan, S. Korea and Singapore can be frustrating.  I won't even touch on how many dents I have in my desk (from banging my head) trying to follow Australia!