ISTANBUL (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th July, 2023) The serial production of Turkey's first main battle tank Altay will start in 2025, once the first batch of the 250 combat vehicles is delivered to the Turkish military, Mehmet Karaaslan, the general manager of the BMC Defense manufacturing company, told Sputnik.
"According to our estimates, all tests will be completed in 2024. We plan to transfer the first batch of tanks, that is 250 units, in 2025," Karaaslan said on the sidelines of the International Defense Industry Fair (IDEF) in Istanbul on Tuesday, adding that the construction of a tank factory in Ankara would be finished by the end of 2024.
Due to a number of export restrictions and sanctions, some of the tanks' parts have been replaced with locally produced items or those not subject to limits, which has required repeated tests, Karaaslan said.
The Altay project is being implemented under an agreement signed by the Turkish Defense Ministry and Turkish company Otokar in March 2007. Since Turkey had no experience in building its own tanks, Otokar signed a contract with South Korean company Hyundai Rotem for the joint development of a prototype of the new tank. Under the contract, Hyundai Rotem transferred to Turkey all the technologies used in South Korea's K2 Black Panther tank. Over time, BMC replaced Otokar as the main contractor for mass production of the tanks.
The first prototype of the Altay tank was presented at the IDEF in Istanbul in May 2011. The first two Altay tanks were delivered to the Turkish armed forces in April 2023. The volume of investments in the production of the tanks is over $40 billion.
