TR Altay Main Battle Tank & Related Programs

[Manomed]

I hope altay problem gets solved in the future land forces need modern tanks Our Leopard 2A4s and M60T/TMs can hold on now but In the future we do need modern tanks like altay

 

[Nilgiri]

Hope Turkish members will permit bit more exploration on project management + "user need/pressure" side...to again fit as they see fit with own Altay.

I heard the Indian bureaucracy is also pain in the ass to deal with which led to so many delays and money being pocketed in by officials. Also as technology advances new requirements come to play.

It is par for the course, there is going to be some % prevalence in every cushy (i.e assured job) govt run thing, especially when you are developing country (certain things go to the head when you make it big among seas of less well off...alongside raw potential to be thieving scumbag to begin with given lack of institutional deployment counter to it).

With that in mind, the best project mgmt people and overall constraints (and pressing deadlines regarding need) aligned up far better in priority sectors like rockets and nukes (and later ships, radars and now progressing to aircraft).

Those got the best proj managers and also the intense "this better be ready in 10 years, because we need them stat" taskmaster oversight pressure breathing on neck etc and keeping things shipshape as possible.

i.e things that could not be imported readily if project failed....and were of higher critical importance to deployment (we needed these yesterday itself etc). i.e you are SOL if the project fails = rawest whip available.

Big T-72/T-90 production chain + cosy relationship (enough, esp. at the time) with its maker is smack on wrist kind of pressure compared to that.

So all the relative deadweight flab bureaucrats and project managers got stuck in lower priority stuff where Soviet and then Russian MIC was much more readily available.

But now 3 major factors increasingly drive road to maturity (to have more and more things shipshape like the more successful ecosystems) and reduce the access to "easy street" with Russian MIC compared to before:

1) Indian economy matures and its corporates grow and broaden...and hence provide larger buffet of RnD and production options....giving route for political admin to bypass byzantium bureaucrat network (we call them babus)

2) Relations with Russia aren't so dominant/great in scope like before

3) The increasing defence output (per year) of China in all realms given their success to onshore their MIC greatly.

India's biggest problem was finding a partner for the Arjun. I mean the Altay tank was done with South Koreans. India could have benefitted from collarboration with other countries. The biggest problem was collarborating with who.

Yes and no, Kraus Maffei (Germany) was strongly involved in the early stages of Arjun design. It is why Arjun has similar look to the leopard 2 (up to A4)....down to the "in turret" sight issue (that red-effect keeps bringing up correctly on first principle weakness):

(Inset Arjun)

With same project management quality that say Indian navy got w.r.t warships (that it also had heavy cooperation with the British and then Russians to get going on)....Arjun could have made a fairly successful project.

But it needed lot more design freezes and "we need this in 10 years capiche?...or ya swimmin wit da fishes know wut im saying?" overall approach/attitude like Navy, Rocketry and Space (among others) had more readily.

Those sectors had limiting factors in their own MIC outside the country (shipyards) or cold war environment got in the way quite naturally (no real option to import rockets and missiles en masse and long term and expect same sovereignty we wanted.... just had to do it yourself, no choice).

Tanks, other armoured vehicles, artillery, small arms....stuff involving guns in general I suppose were quite different given what the USSR was w.r.t India during the relevant era of consequence.

There was rumours that India wanted work with Russia but as usual Russia just want to sell their tanks not work with India.

Well in the 70s and then 80s when the big need to replace the centurions, vijayanta (local vickers tank) and eventually t-54/t-55 as well....soviets were the only one that provided the scale India wanted to do (in licensed production) compared to British and French (who were considered earlier, but cost/scale just wasn't there for what they offered).

That was genesis of the T-72 program...and then natural segue into T-90 (Since its basically T-72 lineage).

It makes no real sense for Russians to co-develop a new model with India in that timeframe (which has heavy inertia to current day)...given they already got the licensed production bulk side of it.

The warmth of Soviet russian military leaders (like Admiral Gorshkov) towards India (which helped in greatly increasing Indian domestic capability in say warships) simply did not have an equivalent then in armoured vehicles given the Soviet MIC commitment to T-64/T-80 and T-72/T-90.

...and simply does not have an equivalent now in pretty much anything...everything is purely transactional more or less (with Russia and Ukraine).

Ukraine is actually a long story of itself (w.r.t India) as I can go at some length how my uncle (who worked in a major OEM Indian defence company) was involved in lot of training there regarding certain electronics (during the 90s)....but its off topic.

Arjun was a shitshow many Indians even agreed it was a disgrace when India deserves better.

Yes along with artillery and small arms. These are the main things that have been terrible disappointments given it should be stuff squared away. But the issues I mentioned above got in the way of these being successes like the other things.

i.e basic cleave of "can do" bureaucrats (given their relative scarcity) into crucial priority areas and the slob types worming and filling into the rest.

I think if India scraps Arjun and works on a new tank project I feel like they could do better due to experience and knowledge being learned which would help in the future. Arjun was just the painful start.

