Turkish Suicide Drone Ready for Operative Use

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A suicide drone developed by a Turkish company has become operational. Ismail Demir, the Turkish Undersecretary of Defense Industry (SSM) and Chairman of Defense Technologies Engineering (STM), told dailysabah.com that the “kamikaze drone,” developed by STM, is getting ready to go to the field and has begun mass production.

Kamikaze drones, lightweight and often operable by a single soldier, are designed to crash into a target to detonate a warhead. The development is an important step in Turkey’s combat technology as well as operational skill, expected to be used heavily in anti-terror operations.

The three drone models, named with traditional terms from Turkish defense history, include the tactical striking, fixed-wing drone “ALPAGU” and two rotating-wing striking drones “KARGU” and “TOGAN.”

The Turkish military plans to use TOGAN as its first autonomous intelligence drone, in conjunction with the “kamikaze drones” KARGU and ALPAGU to perform “multi-drone operations”.

ALPAGU, weighing 3.7 kg, can be operated by a single soldier within a five-kilometer range, carrying out autonomous precision strikes on moving targets during day or night. KARGU, 6.3 kilograms, fulfills similar tasks to that of ALPAGU, but has the structural difference of rotating wings. TOGAN, 7.5 kilograms, is useful for exploration and surveillance missions, and can automatically detect and classify moving or stationary threats and perform flight tasks without the need of an operator.

In order to reach Turkey’s 2023 vision goals concerning national defense systems, companies are set to launch more advanced UAVs. Currently, some 10 to 15 UAVs are serving in terror zones, while 30 UAVs of the Bayraktar model continue to operate in the inventory of the Turkish armed forces and the General Directorate of Security.