Fatih Altaylı, reporting from Altay production plant(translated by Google). I highly recommend you to read it. It has details about the tank and the engines of BMC Power;
Aylar önce, BMC Savunma'nın CEO'su Murat Yalçıntaş ve Genel Müdürü Mehmet Karaaslan ziyaretime gelmiş ve hem BMC Savunma'ya hem daha da geliştirdikleri Altay tankını daha doğrusu benim tanımımla "Yeni Altay" tankını anlatmışlardı. Ben de aldığım bilgileri sizlerle paylaşmıştım. Uygun bir...
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"Months ago, BMC Defense's CEO Murat Yalçıntaş and General Manager Mehmet Karaaslan came to visit me and told both BMC Defense and the Altay tank they developed further, more precisely the "New Altay" tank, as I would describe it.
I also shared the information I received with you.
We also agreed to meet at a suitable time, visit the facilities in Adapazarı Arifiye and see the production.
While the facilities in Arfiye were the tank pallet maintenance and repair facilities of the Turkish Armed Forces, they were facilities leased to BMC Defense for 25 years.
When I was talking about my intensity, their intensity, the intervening issues on the agenda, I could only visit the factory in Arifiye yesterday.
I went to BMC Defense's facilities in Arifiye upon the invitation of Fuat Tosyalı and CEO Murat Yalçıntaş, who bought the shares of Ethem Sancak in BMC.
As a matter of fact, when I look from the outside, nothing much has changed in the facilities that I have passed by for years.
You enter through the same entrance.
The complex, which consists of a large park and built structures rather than a factory, does not feel like a military facility.
It is a huge facility, spread over an area of 1.8 square kilometers, almost a third of which is forest, in the shade of giant trees.
However, once you enter, you begin to see that the facility is undergoing a change.
A new administration building has been built that feels lost in the trees. A bright two-story building with the image of the surrounding trees reflected on its glass surface.
Inside, a team of young engineers produces projects that will develop all kinds of armored vehicles that both the Altay tank and the Turkish Armed Forces may need.
First they take me to a large meeting room.
I meet all the management staff.
A team with great experience in the defense industry.
Most of them have slept with the Altay tank since the day it was conceived, and have devoted themselves to this tank since the first Altay tank line drawn on white paper.
All of them have 20-25 years of defense industry experience. They know Altai down to their capillaries. They came from Otokar, which undertook the construction of the first prototype.
Those who did not come from Otokar also have experience in other defense industry companies.
They tell about the company first, then the Altay tank, then the Storm howitzers that they modernized and produced by localizing the new generation, and then the prototypes that are being developed for the TAF and will compete in other TAF tenders.
And of course, an important part of the presentation is the power units produced by the newly established BMC Power and which are in the trial phase.
Batu on 4, 6, V8 and V12 cylinder blocks, the most powerful of which will produce 1500 horsepower and power the Altay tank, 8-cylinder Utku, which will later be the engine of the Storm howitzers, and 6-cylinder 600-hp Azra and 4-cylinder Azra, which will be used in different armored vehicles or military trucks They introduce the 400 hp Tuna engines.
Then we start our factory tour.
The factory was established with the Germans in the 1970s for the maintenance and repair of tanks of German origin in the TAF inventory.
It has served its purpose for years, but naturally it is old, a little behind the times, but look, it has successfully continued its repair functions.
When BMC took over the facility for 25 years, it committed to a $50 million renovation.
However, the facility still retains its military character.
There is also a military group in it that oversees the work of BMC Defense in every aspect and watches everything to be done according to the "book".
This group of 122 people supervises BMC at every stage of the work. Since the work is done in the form of cost plus profit, it scrutinizes the costs.
General Manager Karaaslan says, “Actually, it is our business to have high costs, but we are also trying to reduce costs and we are largely successful”. On the other hand, they plan to reduce the fixed cost per product by producing other products at the facility and to reduce the costs of the MSB.
We start our tour first from the design section.
There is obviously a never-ending design process for the Altay tank!
Each part of the tank is designed separately and then different parts of the tank are assembled on the computer.
Each section is tested separately in a computer environment. Their compatibility with each other and their behavior in field conditions are simulated.
The behavior of the tank in every combat situation is digitally tested here.
These tests are then repeated on the manufactured tank. By comparing the compatibility of the two results, simulation realism is increased.
From there we move on to other parts of the factory.
We take a look at the sections where old engines are renewed and pallets are renewed, and then we move on to the area where the New Altay is manufactured.
The area where the drawings we see on the computer come to life.
The size of the tanks is eye-catching.
The new generation tanks, called the 3rd generation, are truly gigantic.
At some points, parts manufactured with micron precision are combined here, and the tank is revealed piece by piece and then put together.
All the work is carried out by competent young men. Blue-collar personnel are at least as qualified as white-collar personnel.
Then we move on to the engine manufacturing section.
The head of the department is also from Koç Group origin. It's from Ford.
First, we tour the warehouse where the engine parts are sorted.
The parts are transferred from here to the manufacturing department with a SAP-based operating system and the engines are made here one by one.
Annual capacity 1000 motors.
