Mass production of Türkiye’s "Altay" tank on its way

The “Altay” tank project, launched 15 years ago as the national project on the production of tanks (MİTÜP) had to endure a rocky path before reaching completion.

As the Turkish Yeniakit reports, the longest-awaited combat machine in Türkiye’s history had to be returned several times to the factory, with its prototypes not used in combat.

Despite the fact that the first prototypes were meant to be delivered in 2013, due to the requirements of the Turkish Armed Forces the combat vehicle was repeatedly returned for further development, as additional capabilities were being requested.

Due to the German embargo on the transmission engines, the project seemed to be on the verge of failure, but new powertrains from South Korea in March 2021 were delivered and their testing started immediately.

Thanks to this the project went on and, according to the Turkish military vehicle manufacturer BMC, the Altay tank will continue testing until 2025 yet will be put into service by the Turkish Armed Forces in 2023. Only 2 vehicles will be put into use, for now, to speed up the testing stage.

There are high expectations for Türkiye’s main battle tank, which was designed as a generation 3. In addition to the planned production of 1,000 units in T1 and T2 configurations, an unmanned version with an uninhabited tower called T3 will also be developed.

Once the test phase is completed, the remaining 98 tanks will be swiftly delivered with the first batch of tanks expected to include 1,000 units.