That's pretty much the idea with FMBT (sometimes called Arjun mk 3). The mk1 and mk1A and likely the mk2 will more or less be stepping stones in learning process and what can be taken forward (esp successes in the fundamental metallurgical research for the armour etc that DMRL did) and especially what not to do.

Given the changing landscape I described in (1, 2, 3) above....there is more pressure that will apply to better project management and also availability of corporate defence production option for FMBT.

I can see why some Turks also fearing the state of the Altay tank.

Honestly the Altay prototpye looks excellent. The K2 Panther to begin with is an excellent tank.

A huge amount of things would have already been sorted out during K2 dev time.

So simply, Turkey should focus on sound management for production side and adequate budget for capital machinery and production line robustness.

That (vis a vis sanctions from Germany on engine and transmission) seem to be the crux of debate here among members as to what is the main sticky point in the current delay.

But it is quite different situation from Arjun, which never had a good prototype in an adequate timeframe (especially in the crucial time in 90s)...so I don't foresee Altay having to necessarily turn out like Arjun did.

It very much depends on good set of people, recognizing and taking charge in critical process flow priority areas regarding the obstacles to the actual production line.

 

[Cabatli_TR]

Altay-T1 turret shape

 

[GoatsMilk]

It's simply a better configuration. Completely unmanned turret allows the crew to be better protected while keeping the weight of the tank low.

What's more, they could easily upgrade the turret later when the french-german tank comes out. If I remember correctly, they are already developing a variant of T-14 with 152mm gun.

Altay started getting old before the production even began.

Otokar had developed Altay AHT for urban operations which was really sweet too. But they didn't get the tender.

View attachment 28039

Yes, any discussion about Altay will be a political discussion about how corrupt the current government in Turkey is.

It's a great tank, Otokar, with help from Hyundai Rotem did a fantastic job.
The problems with this tank are political.

Yep and politics/corruption is what most hampered the Arjun development. Its kind of why i compare the two. I don't see Altay quite going the same way, but its not impossible.

I don't bring the arjun up to insult the indians, its just the best example i'm aware of how politics/corruption can ruin a project.

 

[Ryder]

Honestly altay should just have a ukrainian motor and transmission.

And call it the AltayK(Kirim). Make it another variant.

 

[Nutuk]

Yep and politics/corruption is what most hampered the Arjun development. Its kind of why i compare the two. I don't see Altay quite going the same way, but its not impossible.

I don't bring the arjun up to insult the indians, its just the best example i'm aware of how politics/corruption can ruin a project.

You can just change Arjun with Altay in this sentence

 

[Combat-Master]

Altay-T1 turret shape

View attachment 28177

Excellent improvements all around, notice periscopes fitted for the loader to see out and be situationally aware. All that's left IMO is an Electronic Warfare suite.

 

[Cabatli_TR]

Excellent improvements all around, notice periscopes fitted for the loader to see out and be situationally aware. All that's left IMO is an Electronic Warfare suite.

I really liked the last version of Altay. This tank will have a special appeal when it goes into production.

 

[LegionnairE]

Excellent improvements all around, notice periscopes fitted for the loader to see out and be situationally aware. All that's left IMO is an Electronic Warfare suite.

I don't see much of a difference other than Akkor launchers, it very much looks like Otokar's urban warfare version. Could you please enlighten us about what's new?

 

[Combat-Master]

I don't see much of a difference other than Akkor launchers, it very much looks like Otokar's urban warfare version. Could you please enlighten us about what's new?

Altay Main Battle Tank & Related Programs

Better late then half baked. It's like a broken record from constant agenda pushers... Altay Vanilla which is operationally no different to the Leopard 2A4 Altay T1, fully equipped.

defencehub.live

 

[LegionnairE]

Altay Main Battle Tank & Related Programs

Better late then half baked. It's like a broken record from constant agenda pushers... Altay Vanilla which is operationally no different to the Leopard 2A4 Altay T1, fully equipped.

defencehub.live

Looks to me as about the same as this:

^^ This picture is from 2016

So T1 is actually missing a few features

 

[Combat-Master]

Looks to me as about the same as this:
View attachment 28366

^^ This picture is from 2016

So T1 is actually missing a few features

T2 would be comparable to Urban Warfare Variant, however unlike Urban Warfare Variant. T2 will feature Indigenous systems, not COTS products picked from here there and everywhere that isn't even integrated into Aselsan's mission and fire control system.

 

[LegionnairE]

T2 would be comparable to Urban Warfare Variant, however unlike Urban Warfare Variant. T2 will feature Indigenous systems, not COTS products picked from here there and everywhere that isn't even integrated into Aselsan's mission and fire control system.

Yeah that's the thing, only advancement with T1 seems to be a few tweaks and updates to Volkan FCS. We can only assume that if Otokar was picked, these features would be better integrated as production moved forward.

More parts becoming indigenous as time moves on isn't surprising, it's the natural progression of things.

 

[BordoEnes]

T2 would be comparable to Urban Warfare Variant, however unlike Urban Warfare Variant. T2 will feature Indigenous systems, not COTS products picked from here there and everywhere that isn't even integrated into Aselsan's mission and fire control system.