This is the capacity until BMC Power moves to its new factory. Then it will increase exponentially.
As I said before, 4 different domestic engines are produced, namely 4, 6, V8 and V12.
Tank engine is not an easy task.
It has to be small enough to fit in its place in the tank, powerful enough to produce 1500 horsepower, and economical enough to consume a certain level of fuel, so that the tank does not have range problems.
BMC Power has tried to achieve this.
And within 2 years, these engines will be completely applied to the New Altay tanks. Until that day, Korean origin engines will be installed. The German MTU has been completely abandoned
All of the engines are domestic, except for the commonrail and valves. It is said that these two parts will be localized very soon. More than 200 domestic suppliers produce engine parts.
One of the most important parts of the factory is the "engine test sections".
There are separate test centers for all engine types, where engines are constantly run and tested.
There is also a section created to experience off-road conditions and running the engines on different slopes and testing their response in situations.
Here, at my request, the engines were tested to the extreme.
I am also attaching their photos and videos to the article. You can trust.
In the meantime, while the engine is being tested, a generator is connected to each end so that the energy is not wasted, and the resulting energy is converted into electrical energy and used in the facilities.
As a motor enthusiast, I look everywhere with excitement.
And then comes the big moment.
I will meet the New Altay tank, which has been finished and has been tested in the field by the Land Forces for months.
First, we see New Altay in a hangar.
It has a coating on it that looks like fabric.
I think this is camouflage fabric.
Actually it is, but it's pretty advanced.
A fabric that provides radar invisibility to the tank.
Apart from this, there are many anti-radar elements in the tank body. In other words, one of the most important things on the battlefield is invisibility.
So much so that even the exhaust gas temperature is cooled to some extent in special systems to reduce the heat trace.
The most important innovations in the new Altay are control systems and active defense elements.
The New Altay has a very modern digital cockpit, the details of which I cannot write due to confidentiality, and it has a serious infrastructure to turn into an Unmanned Tank and then an "Autonomous Tank".
Although making war vehicles unmanned is a little more difficult on land, New Altay is preparing for it.
As such, it is one of the 5 most modern tanks in the world.
Field tests are carried out constantly, and the results of the tests are examined by coming back to the factory from time to time. If necessary changes are made immediately.
Apart from the passive security measures of the tank, the newly added active security measures provide all-round protection against not only land but also air attacks.
You can clearly see the difference between these measures when you see New Altay and Leopard side by side.
The tank has design features to protect its personnel and then itself.
The rotational speed of its electric turret is terrific.
When the tank is on rough ground, it has the precision of locking on target.
There are different target detection mechanisms, such as being able to see the whole environment with cameras, environmental control with laser and different target detection mechanisms.
It can shoot at 70 km/h and works with 4 personnel.
I can't write the details, but it's an awesome machine.
And it has the capacity to be constantly renewed according to the demands of the army.
The new Altay tank carries all the 40 years of experience of the Turkish Defense Industry. It is the work of the Turkish Defense Industry, which started after the Cyprus war and gained momentum in the 1980s.
It is actually the joint product of MKE, Aselsan and Roketsan. The result of a long accumulation of politics.
The production, which started at the facility in Arifiye, is producing before the giant factory to be established on the land right next to TAI in Ankara.
But the actual production will be at the facility in Ankara, and an investment of 200 million dollars is being made for this place.
When the Ankara factory is finished, the capacity of 8 tanks per month will be reached. Delivery of the first batch of 250 tanks is planned within 4 years.
The tank, which is said to have a great foreign demand, will also be exported after production starts.
It is planned to use 5 of the monthly capacity for TAF and 3 for export purposes. However, the priority is still the TSK.
A test area for tanks and all kinds of armored vehicles is also planned at the new factory.
This is what I saw in Arifiye.
As in all defense industry works, there is a dedicated team here too.
Although Murat Yalçıntaş is not from the Defense Industry, he has built a good team.
And the replacement of Sancak by Tosyalı, an industrialist group, has accelerated things by making things right.
Fuat Tosyalı, with whom we sat and chatted after the trip, is much younger than I see in his photographs.
He sees this job as a duty and feels compelled to succeed.
But the real excitement that I realized in a short time is iron and steel.
Iskenderunlu. I understand that he spent a lot of time in the region after the earthquake and made serious efforts to heal the wounds.
He had returned from Algeria the night before. There is a huge iron and steel plant in Algeria.
He gets excited when he says iron and steel.
He begins to tell.
He tells such a story that we feel as if the molten steel is flowing before our eyes. He explains how they cast this steel as thin as a coke can, and as the world's largest pipe producer, they produce 5 kilometers of pipes per minute.
To be honest, the new Altay tank made me proud.
Years of effort have yielded good results.
Although it caused controversy, the facility in Arifiye gained a new dimension, a new excitement, and its contract with BMC Defense has already expired for 4 years.
This facility will continue to contribute to the Turkish Defense Industry after Altay production shifts to Ankara.
The mistake in the allocation of this facility to the private sector for Altay production is that it was not disclosed before the tender.
Still the result is good.
The rest is the business of law."