Turkish Altay MBT to be powered with South Korean engine.

According to Yeni Safak, the Turkish Foreign minister on Friday, October 22, met with his South Korean counterpart in the capital Seoul and discussed bilateral ties, cooperation in the defense industry and investments. An agreement on the sale of South Korean engines intended for the Turkish Altay main battle tank has been signed.
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Altay MBT at a military parade in Turkey (Picture source: Twitter account of Bumfuzzle)

Turkish Foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said he discussed with South Korean counterpart Chung Eui-yong steps to be taken in “areas such as investments, balancing trade, defense industry and facilitating travel.” Describing South Korea as an “important partner” in the field of the defense industry, he said that Kang Eun-ho, the South Korean minister for the defense acquisition program administration, signed a document “approving the sale of Altay tank’s power pack.” No further detail has been communicated.

On March 4, 2021, Army Recognition reported that Turkey was in negotiations with South Korea to procure engines for its domestic main battle tank Altay whose prototype was powered by a 1,500 horsepower diesel engine from the German manufacturer MTU Friedrichshafen GmbH. Rheinmetall had also created a joint venture with the Turkish land vehicles producer BMC aimed to establish joint production of armored vehicles, particularly the Altay main battle tank. Turkey had hoped to power the Altay with the MTU engine and Renk transmission, but talks with German manufacturers stopped due to a German arms embargo on Turkey. Germany is one of a number of European governments that have limited exports to Turkey over its involvement in the Syrian civil war.

According to an announcement made in 2020, this engine would be the South Korean Doosan Infracore DV27K, 4-cycle, 12-cylinder water-cooled diesel engine developing 1,500 hp. BMC’s Batu engine developed and to be serially manufactured in Turkey is not mentioned in the Foreign ministers’ meeting report of this 22 October, this being said without drawing any conclusion. The Batu powerpack includes a Diesel engine and an automatic transmission. BMC launched the development of this new engine developing 1,600 hp, in collaboration with the Italian manufacturer Fiat/Iveco intended to equip the Altay.

Doosan Infracore DV27K engine selected to power the first series of Altay MBTs (Picture source: TheDeadDistrict)