Altay, a new main battle tank for the Turkish Army, has passed all its acceptance trials and will head for serial production once a manufacturer is chosen by the government.

Designed and developed by Otokar, a maker of military vehicles, Altay is a conventionally designed MBT showing influences from Germany's Leopard 2 and South Korea's K2 Black Panther. The first Altays will be powered by a German MTU 883 turbocharged diesel engine developing 1,500 hp. Future tanks will be powered by an indigenous engine generating 1,800 hp.

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Altay will be armed with a 120 mm/L55 smoothbore gun, a version of the Rheinmetall gun used on the Leopard 2A6 and 2A7, as well as on the Black Panther. Secondary armament consists of a coaxial 7.62 mm machine gun; a roof-mounted 7.62 mm machine gun and a roof-mounted remotely controlled weapon station with a 12.7 mm machine gun.

Altay is equipped with the indigenous Volkan fire control system and battlefield management system. The MBT has a target acquisition system with hunter-killer engagement capability. It has a crew of four: commander, gunner, loader and driver.

Otokar revealed that 1,000 Altays will be manufactured, with an initial batch of 250 to be produced within five years.

It announced Altay had successfully completed the tough qualification testing stage, including mobility and endurance testing on rough terrain and climatic conditions, firing tests with various scenarios and survivability testing.

"The acceptance tests ... for Altay are finalized," said Otokar general manager Serdar Gorguc.

"After ... meeting the ultimate requirements under extreme conditions successfully, we are confident that Altay will be one of the best modern main battle tanks on the field very soon."

Competing for the contract to build the Altay MBT are Otokar (which is also Turkey's biggest privately-owned defense company); BMC (which has strong political connections with Turkey's political leadership) and FNSS (a maker of armored vehicles).

TagsAltay main battle tank, Turkish Army, Leopard 2, K2 Black Panther, Otokar