TÜBİTAK SAGE Institute Director Gürcan Okumuş summarized the work to Anatolian News Agency.
Okumuş stated that the tests in the Laser Guided Miniature Munition Bozok Project had been completed. He underlined that Bozok had taken its place in the portfolio as highly effective ammunition that can be a payload at UCAVs. Pointing out that the effectiveness of UCAVs on the battlefield has increased recently, Okumuş said, “According to different types of UCAVs, smaller ammunition has been very critical, especially in UCAVs such as Bayraktar TB2. The product development has been completed. It will gain additional capabilities in the future, but currently, serial production is about to begin,” he said.
Explaining that the air-launched unguided/low profile guided mini ammunition, Togan, is a very cost-effective option, Okumuş said, “Togan is ammunition that we think may have special uses. We did some tests with Hürkuş. On the one hand, the drone (mini-UAV) market is developing, different products are emerging. We made some tests and shoots with ASISGUARD’s Armed Drone System Songar product. Togan is also at the serial production stage.”
He also stated that the Kuzgun Modular Ammunition Family, which is carried out as an internal project of TÜBİTAK SAGE, has reached important stages. Stating that the Kuzgun will have a mini-turbojet model apart from a complete propulsion model, and a small solid fuel model will be added to these, Okumuş stated that the Kuzgun would serve with various seekers.
Okumuş said, “We aim to make it very easy to use, different models to be selected from a ready-made package. A project that we care about will be different product families. The development process will continue with new capabilities and additional capabilities. There will be ammunition that we will exhibit and highlight at the 2021 IDEF. It can be used in both UAVs and jets. There will be different platform alternatives for the Kuzgun. It can be used in jets in different numbers and with different variants at the same time.
On the other hand, it will be cost-effective. Developing a product is a long and expensive process. Our goal here is very different after developing a base product. To ensure that this product can be used on different platforms in many different variants. It will have variants with anti-personnel and penetrating warheads that will be very effective. It may have some features that we can call anti-radar, it can be used effectively against air defence systems. We aim to use the Kuzgun in almost every field and platform. Variants tested this year. We think it will come to a point in 2022 when we start the industry, but turbojet and solid fuel will follow. These are also related to future product orders for project design and production.”
Stating that they have started work on the serial production of the Penetrating Bomb Sarb-83, which was introduced in 2019, Okumuş said, “This ammunition will enter the inventory soon. Sarb-83 has now entered a certain path. On the Sert-82, the development side continues. We anticipate that we will complete the tests. These are the internal projects of TÜBİTAK SAGE; they can gain speed or progress more slowly according to the order and project schedule.” said.
Stating that TÜBİTAK SAGE is currently carrying out nearly 60 projects, Okumuş said they mainly work on ammunition and platform projects. They also support sub-component and sub-system development for very important projects.
