The serial production of Turkey’s Main Battle Tank (MBT), the Altay, has been awarded to BMC, one of Turkey's largest commercial vehicle manufacturers.
The announcement was made on 9 November by the Turkish Presidency of Defence Industries (Savunma Sanayii Başkanlığı / SSB). Under the new contract, 250 Altay tanks will be produced, with the first tank to be delivered to Turkish Land Forces within 18 months once serial production line is completed.
The Altay was indigenously developed under the Altay National Tank Project, which started in 2008 and is the first national MBT developed for the Turkish Land Forces Command (TLFC). The tank is consisted of four crew; commander, driver, loader and fire controller.
The objective was to design, develop and produce a prototype of a tank that is domestically equipped with cutting-edge technology and weapon systems, has high mobility and survivability, long-range and effective fire-impact power and advanced electronic operational capability.
Prior to this announcement it was stated that MBT will have two versions Type 1 and Type 2. BMC will produce Type 1 250 tanks. At SSB press release it is stated that BMC will work on new design of MBT to get unmanned turret. It is however unknown whether “unmanned turret” means loader will be replaced by automatic loader like French Leclerc tanks or completely unmanned like Russian T-14 Armata Tanks.
