Tulpar is a Turkish heavy

infantry fighting vehicle An infantry fighting vehicle (IFV), also known as a mechanized infantry combat vehicle (MICV), is a type of armoured fighting vehicle used to carry infantry into battle and provide direct-fire support. The 1990 Treaty on Conventional Armed Forc ...

Sakarya Sakarya may refer to: Places * Sakarya Province, in Turkey ** Sakarya (electoral district) ** Sakarya University * Sakarya (continent), a small continent 90 million years ago * Sakarya River, in Turkey * Sakarya, Polatlı, a village in Ankara Pr ...

-based automotive manufacturer

Otokar Otokar Otomotiv ve Savunma Sanayi A.Ş., also known simply as Otokar, is a Turkish bus and military vehicle manufacturer headquartered in Sakarya, Turkey. Otokar is a subsidiary of Koç Holding. History Otokar was founded in 1963 as Turkey's ...

. It is named after the

Tulpar Tulpar / ; ba, Толпар, ; tt-Cyrl, Тулпар, ; ky, Тулпар; tr, Tulpar; uz, Tulpor / ; ug, تۇلپار is a winged or swift horse in Turkic mythology (for example, Kazakh and Tatar mythology), similar to Pegasus. Tulpar i ...

, a winged horse in

Turkic mythology Turkic mythology refers to myths and legends told by the Turkic people. It features Tengrist and Shamanist strata of belief along with many other social and cultural constructs related to the nomadic and warrior way of life of Turkic and Mongol ...

. The vehicle has been designed to augment Turkey's new-generation Altay MBT in operations and to safely transport

infantry Infantry is a military specialization which engages in ground combat on foot. Infantry generally consists of light infantry, mountain infantry, motorized infantry & mechanized infantry, airborne infantry, air assault infantry, and marine i ...

to the front lines while providing fire support for other armored units. The IFV is also available in variants such as reconnaissance, command-and-control, personnel carrier, mortar, recovery, launch rocket system, air defence, ambulance and anti-tank vehicles.

Background

Even though the TSK has not formally posted an immediate requirement for a new infantry fighting vehicle,

has started the development of Tulpar along with the Altay. Indeed, Tulpar was designed by the same team that developed Altay. After a 3-year design and development stage, Tulpar was finally unveiled to the public in 2013 at the IDEF international defense fair in

Istanbul Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...

Design

Tulpar was designed for the dual role of providing fire support to friendly

main battle tank A main battle tank (MBT), also known as a battle tank or universal tank, is a tank that fills the role of armor-protected direct fire and maneuver in many modern armies. Cold War-era development of more powerful engines, better suspension sys ...

s and safely transporting troops in a high-threat environment. Resistance against IEDs, small

mine Mine, mines, miners or mining may refer to: Extraction or digging * Miner, a person engaged in mining or digging *Mining, extraction of mineral resources from the ground through a mine Grammar *Mine, a first-person English possessive pronoun ...

s and high

ballistic Ballistics may refer to: Science * Ballistics, the science that deals with the motion, behavior, and effects of projectiles ** Forensic ballistics, the science of analyzing firearm usage in crimes ** Internal ballistics, the study of the proc ...

protection for its crew were among the high priority design criteria. Tulpar is also fully networkable with the Altay MBT and other units. In its basic form the Tulpar provides protection against small arms (

STANAG 4569 NATO AEP-55 STANAG 4569 is a NATO Standardization Agreement covering the standards for the "Protection Levels for Occupants of Logistic and Light Armored Vehicles". The standard covers strikes from kinetic energy, artillery and IED blasts. Level ...

level 2), but it can be upgraded with composite

armor Armour (British English) or armor (American English; see spelling differences) is a covering used to protect an object, individual, or vehicle from physical injury or damage, especially direct contact weapons or projectiles during combat, or fr ...

that provides protection against 25 mm projectiles (STANAG 4569 level 5). Tulpar features

modular Broadly speaking, modularity is the degree to which a system's components may be separated and recombined, often with the benefit of flexibility and variety in use. The concept of modularity is used primarily to reduce complexity by breaking a s ...

armor. This allows the maintenance center to quickly swap any damaged armor panels and also makes the IFV easily upgradable for added protection against higher caliber projectiles. Export customers of Tulpar can decide on what level of protection is desired based on their specific threat environment, terrain and IFV configuration.

plans to install a hard kill system on the future variants of Tulpar. The vehicle is fully NBC protected.

