Turkish Undersecretariat for Defense Industries (SSM) has announced the launch of mass production of the indigenous strike UAVs from its official Twitter account. SSM Undersecretary Prof. Dr. Ismail Demir contributed to this announcement from his personal official account by saying, “America has rejected our request for urgent need last year, and now look at the result.”

The UAVs referred to by the SSM and the SSM undersecretary are produced by Defence Technology Engineering (STM). STM  unveiled the UAVs first time at the International Defence Fair IDEF17 held in Istanbul in May 2017 and announced that they expected the vehicles to enter the inventory by the end of 2017.

STM's nationally developed Autonomous Tactical Striker Fixed Winged UAV “ALPAGU”, autonomous rotary winged striker drone “KARGU” and the autonomous rotary winged reconnaissance drone “TOGAN” has taken an important step in “swarm technology” and gained more operational capability. This led to the serial production of ALPAGU according to the statement.

Aspiring to be one of the most critical equipment of asymmetric warfare and anti-terrorism operations, ALPAGU means “valiant attacking the enemy alone” in Old Turkish. ALPAGU, which can be used autonomously or manually, differs from TOGAN and KARGU with its fixed winged structure and ability to be launched from a launcher.

Due to its special design, ALPAGU has a lightweight and compact structure and can get ready for use in a maximum of 45 seconds. In addition to his Kamikaze mission, ALPAGU can also be used for reconnaissance and surveillance, and the explosive device it carries can be replaced with another explosive in the field.