STM Executes Türkiye’s First Live-Fire Drone Swarm Using 20 KARGU Loitering Munitions
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On January 27, 2026, STM announced the successful execution of Türkiye’s first live-fire swarm attack, deploying 20 KARGU loitering munitions in a coordinated engagement. The demonstration validated domestically developed swarm intelligence under real detonation conditions, marking a milestone in Türkiye’s autonomous strike capabilities.
On January 27, 2026, STM announced that its swarm unmanned aerial vehicle technology had successfully demonstrated coordinated engagement capabilities during Türkiye’s first live-fire swarm attack trial. The test involved the simultaneous deployment of 20 KARGU loitering munitions operating in a swarm configuration and resulted in confirmed direct hits on designated targets. According to STM, the exercise represented a national milestone and placed Türkiye among a limited group of countries that have conducted live-ammunition swarm attack tests, validating the performance of domestically developed swarm intelligence and autonomous operational functions under real detonation conditions. For a battlefield already reshaped by massed drones, this is the point where “swarm” stops being a lab promise and starts looking like a repeatable strike method.
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STM conducts Türkiye’s first live-fire drone swarm trial, deploying 20 KARGU loitering munitions in a coordinated autonomous strike (Picture Source: STM)
STM said the activity was conducted at the General Nahit Şenoğul Firing and Training Area in Polatlı, Ankara, and emphasized that the test environment involved live ammunition detonations, not scripted or simulated effects. In imagery released by the company, impact effects are presented as evidence that the swarm was not merely flying in formation but delivering synchronized lethality on designated aimpoints. STM describes the result as a historic milestone within its swarm capability development path, with the 20 KARGU systems striking their targets with direct hits.
The technical significance lies in how STM says the swarm was commanded and how it behaved after takeoff. The company reports the 20 KARGU loitering munitions operated under the control of a single operator, powered by fully indigenous swarm intelligence algorithms and a distributed architecture. After launch, STM says the swarm autonomously navigated to the mission area and then autonomously divided into sub-swarms assigned to three separate targets. On a single operator command, those sub-swarms executed a simultaneous attack, a sequence that, if repeatable at scale, compresses the attacker’s decision cycle while forcing defenders to react to multiple axes at once.
STM states the KARGU systems in the test were fitted with anti-personnel warheads and used their distributed architecture to communicate among themselves, enabling synchronized engagement and precision under live-fire conditions. The company also highlighted official observation of the activity by Prof. Dr. Haluk Görgün, Secretary of Defence Industries of the Republic of Türkiye (SSB), alongside senior Turkish Land Forces leaders and delegations. STM said the swarm attack capability received full marks from command authorities, a detail that reads as more than ceremony because it signals a user community already evaluating this as a battlefield tool rather than a technology demonstrator.
STM’s own description of the swarm stack points to a resilience-first design. The swarm intelligence architecture, it says, does not rely on a central control unit, allowing each UAV to make mission decisions while sustaining the larger plan through distributed control. That matters because centralized swarms tend to fail in predictable ways under jamming, link loss, or attrition, while distributed swarms are built to keep moving even when individual nodes drop out. STM explicitly claims mission continuity even if some elements become inoperative, the core promise that turns a swarm from “many drones” into a system intended to fight through losses.
On the capability layer, STM outlines real-time inter-UAV communication, autonomous formation generation and sustainment, collision avoidance, target detection and classification, in-swarm task sharing, target prioritization, and task assignment. It also points to operational flexibility features that are easy to advertise but hard to engineer: dynamic mission updates, executing multiple sub-missions inside the same battlespace, and the ability to divide and reunite swarms. STM further stresses electronic warfare resilience with CRPA-enhanced anti-jam navigation and GNSS-denied navigation via KERKES integration, implying the company is designing for contested conditions rather than permissive test ranges.
Tactically, a 20-drone live-fire event signals a shift in how loitering munitions can be employed at the small-unit and brigade level. A single operator authorizing effects while the swarm handles routing, deconfliction, and target-set partitioning reduces manpower demands at the edge and can accelerate strike tempo. The sub-swarm concept STM describes, splitting toward three targets and striking simultaneously, is also a direct answer to the defender’s math problem: short-range air defenses, electronic warfare teams, and small-arms engagements all face saturation limits. Even when defenders intercept or disrupt part of a wave, a distributed swarm designed to continue despite attrition can still generate enough surviving attackers to produce lethal effects.
