ARES Shipyards is ASELSAN’s partner in platform design, development, and production for the new TUFAN kamikaze USV, which was unveiled at SAHA EXPO 2026.
ARES Shipyards stated that it has teamed up with ASELSAN for the hull design and production in the TUFAN kamikaze USV project, which is the largest to be developed by Türkiye.
Unveiled in the SAHA EXPO 2026 exhibition alongside the KILIÇ kamikaze UUV family, TUFAN sports a range of 200 NM (370 km) at 35 knots cruise speed and 50+ knots top speed.
While ASELSAN has not disclosed the warhead size, TUFAN is to be significantly larger than previous kamikaze USV developments like ULAQ KAMA (6 m long) and MKE PİRANA (5.5 m long) at 8.5 m length. Thus, it is understood that TUFAN has a similarly heavy warhead, more than the 200 kg warhead of ULAQ KAMA.
With TUFAN, ARES Shipyards has become the second design and construction partner of ASELSAN in the USV field, alongside SEFİNE Shipyard, responsible for the highly modular MARLIN USV family.
Author: Kaan Azman
Editor:Özgür Ekşi
