The Underwater Offence, or SAT, is the Special Operations Forces unit of the Turkish Navy. Turkish Navy's first and only navy commando unit consisting of highly skilled soldiers selected from among the Officers and Petty Officers of the Turkish Navy.They are affiliated to the Naval Operation Directorate. Under war conditions, sneaky attack, sabotage and raid on the coastal critical facilities of the enemy under water, over water, land or air, to their floating platforms. They take part in the discovery of the shore to be subtracted under the pre-force operation and underwater control of the coast and the control of foreign ports.
History
The first S.A.T. course was conducted in 1962 in the city ofIskenderun, the first trainees graduated in 1963 and they began to serve. The original name of the S.A.T. unit was Su Altı Komando and was bound to the Kurtarma ve Sualtı Komutanlığı, or Rescue and Underwater Command.In 1974 S.A.T. group command became bound to the Turkish Navy's General Command, and participated in the Turkish military landing in Cyprus later that year. They have conducted the beach reconnaissance mission prior to the amphibious landing of the Turkish Armed Forces at Pentamili beach near Kyrnia. Other publicised operations of S.A.T. commandos are as follows S.A.T commandos, which came to the public agenda for the first time after a Turkish cargo ship named Figen Akat landed on the Kardak cliffs on December 25, 1995, successfully infiltrated the Kardak Rocks among Greek OYK Commandos on January 31, 1996. In 2012, they participated in Operation Ocean Shield, organized by NATO against sea rogue and rescued 7 Yemeni seafarers.
Mission
Their main tasks are:
Surveillance on enemy structures, facilities, defense systems or strategically relevant buildings.
Covert sabotage against naval units and/or enemy structures.
Covert landing and infiltration.
Reconnaissance on behind-the-beaches being considered for amphibious landing operations.
In order to have a SAT Specialization, it is necessary to successfully complete the 50-week SAT Specialized Course. The first phase starts with 8 weeks of physical and fitness development. After these trainings, the trainee who passes the physical and physical exams at sea and land passes to the underwater phase and is taken to the frog-man training for 8 weeks.After these phases are passed, the land phase begins. In the land phase, it is called hell week after training on gaining a high level of land condition, swimming long distances in the water and getting on the boat, VBSS, performing the task under pressure, getting rid of captivity, sea threats and long distance in the land, finding targets. After intensive training, the land phase is completed. With these trainings, they have the skills to sneak, sabatoge and raid the enemy's coastal and floating targets.Then, trainings using mostly tactical floating platforms and aircraft are taken. They train about 15 hours a day.
