Altai Tank Also Uses Domestic Transmission... This Year Marks the First Export of 'K-Defense'

[Asia Economy Yang Nak-gyu, Military Specialist Reporter] The domestic defense company SNT Heavy Industries' automatic transmission will be exported to Turkey. This is the first K-defense export contract of the year.

On the 30th, SNT Heavy Industries announced through a public disclosure that it had signed an export contract for domestically produced 1500-horsepower automatic transmissions worth a total of 200 million euros (approximately 270 billion KRW).

SNT Heavy Industries plans to supply domestically produced 1500-horsepower automatic transmissions worth 68.93 million euros for the Altay main battle tank (MBT) to the Turkish tank system company BMC from this year until 2027. The export contract reportedly includes an additional option purchase clause for SNT Heavy Industries' 1500-horsepower automatic transmissions worth 130.9 million euros from 2028 to 2030.

For this contract, SNT Heavy Industries conducted performance tests and evaluations on 18 items over eight months by installing the transmissions on the Altay main battle tank in Turkey.

Meanwhile, the Altay tank is a third-generation tank developed by transferring technology from the domestically produced K2 Black Panther tank. The prototype was unveiled in 2011, and it was scheduled for deployment around 2015, but production has yet to begin due to setbacks in supplying the powerpack, which combines the engine and transmission.

Originally, the Altay tank was planned to be equipped with a German-made powerpack, but the German political circles prohibited the export citing human rights abuses by the Turkish government. Subsequently, various measures such as in-house development and technical cooperation with overseas companies were explored for several years to secure the powerpack, but no significant results were achieved.