GÜRCAN OKUMUŞ: ASSAN will be the center of mass production in defense
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ASSAN Group Defense General Manager Gürcan Okumuş answered our questions about the company's mass production infrastructure and future goals.
Gürcan Okumuş, who stated that ASSAN Group Defense continues its work with the aim of becoming a mass production center in the field of defense industry, gave information about the ongoing and future productions, especially 122mm Rockets, General Purpose Bombs, 155mm Howitzer Ammunition and 60/81/120mm Mortar Ammunition.
In the statement made by Okumuş to SavunmaSanayiST.com Editor-in-Chief Anıl Şahin, the following statements were made:
“ASSAN GROUP has transferred its 40-year machinery production capability to the defense industry sector. Now, the defense industry has become a much more important sector for ASSAN GROUP. We produce MK Series General Purpose Bombs, 122mm Rockets, 155mm Howitzer Ammunition and 60/81/120mm Mortar Ammunition.
We have various subcontractor agreements with Roketsan, ASELSAN and MKE Inc. We have a team of approximately 700 people and our main locations are Sincan and Gerede.
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Production of 80 thousand MK Series General Purpose Bombs per year!
We can produce approximately 50 thousand mechanical bodies per year for MK Series General Purpose Bombs. We export a large portion of these to EDGE, a company based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Since 2021, we have signed contracts with the UAE to export various amounts of MK Series Bombs and have delivered a large portion of them. We plan to sign a contract with EDGE soon for the supply and joint production of new bombs. Our annual MK Series Bomb production capacity will soon be 80 thousand.
Up until now, we have exported these bombs as mechanical bodies to more than 20 countries, including Bulgaria, Brazil and Romania. We have exported bombs in full ammunition configuration to Azerbaijan by receiving the filling service from outside.
MK Series Bomb Production Line for Nakhchivan
We are currently working with a local partner to establish a MK Series Bomb Production Line in Azerbaijan, it has been approved by the government and the permitting process is ongoing. We plan to put the line into operation in 2025. It will be in Nakhchivan and will have the capacity to produce 10 thousand full-shot ammunition per year. We also have capabilities in industrial facility installation. In our ongoing investments in Gerede, we have produced many things such as mixers and reactors with our own engineering capabilities. Our negotiations with different countries for the establishment of a MK Series Bomb Production Line are ongoing.
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We have become one of the main subcontractors of ASELSAN's TOLUN Ammunition. We provide an end-to-end service such as mechanical body production, energetic material filling, integration of ammunition with electronics from ASELSAN, and then crated and delivered to ASELSAN's desired location with our ADB trucks.
360 thousand 155mm Howitzer Ammunition to be Produced Annually
We have plans to fill aircraft bombs and TNT for 155 in our facilities in Gerede. Our facility construction activities for explosive production and filling are ongoing there. We plan to start producing 155mm Howitzer Ammunition as of mid-2025 and reach full capacity by the end of the year.
Our capacity will be to produce 360 thousand 155mm Howitzer Ammunition per year. Some of this will be in different configurations such as 20 kilometers and some 40 kilometers range. Of course, we will not be able to provide all 360 thousand units as loaded, our first goal is to fill 200 thousand units. We plan to sell the remaining part as ready-to-load bodies to various customers.
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We plan to produce the fuses for both 122mm and 155mm ammunition ourselves, both through our own R&D activities and through technology transfer. We want to do many things ourselves, as much as possible, within vertical integration.
We have a future investment plan for gunpowder in Kırıkkale. Initially, we may have a single-based investment roadmap, and later we have a roadmap for modular gunpowder
This should address the concern of many members on production capacity of Turkish Ammunition manufacturers.
@TR_123456 @Yasar_TR @Sanchez @dBSPL @Kartal1 @what @Saithan @Rooxbar et al.
ASSAN Group Savunma Genel Müdürü Gürcan Okumuş, şirketin seri üretim altyapıları ve ileriye dönük hedeflerine ilişkin sorularımızı yanıtladı.
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