The battlefield use cases suggested by STM’s configuration are blunt. With anti-personnel warheads and synchronized timing, a swarm-enabled KARGU package could be used to suppress or collapse exposed positions, complicate trench movement, punish rapid displacement, or strike multiple firing points at the moment an enemy element reveals itself. In urban or complex terrain, the ability to allocate sub-swarms to separate targets increases the chance of simultaneous contact across a block, a courtyard, or a ridgeline, reducing the defender’s ability to mass fires or reposition after the first impact. If the same architecture is paired with mixed payloads, the logic STM describes, engaging targets based on payload type and target classification, points toward future swarms that can autonomously sort tasks across personnel and vehicle sets.
Strategically, STM is positioning this test as a threshold event for Turkiye’s standing in autonomous warfare. STM General Manager Özgür Güleryüz argued the achievement carries strategic significance, presenting swarm UAVs as a modern battlefield game-changer and claiming the coordinated live-ammunition engagement demonstrates the level Turkiye has reached in autonomous systems, artificial intelligence, and swarm warfare concepts. STM also asserts that live-fire swarm attack capability is held by only a limited number of nations, and by making the claim in the context of detonating munitions rather than a choreography demo, the company is clearly aiming to elevate both deterrence messaging and export credibility.
The implication for rivals and partners is straightforward: swarm-enabled loitering munitions compress warning time, multiply aimpoints, and demand more defensive capacity per kilometer of front. That pushes armies toward layered counter-UAS, faster kill chains, tougher navigation resilience, and more ammunition dedicated to drone defense, all expensive answers to a comparatively cheap attacking logic. If STM can demonstrate repeatability, scale, and robustness under heavier electronic warfare conditions, this test becomes more than a headline. It becomes a marker that Turkiye’s drone industry is now chasing massed autonomy as a doctrine-shaping capability, not simply adding another UAV to a crowded market.
Written by Teoman S. Nicanci – Defense Analyst, Army Recognition Group
Teoman S. Nicanci holds degrees in Political Science, Comparative and International Politics, and International Relations and Diplomacy from leading Belgian universities, with research focused on Russian strategic behavior, defense technology, and modern warfare. He is a defense analyst at Army Recognition, specializing in the global defense industry, military armament, and emerging defense technologies.
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On January 27, 2026, STM announced the successful execution of Türkiye’s first live-fire swarm attack, deploying 20 KARGU loitering munitions in a coordinated engagement. The demonstration validated domestically developed swarm intelligence under real detonation conditions, marking a milestone in Türkiye’s autonomous strike capabilities.
On January 27, 2026, STM announced that its swarm unmanned aerial vehicle technology had successfully demonstrated coordinated engagement capabilities during Türkiye’s first live-fire swarm attack trial. The test involved the simultaneous deployment of 20 KARGU loitering munitions operating in a swarm configuration and resulted in confirmed direct hits on designated targets. According to STM, the exercise represented a national milestone and placed Türkiye among a limited group of countries that have conducted live-ammunition swarm attack tests, validating the performance of domestically developed swarm intelligence and autonomous operational functions under real detonation conditions. For a battlefield already reshaped by massed drones, this is the point where “swarm” stops being a lab promise and starts looking like a repeatable strike method.
STM conducts Türkiye’s first live-fire drone swarm trial, deploying 20 KARGU loitering munitions in a coordinated autonomous strike (Picture Source: STM)
STM said the activity was conducted at the General Nahit Şenoğul Firing and Training Area in Polatlı, Ankara, and emphasized that the test environment involved live ammunition detonations, not scripted or simulated effects. In imagery released by the company, impact effects are presented as evidence that the swarm was not merely flying in formation but delivering synchronized lethality on designated aimpoints. STM describes the result as a historic milestone within its swarm capability development path, with the 20 KARGU systems striking their targets with direct hits.
The technical significance lies in how STM says the swarm was commanded and how it behaved after takeoff. The company reports the 20 KARGU loitering munitions operated under the control of a single operator, powered by fully indigenous swarm intelligence algorithms and a distributed architecture. After launch, STM says the swarm autonomously navigated to the mission area and then autonomously divided into sub-swarms assigned to three separate targets. On a single operator command, those sub-swarms executed a simultaneous attack, a sequence that, if repeatable at scale, compresses the attacker’s decision cycle while forcing defenders to react to multiple axes at once.
