ANKARA
The prototype of Turkey's first indigenous main battle tank (MBT) ALTAY will be introduced on Thursday.
The debut ceremony will be held at the contractor firm Otokar's facilities in Sakarya, northwestern province of Turkey with the attendance of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Named in honor of Army General Fahrettin Altay (1880–1974) who commanded the 5th Cavalry Corps in the final stage of the Turkish War of Independence, ALTAY's design and intellectual property rights will all belong to Turkey.
The ALTAY will be operated by a crew of four, including commander, gunner, loader and driver. It will use some technologies of the South Korean Hundai Rotem and have a 120-mm / L55 smoothbore gun.
Aselsan, the military electronics company of Turkey, will manufacture and integrate state-of-the-art Volkan-III modular fire control system, command, control and information systems while state-owned MKEK (Mechanical and Chemical Industries Corporation) agreed for the production and integration of a modified and licensed produced Rheinmetall 120 mm gun. Another state company Roketsan will design an indigenous armor.
The ALTAY is expected to volume-produce in 4 years.
The project was initiated with an agreement signed between Otokar and Undersecretariat for Defense Industries of the Republic of Turkey on March 2007, when the Defense Industries Executive Committee awarded a contract worth approximately $500 million to Otokar for the design, development and production of 4 prototypes of a national main battle tank.
Reporting by Bulent Karaaslan
