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Russia no longer has a chance in the Black Sea. Turkey is developing a drone that hits its target under the radar. A "miracle weapon" for the Baltic Sea too?
“Turkey accounted for 65 percent of sales,” writes Molly Campbell. In her study, the analyst at the American think tank, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), found that the NATO member on the Bosphorus has now become the world’s leading exporter of drones. In parallel with the war in Ukraine and the ingenuity of its defenders, the Turks are now presenting another weapon that will make Vladimir Putin’s invading army sweat with fear, especially at sea.
The new drone will be called TALAY, as reported by Defense Express magazine. Its main feature is that it acts as a "ground effect vehicle", making it the first drone of this class. TALAY "is a versatile and state-of-the-art WIG-UAV, optimized for maritime and coastal operations.
The drone can carry up to 30 kilograms of sensors or munitions at speeds of up to 200 kilometers per hour. However, the highlight of the vehicle is actually its engine.
“A WIG aircraft is a multimodal aircraft which, in its primary mode of operation, exploits the effect of the ground on water or another surface, without continuous contact with such a surface, and is supported in the air primarily by aerodynamic lift generated by a wing(s), fuselage, or parts thereof designed to exploit the ground effect.” This effect is created by the proximity of a vehicle component to the surface, whereby the lower aerodynamic force generates greater lift and allows the aircraft to reach greater speeds.
According to the manufacturer, TALAY can be multifunctionally deployed for patrol, reconnaissance, attack or cargo missions during a maximum flight duration of approximately three hours, and can fly autonomously or under operator control within a range of up to 200 kilometers and in sea conditions up to Category 3.
"Due to the design of its wings, the TALAY can reach a maximum flight altitude of only 100 meters. However, thanks to this wing configuration and its ability to land on water, it flies only 30 centimeters above the waves, making it practically invisible," writes Defense Express.
Without giving exact figures, the magazine assumes that the weapon will be cheap to produce, meaning it has the potential to be a real killer in a possible war against an aggressive and expansionist Russia. Turkey is a proven exporter of drone weapons, but the extent to which NATO wants or can benefit from this remains questionable. Ahmed Abouyoussef, an analyst at the Al Habtoor Research Center in the United Arab Emirates, writes that Turkey exports only to Europe.
“For coastal states seeking to protect their coastal waters with unconventional and difficult-to-detect systems, TALAY could be a game-changer,” he warns.
The relationship between European countries and Turkey has always been politically tense, so the weapons are not found in European militaries, although they could potentially close an existing gap in cost-effective capabilities. Turkey seems to have freed itself from the hostility of Western countries and allies. After all, Turkey has more drones than a high-tech country like Germany, as if the government there had foreseen the military developments that would result from a war like the one taking place in Ukraine. The development of the Turkish drone industry is said to date back to the 1990s, reports Esra Karataş Alpay.
"Turkey's ability to develop modern drones is a direct result of its defense sector's efforts to overcome challenges in accessing foreign technology, especially at critical times when traditional allies like the US and Israel imposed restrictions or denied sales," Murat Aslan told Turkish English-language news channel TRT Global. The political scientist at Hasan Kalyoncu University in Gaziantep recalls that Turkey could have purchased Israeli Heron drones at the end of the last millennium, but the Israelis wanted to maintain arms control. This was unacceptable to Turkey, so the country on the Bosphorus has moved forward with its own drone production.
“Positive press from the battlefields of Libya, Nagorno-Karabakh and Ukraine, as well as Turkey’s short delivery time, have catapulted it to the top of the military drone market,” writes Molly Campbell in her latest report for CNAS. The TALAY looks set to become a new export hit, according to Defense Express, especially as the war in Ukraine has highlighted the striking power of naval drones, particularly in the Black Sea. Defense Express expects serial production to begin in October 2026, with the first units to be delivered to the Turkish Navy in early 2027. The magazine describes the weapon as “ideal for attacks on ships and port infrastructure.”
Putin will be furious about the launch of the “air cushion” drone. This weapon is likely to cause him to completely lose control of the Black Sea. “In contrast to the stalled land war, Ukraine’s tactics in the Black Sea have brought humiliating defeats to Russia, and Turkey has emerged as a naval power,” writes Alper Coşkun for the Liechtenstein think tank, Geopolitical Intelligence Services (GIS).
The diplomat sees, besides his own country, the US and, indirectly, NATO as the main beneficiaries of the blow that Ukraine inflicted on Russia in the Black Sea. Not only were the ships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet sunk on the high seas, but the Russian Navy was also subjected to devastating blows in ports and on the moorings.
"Neither friend nor foe"
"When Turks trembled before Stalin," Spiegel magazine titled its commemoration of Turkey's accession to NATO. This was in 2022, and Turkey had been a partner of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for 70 years, three years longer than Germany. Turkey's relationship with Russia, as NATO's gatekeeper on the Bosphorus, is ambivalent. "Neither friend nor foe" is "perhaps the most appropriate description of how these two countries interact," writes Alper Coşkun. This also applies to their relationship in the Black Sea: "Although there is no superficial confrontation, the feeling of rivalry and the desire to gain superiority at the expense of the other is omnipresent."
With TALAY, Turkey may have achieved a similar success to what Ukraine did with the MAGURA V5. As Army Recognition magazine reports, the Turkish “hover-flying” drone, which can operate “below most naval radar horizons,” is ideal for “neutralizing small and medium-sized vessels or disrupting port infrastructure.” This means Russia could lose speedboats, minesweepers, or even missile corvettes en masse without anyone having the slightest idea of the danger until the bombs go off.
Perhaps the Baltic Sea states are now taking a closer look. TALAY is proving itself to be a tireless watchdog on their shores, as Army Recognition speculates: "For coastal states seeking to protect their coastal waters with unconventional and difficult-to-detect systems, TALAY could represent a game-changer." / Adapted Pamphlet/
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