STM states the KARGU systems in the test were fitted with anti-personnel warheads and used their distributed architecture to communicate among themselves, enabling synchronized engagement and precision under live-fire conditions. The company also highlighted official observation of the activity by Prof. Dr. Haluk Görgün, Secretary of Defence Industries of the Republic of Türkiye (SSB), alongside senior Turkish Land Forces leaders and delegations. STM said the swarm attack capability received full marks from command authorities, a detail that reads as more than ceremony because it signals a user community already evaluating this as a battlefield tool rather than a technology demonstrator.
STM’s own description of the swarm stack points to a resilience-first design. The swarm intelligence architecture, it says, does not rely on a central control unit, allowing each UAV to make mission decisions while sustaining the larger plan through distributed control. That matters because centralized swarms tend to fail in predictable ways under jamming, link loss, or attrition, while distributed swarms are built to keep moving even when individual nodes drop out. STM explicitly claims mission continuity even if some elements become inoperative, the core promise that turns a swarm from “many drones” into a system intended to fight through losses.
On the capability layer, STM outlines real-time inter-UAV communication, autonomous formation generation and sustainment, collision avoidance, target detection and classification, in-swarm task sharing, target prioritization, and task assignment. It also points to operational flexibility features that are easy to advertise but hard to engineer: dynamic mission updates, executing multiple sub-missions inside the same battlespace, and the ability to divide and reunite swarms. STM further stresses electronic warfare resilience with CRPA-enhanced anti-jam navigation and GNSS-denied navigation via KERKES integration, implying the company is designing for contested conditions rather than permissive test ranges.
Tactically, a 20-drone live-fire event signals a shift in how loitering munitions can be employed at the small-unit and brigade level. A single operator authorizing effects while the swarm handles routing, deconfliction, and target-set partitioning reduces manpower demands at the edge and can accelerate strike tempo. The sub-swarm concept STM describes, splitting toward three targets and striking simultaneously, is also a direct answer to the defender’s math problem: short-range air defenses, electronic warfare teams, and small-arms engagements all face saturation limits. Even when defenders intercept or disrupt part of a wave, a distributed swarm designed to continue despite attrition can still generate enough surviving attackers to produce lethal effects.
The battlefield use cases suggested by STM’s configuration are blunt. With anti-personnel warheads and synchronized timing, a swarm-enabled KARGU package could be used to suppress or collapse exposed positions, complicate trench movement, punish rapid displacement, or strike multiple firing points at the moment an enemy element reveals itself. In urban or complex terrain, the ability to allocate sub-swarms to separate targets increases the chance of simultaneous contact across a block, a courtyard, or a ridgeline, reducing the defender’s ability to mass fires or reposition after the first impact. If the same architecture is paired with mixed payloads, the logic STM describes, engaging targets based on payload type and target classification, points toward future swarms that can autonomously sort tasks across personnel and vehicle sets.
Strategically, STM is positioning this test as a threshold event for Turkiye’s standing in autonomous warfare. STM General Manager Özgür Güleryüz argued the achievement carries strategic significance, presenting swarm UAVs as a modern battlefield game-changer and claiming the coordinated live-ammunition engagement demonstrates the level Turkiye has reached in autonomous systems, artificial intelligence, and swarm warfare concepts. STM also asserts that live-fire swarm attack capability is held by only a limited number of nations, and by making the claim in the context of detonating munitions rather than a choreography demo, the company is clearly aiming to elevate both deterrence messaging and export credibility.
The implication for rivals and partners is straightforward: swarm-enabled loitering munitions compress warning time, multiply aimpoints, and demand more defensive capacity per kilometer of front. That pushes armies toward layered counter-UAS, faster kill chains, tougher navigation resilience, and more ammunition dedicated to drone defense, all expensive answers to a comparatively cheap attacking logic. If STM can demonstrate repeatability, scale, and robustness under heavier electronic warfare conditions, this test becomes more than a headline. It becomes a marker that Turkiye’s drone industry is now chasing massed autonomy as a doctrine-shaping capability, not simply adding another UAV to a crowded market.
Written by Teoman S. Nicanci – Defense Analyst, Army Recognition Group
Teoman S. Nicanci holds degrees in Political Science, Comparative and International Politics, and International Relations and Diplomacy from leading Belgian universities, with research focused on Russian strategic behavior, defense technology, and modern warfare. He is a defense analyst at Army Recognition, specializing in the global defense industry, military armament, and emerging defense technologies.
