Denizkurdu-I/2026
Turkish inter-service naval exercise held 20 to 25 September 2026 with about 100 ships.
Denizkurdu-I/2026 brought about 100 ships, 50 aircraft and 14,000 personnel to SEA from 20 to 25 September 2026, and saw an MKE robot boat destroy a surface target with a 100kg live warhead.
Last refreshed: 7 October 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
Turkey's first live-warhead robot boat strike: what limits bind it in autonomous mode?
Timeline for Denizkurdu-I/2026
MKE robot boat hits with a live warhead
Autonomous Systems: Land & SeaBackground
Denizkurdu (Sea Wolf) is a Turkish inter-service exercise held twice yearly. Its first 2026 phase covered the Black Sea, the SEA of Marmara, the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean between 20 and 25 September. It drew about 100 ships, 50 aircraft and 14,000 personnel from the Navy, Land Forces, Air Force and Coast Guard.
The exercise's headline moment came from an uncrewed vessel. An MKE one-way-attack surface vessel destroyed a surface target with a 100kg live warhead, which MKE says no earlier exercise in the series had included. Its operators sat at a control station on a Tuzla-class patrol craft and moved it between remote and autonomous operation. Admiral Ercüment Tatlıoğlu, the naval commander, said the aim is for crewed and uncrewed ships to support each other.
The drill came a month after Anadolu Agency reported, on 17 August 2026, that the Navy's MARLIN uncrewed vessel had laid a training mine. Neither MKE nor Baird Maritime, which reported the strike, has said what limits apply when the boat runs in autonomous mode.