Mobility

Tulpar is powered by an 810 hp, 15.7-liter, water-cooled V8

diesel engine The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-call ...

that is

turbo charge In an internal combustion engine, a turbocharger (often called a turbo) is a forced induction device that is powered by the flow of exhaust gases. It uses this energy to compress the intake gas, forcing more air into the engine in order to pro ...

d and drives a 32-speed

automatic transmission An automatic transmission (sometimes abbreviated to auto or AT) is a multi-speed transmission used in internal combustion engine-based motor vehicles that does not require any input from the driver to change forward gears under normal driving c ...

. Suspension comes standard with a hydraulic damper and can carry up to 45 tons on the hull. Tulpar's maximum speed is 70 km/h and economic range is 600 km.

Armament

Otokar's Tulpar is fitted with the

Mızrak-U UMTAS or Mizrak-U ''(Uzun Menzilli Tanksavar Sistemi)'' is a modern long range air-to-surface anti-tank guided missile developed by Turkish armor and missile manufacturer Roketsan. Background The UMTAS program was begun in late 2003 by Turkey's ...

turret system armed with a 30mm dual-fed automatic cannon and a 7.62mm

coaxial In geometry, coaxial means that several three-dimensional linear or planar forms share a common axis. The two-dimensional analog is ''concentric''. Common examples: A coaxial cable is a three-dimensional linear structure. It has a wire conduc ...

machine gun. The turret will be equipped with the

Umtas UMTAS or Mizrak-U ''(Uzun Menzilli Tanksavar Sistemi)'' is a modern long range air-to-surface anti-tank guided missile developed by Turkish armor and missile manufacturer Roketsan. Background The UMTAS program was begun in late 2003 by Turkey's ...

anti-tank missile.

Situational awareness

Tulpar's crew enjoy full 360-degree day/night

situational awareness Situational awareness or situation awareness (SA) is the perception of environmental elements and events with respect to time or space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their future status. An alternative definition is tha ...

thanks to an array of electro-optic sensors located on the Hull and Turret.

Variants

Tulpar IFV

Basic IFV model as described above.

Tulpar-S

First unveiled at IDEF 2015, the Tulpar-S is significantly lighter (15 tonnes), shorter and narrower than the Tulpar. It is a multi-purposed vehicle platform which retains basic features of standard Tulpar-IFV and has been designed to be both a light and an amphibious platform. Like the Tupar IFV, the Tulpar has been designed to be modular and can be configured for a variety of roles with a variety of weapons platforms. In the weapons-carrying, ATGM-armed RCT configuration, the Tulpar-S features a three-person crew (driver, commander, and gunner), with space for two dismounts. In its armoured-personnel-carrier version, the vehicle will also feature a three-person crew but with space for eight dismounts.

Operators

Turkish Armed Forces The Turkish Armed Forces (TAF; tr, Türk Silahlı Kuvvetleri, TSK) are the military forces of the Republic of Turkey. Turkish Armed Forces consist of the General Staff, the Land Forces, the Naval Forces and the Air Forces. The current Chi ...

is expected to initially order up to 400 vehicles to augment the first batch of 250 Altay main battle tanks pending the evaluation trials of the IFV.

References

External links

* Military-Toda

* TR Defenc

Tulpar Otokar AIFV tracked armoured infantry fighting vehicle on armyrecognition.com
{{Use dmy dates, date=June 2017 Infantry fighting vehicles of Turkey Armoured fighting vehicles of the post–Cold War period Tracked infantry fighting vehicles Military vehicles introduced in the 2010s