Saudi Arabia has agreed to buy some of the new Turkish-made main battle tank Altay 2705132

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Defence & Security News - Saudi Arabia

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Monday, May 27, 2013 09:09 AM
 
Saudi Arabia has agreed to buy some of the new Turkish-made main battle tank Altay.
Saudi Arabia has agreed to buy some of the new Turkish Altay tanks. The exact number has not been revealed, but the Saudis do have 320 AMX-30 French tanks in urgent need of replacement. The Turkish Army is planning on buying a thousand of the new Altays for about $5.5 million each.
     
     

These will be acquired at 4 lots of 250 each, and not all may be needed (depending on the regional military-political situation).

Turkish armored vehicles maker Otokar could sell hundreds of its third-generation tank, the Altay. Otokar designed and is producing prototypes of the Altay in a deal to sell four 250-unit batches to the Turkish military.

But Turkey could face competition. France has proposed replacing Saudi Arabia’s AMX-30s with its main battle tank Leclerc. The Otokar official said the 65-ton Altay better meets the Saudi requirement than does the 55-ton Leclerc.

The Altay is the future third generation main battle tank (MBT) for the Turkish army. The first prototypes of Turkey’s main battle tank ALTAY designed and developed by OTOKAR, the biggest privately owned company of the Turkish Defence Industry was unveiled at OTOKAR facilities in Sakarya on November 15th, 2012.

Ait IDEF 2013, defence exhibition in Turkey which was held in May of this year, The Turkish Company Otokar has displayed the second prototype of ALTAY Turkish-made main battle tank. Regarding the project Mr. Gorguc said: “Altay project comprises two separate phases: ‘design, prototype and qualification process and ‘series production’.

The Altay is armed with a 120 mm smoothbore gun and will be protected against chemical, biological and radioactive attacks. The tank can run at a maximum road speed of 70 km/h, thanks to a 1,800 hp (1,300 kW) engine (the first two batches will have 1,500 hp engines), and the MBTs will be able to cross a river of 4.1 meters deep.

The tank will benefit both from indigenously developed systems and from the armor technology of the South Korean K2 Black Panther, thanks to the agreement signed with South Korea.