Altay Battle Tank Delivered To Turkish Armed Forces

Turkey has taken delivery of its first Altay Main Battle Tank as BMC officially transferred the vehicle to the country’s armed forces on Tuesday.

On the same day, BMC inaugurated the Tank and New Generation Armored Vehicles Production Facility in Ankara.

The induction marks the first time in nearly fifty years that Turkey has added a modern, production-grade tank to its inventory, and the first time a domestically developed main battle tank has entered service with the armed forces.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stated that the production line will manufacture eight Altay tanks and ten Altuğ tanks.

Machinery and Chemical Industries Inc. (MKE) produced the tank’s 120 mm 55-caliber main gun, weighed at approximately 3 tons with a total length of 7.118 meters.

ASELSAN supplied more than ten systems including the VOLKAN Fire Control System, AKKOR Active Protection System, communication equipment, surveillance systems, remote weapon station, command-and-control suite, and battlefield identification technologies.

Roketsan developed the reactive and composite armor.

HAVELSAN is responsible for training capabilities, delivering 94 products of 44 different types for crew and maintenance instruction across most Altay subsystems.

BMC will deliver 85 Altay-T1 units from 2026 through 2028. A further 165 Altay-T2 units are scheduled from 2028 onward.