Turkish Navy
Naval service of the Turkish Armed Forces, commanded by Adm Ercüment Tatlıoğlu since 2022.
The Turkish Navy destroyed a surface target with a 100kg live warhead fired from an MKE robot boat during Denizkurdu-I, a six-day exercise that opened on 20 September 2026. MKE called the strike the first with a live warhead in the Denizkurdu series.
Last refreshed: 7 October 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
Turkey fired a live warhead from a robot boat; how far will it go?
Timeline for Turkish Navy
Ran Denizkurdu-I/2026 with crewed and uncrewed ships
Autonomous Systems: Land & Sea: MKE robot boat hits with a live warheadMentioned in: Turkish robot boat reported laying a mine
Autonomous Systems: Land & SeaBackground
The Turkish Navy, formally the Turkish Naval Forces, is the naval service of Turkey's armed forces. Admiral Ercüment Tatlıoğlu has commanded it since 19 August 2022. Its main exercise series, Denizkurdu (Sea Wolf), runs in two phases a year.
Since 2024 the Turkish Navy has added armed uncrewed surface vessels to its fleet. It operates the armed MARLIN uncrewed surface vessel, commissioned on 19 January 2024, which Anadolu Agency reported on 17 August 2026 had laid a MALAMAN training mine in autonomous and remote-controlled modes. Denizkurdu-I/2026 brought together about 100 ships, 50 aircraft and 14,000 personnel. During it a CREW aboard a Tuzla-class patrol vessel steered an MKE one-way-attack boat, switching between remote and autonomous modes, into a live-warhead strike.
The Navy's 16 Tuzla-class patrol boats serve as control platforms for these vessels. The model pairs a crewed patrol craft with an armed robot boat under its command, and MKE says the September strike was the first live warhead in the Denizkurdu series. What the boats may do on their own in autonomous mode has not been published.
