A new development took place in terms of the engine (ВАTU Power Group), which was originally developed by BMC POWER for the ALTAY main battle tank with national resources.
According to Turkish sources, development activities are continuing on the engine (BATU Power Group), which will have a power of 1500 hp and gearbox for the domestic ALTAY heavy battle tank that Turkey has been trying to build for a long time.. After the engine, yesterday the gearbox started for the first time..
After testing activities to be carried out separately with the engine and gearbox, Turkey aims to link the duo and proceed with testing the powertrain as a whole. On the other hand, the engine was placed in ALTAY for physical tests and the fact is that various tests were done without the same Turkish sources being particularly optimistic although BMC POWER plans to announce the details of the BATU Power Group program in April 2023.
While the development activities of the power system continue on the one hand, the search for alternatives to the embargoed German power group continues in order for ALTAY to start mass production as soon as possible. As a result of these searches, the goal is for the ALTAY to begin mass production in 2025 with the engine and transmission sourced from South Korea.
To this end, 2 new ALTAY prototypes manufactured by BMC in April this year will be made available to the Turkish Armed Forces and BMC teams for the tests to be carried out with the Korean Power Group.
After the field tests of about 10 thousand kilometers, the goal is to integrate the Korean Power Group into ALTAY and start mass production activities in 2025.
The BATU V12 Power Group engine has 1500 hp, an engine volume of 27.5 liters, 6+2 ratios and a cross-drive gearbox.
Meanwhile, as we have already written in Pentapostagma, Ankara made the decision to implement the modernization of the Leopard 2A4s it has, or a significant number.
According to reports in the Turkish press, a decision has been made to modernize 280 Leopard 2A4 tanks in the stock of the Turkish Land Forces Command with national means. In this way the survivability of the Leopard 2A4 will increase.
After the operations carried out by the Turkish Armed Forces in northern Syria, it was decided to modernize the main battle tanks in the inventory of the Turkish Ground Forces Command as part of the urgent need for operations. In this context, around 170 armored M60Ts have been modernized under Project FIRAT-M60T so far.
Again, in the context of urgent operational needs, more than 40 Leopard 2A4 tanks were modernized with the Roketsan-produced T1 Armored System and delivered to the Turkish Land Forces Command. However, under the Tank Upgrading Projects (TİYK) initiated by the Defense Industries Presidency the M60TM, Leopard 2A4 and M60A3 Tanks will be modernized again.
With the modernizations that will be carried out under the TİYK project, both additional armor integration and several electronic subsystems and special fire control systems will be carried out.
