Photo from the most recent test-fire of the ATMACA missile.
On August 18, Turkey’s defense giant Roketsan signed an agreement with the Presidency of Defense Industries (SSB) to develop a land-attack version of the indigenous ATMACA anti-ship cruise missile.
The agreement was signed on the sideline of the 15th International Defence Industry Fair (IDEF’21), which opened its doors in Istanbul on August 17.
The new version of the cruise missile, dubbed KARA ATMACA, will be land-based with a range of 280 km. The missile will be armed with a 250 kg warhead and equipped with an infrared seeker for final phase guidance.
ATMACA land-based, land attack cruise missile from @roketsan
– IIR seeker in place of the Active Radar seeker of the Anti-Ship ATMACA
– 4-tube launcher,on the same vehicle that launches TRG-300
– first land attack cruise missile for Turkish Land Forces inventory#IDEF21 https://t.co/0Y7zQgWzPr pic.twitter.com/vJiJKG0Fla— Eric Newton (@EricNewton2020) August 16, 2021
Family portrait: Kara Atmaca surface to surface cruise missile, Atmaca anti-ship missile, Orka lightweight torpedo, Akya heavy torpedo @roketsan pic.twitter.com/Ha5xeZ7Th2
— Arda Mevlutoglu (@orko_8) August 18, 2021
Under the agreement with the SSB, Roketsan should supply the Turkish Land Forces Command with the first batch of KARA ATMACA missiles in 2025.
Last June, the ATMACA anti-ship missile entered service with the Turkish Navy after successfully sinking a decommissioned ship in a fire test. The missile, which has a range of 220 km, makes use of its global positioning system, inertial navigation system, barometric altimeter and radar altimeter to navigate towards its target, while its active radar seeker pinpoints the target with high precision.
The land-attack version of the cruise missile will provide the Turkish Land Forces with the ability to attack land targets from a stand-off range with high-precision.
So basically it will be an anti-shipping missile masquerading as a cruise missile?! Anti shipping missiles skim the surface to avoid detection – they are extremely hard to stop. Cruise missile run as low as possible, but by definition need to be higher up, due to geographical land mass, and accordingly they are easier to intercept. So they want an anti-shipping missile reconfigured to operate as cruise missile and run higher over land?! Does all this just mean the US wont sell them some old Tomahawks?!