Domestic Platforms Moving to Serial Production: Turkey’s Balance Sheet From Prototype to Scale

UAVs: the most mature serial-production segment

Unmanned aerial vehicles show the highest serial-production maturity in Turkey’s defense industry. Since the Bayraktar TB2 entered service in 2014, Baykar has scaled monthly output from a single aircraft to dozens; the company’s annual UAV production capacity is reported at roughly 300 units, most of them TB2s with the remainder AKINCI-class platforms. Total TB2 production has passed 300 units, a large share of them exported.

AKINCI, TB3 and KIZILELMA have all progressed to serial production according to the manufacturer, though some forward-year quantities for KIZILELMA and TB3 remain planning targets. In rotary wing, TUSAS has delivered and serially produces the T129 ATAK, with 92 helicopters reported in service as of 2024 and the 100th unit delivered overall. The T625 GOKBEY general-purpose helicopter is in serial production under a 57-unit contract, with a fourth delivery to the Gendarmerie in 2025. In fixed wing, HURKUS has 55 units on order, HURJET is preparing for serial production with first Air Force delivery planned for early 2027, and KAAN’s Block-10 deliveries are planned from 2028, targeting 20 aircraft by end-2030 — all planning data.

ALTAY: serial production of a main battle tank

ALTAY’s serial production formally began on 5 September 2025, and the tank entered service on 28 October 2025 with the opening of BMC’s roughly 63,000 sqm production facility in Kahramankazan, Ankara. Deliveries are planned to ramp from the first T1 tanks in 2025 to 11 in 2026 and 41 in 2027, against a total order of 250 units (85 T1 + 165 T2) plus 750 options; the first-batch powerpack is foreign-sourced, with a transition to the domestic BATU engine planned for later batches.

Turkey’s most mature high-volume serial production is in wheeled armored vehicles: BMC’s Kirpi and Vuran families report well over 700 Vuran vehicles in service, and Nurol Makina’s Ejder Yalcin has surpassed 420 vehicles in service. FNSS’s Weapon Carrier Vehicle project plans 260 vehicles (184 tracked, 76 wheeled), many fitted with ROKETSAN anti-tank missile systems.

MILGEM and ATMACA: serial production at sea

At sea, serial production is embodied in the shift from a single MILGEM design to parallel construction across multiple shipyards. The Istif-class lead ship TCG Istanbul entered service on 19 January 2024 with roughly 80% domestic content, and the following three ships are being built in parallel at different yards toward a 15-warship, 3-class MILGEM program target. ROKETSAN’s ATMACA anti-ship missile entered serial production after a successful 2018 test, was integrated onto TCG Kinaliada and then TCG Istanbul, achieved a serial-missile live-target hit in 2021, and in 2024 flew for the first time with the domestic KTJ-3200 turbojet engine, after which serial production of the domestically-engined ATMACA was approved.

Serial production by category

Engines and powerpacks have long been Turkey’s most critical supply-chain bottleneck: ALTAY’s first batch uses a foreign powerpack pending the domestic BATU engine, and ROKETSAN flying ATMACA on the domestic KTJ-3200 turbojet is a concrete localization milestone. Economies of scale — driven by both strong domestic demand and expanding exports — have let manufacturers spread fixed investment costs across more units, lowering unit costs and accelerating quality maturation through field feedback across diverse operating environments.