I think the most important feature that the T2 should have is an automatic reloader within an unmanned turret. As Legionnaire said its very natural that integration of domestic systems happen over time, I don't think that should be the main feature of the T2.

 

[LegionnairE]

I think the most important feature that the T2 should have is an automatic reloader within an unmanned turret. As Legionnaire said its very natural that integration of domestic systems happen over time, I don't think that should be the main feature of the T2.

Yeah I'm afraid that's not gonna happen. That would have to be a completely new tank, like ALTAY-2 or something.

That's probably not in the budget right now. Lol

 

[Huelague]

Looks to me as about the same as this:
View attachment 28366

^^ This picture is from 2016

So T1 is actually missing a few features

Like Soft-Kill Systems?

 

[Nilgiri]

Yep and politics/corruption is what most hampered the Arjun development. Its kind of why i compare the two. I don't see Altay quite going the same way, but its not impossible.

I don't bring the arjun up to insult the indians, its just the best example i'm aware of how politics/corruption can ruin a project.

You are approaching it with a good principle...so there is literally zero insult (if receiving end appreciates what that principle is).

More Indians need to hear it (many are deluded/ignorant, have too much ego they generally "cross-harness"... and/or deflect to some silly apologism/excuse).

It is why I give big credit to red-effect and others (alongside and before him) that speak in very plain rational terms about faults....and hammer away on it again and again....and show rational compromise + credit when it is merited too.

It all reminds me personally of my own conversations regarding ego-freaks on all kind of things (Arjun included), India or non-India related....sometimes almost word for word...and harsher ways than you have here.

Have to keep in mind that Ego-freaks:

A) Are not exclusive to any society, they are a human condition/prevalence at large.

B) End up shielding and promoting mediocrity, incompetence, corruption and even abject failures.

C) DETRACT from the successes (which are clear and need definition as to WHY they succeeded...rather than throwing those in with the gunk too)...ironically exact reverse of what they (by irrational emotionalism) intend.

I mean you can't throw crap with good and hope the crap is lifted by the good.....the crap by its definition is crap. You need to minimise crap and have more good to win overall. But ego-freak would try have you believe otherwise.

System that gathers/enables (BAD!) or prevents/disenables (GOOD!) ego-freaks et al. (and all the crap they inevitably leave in their wake) is what is to be studied, implemented, perfected, expanded and entrenched by rational reasoned folks.

The less detritus you have clogging up a pipe, the more the pipe lets flow. It's really that simple.

Again, Turks and others can muse on how/what/where it applies in their own specific realm and context.

 

[Fairon]

I have a question. We are so focussed on the engine but do we know which gun will be used for this tank? I mean we were to use L55 but most likely it will be ambargoed so do we have any alternative?

Does MKEK has the capacity to produce tank guns?

 

[Abdelaziz]

I have a question. We are so focussed on the engine but do we know which gun will be used for this tank? I mean we were to use L55 but most likely it will be ambargoed so do we have any alternative?

Does MKEK has the capacity to produce tank guns?

Mkek made a tech transfer for the gun

 

[GoatsMilk]

You are approaching it with a good principle...so there is literally zero insult (if receiving end appreciates what that principle is).

More Indians need to hear it (many are deluded/ignorant, have too much ego they generally "cross-harness"... and/or deflect to some silly apologism/excuse).

It is why I give big credit to red-effect and others (alongside and before him) that speak in very plain rational terms about faults....and hammer away on it again and again....and show rational compromise + credit when it is merited too.

It all reminds me personally of my own conversations regarding ego-freaks on all kind of things (Arjun included), India or non-India related....sometimes almost word for word...and harsher ways than you have here.

Have to keep in mind that Ego-freaks:

A) Are not exclusive to any society, they are a human condition/prevalence at large.

B) End up shielding and promoting mediocrity, incompetence, corruption and even abject failures.

C) DETRACT from the successes (which are clear and need definition as to WHY they succeeded...rather than throwing those in with the gunk too)...ironically exact reverse of what they (by irrational emotionalism) intend.

I mean you can't throw crap with good and hope the crap is lifted by the good.....the crap by its definition is crap. You need to minimise crap and have more good to win overall. But ego-freak would try have you believe otherwise.

System that gathers/enables (BAD!) or prevents/disenables (GOOD!) ego-freaks et al. (and all the crap they inevitably leave in their wake) is what is to be studied, implemented, perfected, expanded and entrenched by rational reasoned folks.

The less detritus you have clogging up a pipe, the more the pipe lets flow. It's really that simple.

Again, Turks and others can muse on how/what/where it applies in their own specific realm and context.

Its really point B that allows this stuff to happen. People can't separate their love of a political party to the reality of the specific event. As a result the problem persists and gets worse and worse. Since erdogan and ak party are the architects of this Altay/BMC mess it cannot be criticised and thus is given a freehand. Altay turned into a complete mess for Turkey. What began as a really exciting and important project for Turkey has incrementally turned into a joke. How far this joke goes, i don't know.