Turkey begins delivery of Atmaca anti-ship cruise missile

The Turkish Naval Forces Ada-class corvette TCG Kinaliada (F-514) test-fires an Atmaca anti-ship missile in the Black Sea in early November 2019. (Roketsan)

Turkey has begun deliveries of its indigenous Atmaca (Hawk) anti-ship cruise missiles to the Turkish Navy Forces Command (TNFC) , İsmail Demir, head of Turkey's Presidency of Defence Industries (SSB), has confirmed.

Speaking to reporters at the Global Strategies in Defence and Aerospace Industry Conference, held in Antalya on 4–5 December, Demir said the first platform to deploy Atmaca will be TCG Kınalıada, the fourth MilGem Ada-class corvette, which was delivered to the TNFC in 2019.

Atmaca, developed by Roketsan, is a high-precision, long-range, surface-to-surface, precision-strike anti-ship missile that can be integrated on patrol boats, frigates, and corvettes. Atmaca is 5.2 m in length, 350 mm in diameter, and has a deployed wingspan of 1.4 m. It weighs less than 800 kg, including a 250 kg-class high-explosive penetrating warhead, and has a range of more than 220 km.

Meanwhile, the indigenous Akya 533 mm heavyweight torpedo, also manufactured by Roketsan, will begin entering the TNFC inventory in 2022, Demir said.

The first vessel to deploy Akya will be the future TCG Piri Reis, the first of six air-independent propulsion (AIP) submarines planned to enter service in 2022. Akya will also be mounted on the Preveze- and Gür-class submarines.