Saudi Arabia could be interested to buy the future Turkish main battle tank Altay UAV Anka 2804132.

Saudi officials are reportedly interested in orders for Turkey's first domestically produced unmanned surveillance drone, the Anka, as well its first tank, the Altay combat tank. Al-Gubayel was received by President Abdullah Gül and Chief of General Staff Gen. Necdet Özel last week in Ankara.

Turkey has worked to create its first reconnaissance UAV since 2004.About 180 engineers have been involved in the project which relates to medium class vehicles with a long flight span.

ANKA has several advantages in comparison to the Israeli UAV Heron. The Heron can lift no more than a 185 kilogramme payload to the height of 30,000 feet, while this figure exceeds 200 kilogrammes for the ANKA UAV.

The first prototypes of Turkey’s first main battle tank ALTAY which is designed and developed by OTOKAR, the biggest privately owned company of the Turkish Defence Industry, has been presented at OTOKAR facilities in Sakarya on November 15, 2012.

The design of ALTAY has been realized in order to fulfil all kinds of operational requirements derived from the technical and tactical demands of the Turkish Armed Forces. In this scope, ALTAY has been equipped with the latest technologies that are used in the modern tanks.

The main armament of ALTAY is a 120 mm 55 calibre smoothbore gun suitable for various kinds of rounds. A new generation fire control system has been specially designed for ALTAY in order to control the main and secondary armaments. By means of this system, ALTAY is also able to shoot moving targets with a very high first round hit probability.

Turkey expects to offer the Altay for $5.4 million, in comparison to the US-made Abrams the Saudis currently employ, at a price of $8.5 million per unit.

Turkey is readying to commence mass production of the Anka vehicle this year. Among others interested in the project, Egyptian authorities have reportedly sought to buy 10 of these drones.