SARB-83, a domestically developed concrete-piercing aircraft ammunition with warhead technology, is ready for mass production, the ammunitions’ developer Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBITAK) announced Monday.
Gürgan Okumuş, the director of Ankara-based TÜBITAK Defense Industries Research and Development Institute (SAGE), said Turkey was the first country to develop consecutive piercing technology on warheads, using it initially on the NEB-84 penetrator bomb.
He said the previous experience helped SAGE to finalize the development of SARB-83, which will be used against the ground and underground targets, with warhead technology.
The ammunition, which is new generation ammunition that can be used with thermobaric explosives with its pre-piercing warhead feature, was developed for priority targets such as caves, runways, hangars, bunkers and dams.
Okumuş said the tests were conducted successfully using the Warhead Rail System Dynamic Test Infrastructure (HABRAS). During the test, the ammunition successfully pierced 1.5-meter-thick 5,000 pounds-per-square-inch (psi) reinforced concrete at a speed of 300 kph (186 mph).
He also noted that having infrastructure such as HABRAS was an important turning point for Turkey’s defense sector as the country had to carry out tests abroad before.
HABRAS was founded in June 2017 to test the efficiency of domestically developed weapons systems and was inaugurated on Oct. 31 by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in 2018.
