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Altay Main Battle Tank Enters Turkish Army Service as Türkiye Ignites Nationwide Production Phase.
Türkiye has formally inducted the first serial-production Altay main battle tanks into service during a ceremony in Ankara. The event marks the start of mass production for a 250-tank fleet that will form the backbone of the nation’s next-generation armored capability.
On 28 October 2025, Türkiye formally inducted its first serial-production Altay main battle tanks into the Land Forces during a high-profile ceremony at BMC’s newly inaugurated Tank and Next-Generation Armored Vehicle Production Facility in Kahramankazan, Ankara. The event, broadcast live by local outlets including TRT Haber, marked the transition from prototyping to full-scale manufacturing. A near-term batch of three Altay tanks will enter service this year, with production ramping up toward a planned fleet of 250 units over the next five years. The handover signals the operational launch of Türkiye’s indigenous heavy armor line, an industrial milestone with strategic implications for force modernization and defense autonomy.
The Altay is Türkiye’s next-generation main battle tank, designed for high survivability, mobility, and firepower, with advanced armor and integrated systems tailored for modern battlefield conditions (Picture Source: Army Recognition Group)
The new Altay batch formalizes a capability pivot that Ankara has pursued for more than a decade: a NATO-standard 120 mm L/55 gun tank wrapped in a layered survivability suite and built on a supply chain anchored inside Türkiye. The serial vehicles field the MKE 120 mm L/55 smoothbore, a licensed, localized evolution of the Korean CN08 gun, mated to an Aselsan digital fire-control and commander/gunner sight architecture. Protection is structured around a three-ring concept, composite base armor and structural enhancements supplied with Roketsan’s modular package, new-generation reactive elements and slat kits against RPGs, and the AKKOR active protection system providing 360-degree hard-kill and soft-kill coverage against guided missiles and top-attack profiles. Havelsan underpins training and battle-management layers with a growing family of simulators and digital integration tools. This stack reflects the “Yeni Altay” redesign undertaken after export constraints on foreign subsystems, with localized replacements now extending to tracks, turret ring gear, optics, hydraulics and vehicle control electronics.
Industrialization begins with a Korean powerpack, Hyundai Infracore’s 1,500 hp DV27K engine coupled to SNT Dynamics’ EST15K automatic transmission, before transitioning to BMC Power’s indigenous BATU power group on the Altay T2 line. The power-transmission bridge purchase was contracted to SNT Dynamics for roughly €200 million including options, with deliveries of transmissions running through 2027 and optional lots through 2030. BMC’s Kahramankazan campus itself spans roughly 840,000 m² inside the aviation specialized industrial zone and consolidates proving grounds, serial lines and BMC Power’s engine facilities to compress development and acceptance cycles on tanks and other tracked/wheeled armored vehicles.
Three Altay tanks enter service in 2025 as the first batch, followed by 11 in 2026, 41 in 2027, and 30 in 2028, all in the T1 configuration. From 2028 onward, the T2 variant equipped with the indigenous BATU powerpack is scheduled for production, bringing the total programmed fleet to 250 units within five years. Turkish and international reporting throughout 2025 has maintained this delivery timeline, and today’s induction marks its transition from planning to operational reality. Speaking at the official opening and induction ceremony on October 28, 2025, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that the new 63,000-square-meter mass production facility will produce eight Altay tanks and ten Altuğ armored vehicles each month, emphasizing the Altay’s role as “the fortress of the battlefield.”
Programmatically, the Altay’s path has been shaped by a two-phase development history. The tank was originally designed by Otokar with technology transfer from Hyundai Rotem, then re-baselined under BMC as prime for serial production and further development. Two pre-series vehicles were turned over in 2023 for army trials, feeding back into the “New Altay” configuration now entering units. Mass production was green-lit through 2024–2025 milestones, culminating in today’s induction and the opening of BMC’s new facility. This continuity positions the line to absorb further localization, including the domestic engine and transmissions, without interrupting deliveries.
On capability, Altay T1’s layered protection and APS fit place it among a small cohort of frontline MBTs fielding integral hard-kill defenses as standard rather than as an add-on kit. Against legacy Leopard 2A4s still serving in Türkiye and across NATO, many without factory APS, Altay’s AKKOR suite and revised ammunition compartment blast mitigation raise crew survivability against modern ATGMs and top-attack threats. Compared with South Korea’s K2, whose baseline relies on sophisticated soft-kill and high-end FCS but awaits widespread hard-kill deployment, Altay prioritizes a factory-integrated APS and armored cell modernization tied to recent Turkish combat lessons in Syria and Iraq. Firepower parity is maintained by the 120 mm L/55 class main gun, NATO-standard ammunition compatibility, and stabilized, hunter-killer engagement under Aselsan’s fire control. Mobility in the T1 standard matches contemporary heavy MBTs, with the T2’s BATU power group designed to de-risk sustainment and exportability by removing foreign powerplant constraints.
Strategically, today’s induction adds credible mass to Türkiye’s armored regiments while deepening autonomy in critical land-combat technologies. On the geostrategic plane, a domestic MBT line reduces exposure to embargoes and licensing bottlenecks, sharpens NATO’s southern-flank readiness with a protected breakthrough/counter-penetration asset, and supports Ankara’s goal of a tiered, export-capable heavy armor ecosystem in which electronics, armor chemistry and powertrain know-how are nationalized. The Kahramankazan hub’s scale, paired with Aselsan, Roketsan, MKE and Havelsan as core suppliers, creates an industrial flywheel whose spillovers (sensors, energetics, AI-aided training) feed adjacent programs from IFVs to artillery.
The net effect of today’s step is immediate and visible: three Altay tanks are now in the army’s hands, more vehicles are queued on the line, and the supplier team, BMC as prime with Aselsan electronics and APS, Roketsan armor, MKE gun systems, and Havelsan for training/BMS, has crossed from promise to performance under live national media scrutiny. The Altay’s entry into service signals that Türkiye’s heavy armor renewal is no longer a plan but a cadence, with inventory growth and capability upgrades synchronized to an indigenous industrial base purpose-built to sustain it.
Written by Teoman S. Nicanci – Defense Analyst, Army Recognition Group
Teoman S. Nicanci holds degrees in Political Science, Comparative and International Politics, and International Relations and Diplomacy from leading Belgian universities, with research focused on Russian strategic behavior, defense technology, and modern warfare. He is a defense analyst at Army Recognition, specializing in the global defense industry, military armament, and emerging defense technologies.