Growing interest helps Turkish missile makers expand into Far East

Interest in Turkish defense industry products and the demand for those especially used by the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) has been growing worldwide, with ammunition, missiles and rockets being no exception.

Roketsan, a leading missile manufacturer that developed the smart ammunition fired from Türkiye’s world-renowned combat drones, is now expanding into the Far East with its missiles developed with national resources.

Murat Ikinci, Roketsan’s general manager, told Anadolu Agency (AA) that they signed a contract for two major projects in Indonesia.

One of them was signed for the export of the Khan weapon system, which is the international version of the Bora missile. He said that the Khan weapon system is “one of the largest ballistic systems of our country at the moment.”

Ikinci noted that the second one was signed with the TriSula air defense system to meet the air defense needs of the Indonesian Armed Forces.

“TriSula is actually a new air defense system. Roketsan’s mission is to ensure the development of missiles that will be used for this air defense system. These will not be the same missiles as our current missiles, they will be different missiles. Roketsan is currently working on the development of these missiles,” the company head informed.

Ikinci stressed it will be an air defense system shaped according to the needs of the Indonesian Armed Forces and their demands.

“We can say that TriSula will be a project that will be completely unique to them. However, we are still negotiating more and more products, especially in the Indonesian market,” he added.

Ikinci highlighted exports are a very important item for them.

Expressing that the company primarily offers the products it has developed to the TSK, Ikinci said that they are making an effort to achieve great success in exports as well.

“We have become a defense company that can generate over 30% of our revenue from exports. This is a very good achievement,” he said, noting that most of the income from exports is transferred to Roketsan’s own resources and research and development (R&D) projects.

“The more we can export, the more we do a very important job in terms of our country’s exports, and we also increase our speed by providing resources for the systems we have developed and the technologies we will develop. Roketsan is closing the year 2022 with more success than we expected,” Ikinci said.

World’s leading mini smart ammunition

Ikinci also commented on the mini-smart munitions used in unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs), saying that the demand for Roketsan’s mini-smart munitions has increased as the interest in Turkish UCAVs has increased.

“Roketsan is rapidly increasing its production capacity to meet this demand. Our investments are still continuing and we can say that Roketsan products are among the best product families in the world in mini smart ammunition. We are doing a lot of internal R&D projects to diversify these products and to add additional capabilities to the products. We would also like to contribute to the operational capability of the TSK by increasing the capabilities of these products, which make up the striking power of our UCAVs,” he explained.

“We continue by integrating multi-featured, important, privileged technologies into the mini smart ammunition family. The new product families will also be shared with the public when they reach the usage stage after the product variety tests are completed,” Ikinci informed.

Mete missile to enter warzone

Ikinci, who also gave information about the work they carried out for the laser-guided mini-missile system Mete, said that Mete was the smallest version of a guided missile.

Expressing that the Mete has a range of about 1 kilometer and weighs 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds), he also pointed out that it can be launched from unmanned land and small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and that they are working with business partners who develop these vehicles.

“We provide them with a laser-guided missile solution that is both cost-effective and flexible. Mete, the launcher, which can be integrated into different vehicles rather than being a laser-guided missile, will provide the ability to launch guided missiles on many platforms with its command-and-control infrastructure. This is a huge multiplier effect, actually.”

“We believe that bringing a technology that can hit a point target within a kilometer with such a small ammunition will actually pave the way for small platforms to be used in the battlefield,” he said.

“Mete’s tests are about to be completed. We will see it successfully on the battlefield as of 2023,” Ikinci emphasized.