Image source: topwar.ru
Against the background of political disagreements with some NATO countries, including the United States, Turkey is deprived of the opportunity to purchase weapons and military equipment produced in these states. However, Ankara is quite successfully implementing a kind of import substitution program in the defense industry.
Last Sunday, the first successful test of a domestic anti-ship missile with a turbojet engine took place in Turkey as part of the Atmaca missile project. A missile fired from a mobile launcher in Turkey's northernmost province, Sinope, hit a target in the Black Sea. The successful tests were reported by the General Directorate of the Defense Industry under the Administration of the President of Turkey (SSB), responsible for weapons development and procurement in the military sphere. In 2020, the US State Department imposed sanctions against the Turkish defense industry, including a ban on granting certain export licenses and permits for any military products and technologies transferred to SSB.
SSB head Haluk Gergyun wrote on his social network account, congratulating everyone involved in the project on the successful missile test, "especially our engineers and technical teams."
The missile was designed and built by the Turkish military industrial company Roketsan, and the country's first KTJ-3200 turbojet engine was produced by the Kale Arge defense company. The Turkish Navy has long had American-made Harpoon anti-ship missiles in its arsenal. They are expected to be replaced by Atmaca missiles, which can hit targets at a distance of more than 250 kilometers with high accuracy, writes the Turkish Daily Sabah.
The Atmaca missile is capable of hitting both surface and ground targets, including moving ones, has the functions of repeated attack and forced self-destruction via a secure data transmission channel. The development of the rocket began in 2009, and in 2018 SSB and Roketsan signed an agreement on their mass production. Atmaca missiles are expected to be used on corvettes built under the Türkiye National Ship (MILGEM) project, along with other ships and submarines currently using Harpoon missiles.
The Atmaca missile moves at a minimum altitude and can hit a target in both linear and vertical planes. Thanks to this function, the missile can gain a high altitude when approaching the target and attacks the ship directly from above.
The launch of Atmaca took place just a day after Turkey successfully tested the first TF6000 turbofan engine, which was a major breakthrough in the country's desire to rely on domestic technologies to reduce dependence on critical equipment from the outside, the Turkish edition clarifies. The engine, developed by TUSAŞ Engine Industries (TEI), is expected to be used in the Kızılelma and Anka-3 unmanned fighter aircraft, the country's first long-range unmanned aerial vehicles. In the future, a domestic power plant for the first Turkish fifth-generation KAAN jet fighter, which recently made its first test flight, should be created on its basis.