Breaking News
MKE’s ALPAY Rocket Mine-Clearer Propels Türkiye Alongside U.S. and Russian Breaching Platforms.
Türkiye’s MKE has showcased the ALPAY rocket-propelled mine-clearing system, a line charge platform designed to carve safe lanes through dense minefields. The system positions Ankara as a growing competitor in an area long dominated by U.S. and Russian breaching vehicles, a shift with real implications for modern land warfare.
On 9 December 2025, Türkiye’s state-owned defence manufacturer Makine ve Kimya Endüstrisi (MKE) highlighted its ALPAY Mine-Clearing System, a rocket-propelled line charge designed to open safe corridors through dense minefields. In a context where the wars in Ukraine, the Middle East and the Sahel have brought back large-scale mine warfare, the emergence of a new domestic breaching system is strategically significant for Ankara and its partners. According to recent information and visuals shared by Makine ve Kimya Endüstrisi on X, ALPAY employs a 400 kg C4 explosive line charge to clear 10×100 m lanes with a claimed 99% reliability rate, fired up to around 200 m in front of the launcher. This makes ALPAY a direct competitor to long-established U.S. and Russian mine-clearing vehicles such as the M1150 Assault Breacher Vehicle and the UR-77 Meteorit.
Türkiye’s MKE is promoting its ALPAY rocket-propelled mine-clearing system, a 400-kilogram C4 line charge that opens 10-by-100-meter lanes and rivals U.S. M1150 ABV and Russian UR 77 Meteorit systems (Picture Source: U.S. DoD / MKE / Russian MoD)
Developed entirely with national engineering and domestic technologies, ALPAY has been conceived as a high-capacity line-charge module rather than a dedicated armoured vehicle. Trailer-mounted, it can be towed by armoured personnel carriers, tanks or military trucks, allowing combat engineers to tailor the platform to the mission profile and terrain. The system fires a rocket-propelled line charge containing 400 kg of C4, which can be projected up to 200 m ahead, creating a cleared corridor about 10 m wide and 100 m long while neutralising mines buried down to roughly one metre. MKE states that two operators can ready ALPAY for firing in around 15 minutes and that the equipment is designed for all-weather use, expanding its usefulness from high-intensity manoeuvre warfare to more static border security missions.
Operationally, ALPAY embodies Türkiye’s desire to combine industrial autonomy with tactical flexibility. The system is reported to be effective against both anti-tank and anti-personnel mines and is already in service with Turkish forces in operational zones and border areas, where mine threats remain persistent. Because the launcher is not tied to a single expensive chassis, the same line-charge technology can theoretically be integrated on a variety of platforms, from heavy armoured vehicles leading a deliberate breach to lighter trucks supporting infantry or gendarmerie units. In a NATO framework, this modularity could allow Türkiye to deploy ALPAY on coalition operations or to offer tailored configurations to partner nations facing extensive mine contamination, including Ukraine or countries engaged in UN peacekeeping demining tasks. At the same time, the fully domestic design reduces dependence on foreign components at a moment when export controls and sanctions can rapidly degrade breaching capabilities.
Compared with its U.S. counterpart, the M1150 Assault Breacher Vehicle, ALPAY represents a different doctrinal choice. The M1150 is a heavily armoured engineering vehicle based on the M1 Abrams tank chassis, weighing over 70 tonnes and combining a powerful front mine plow with dual M58 MICLIC rocket-propelled line charges. Each MICLIC line is roughly 107 m long and carries about 790 kg of C4, enabling the ABV to clear a lane around 8–14 m wide and about 100 m long per charge, depending on soil and mine density. The ABV, used extensively by U.S. Marines and Army units in Afghanistan and now by Ukrainian forces, is designed to advance under direct fire with the armour protection of a main battle tank. It can plow and blast its way through complex obstacle belts but comes with high acquisition and operating costs, considerable logistical demands and a reliance on the Abrams supply chain. In that sense, the ABV is a specialised niche asset for top-tier armoured formations rather than a widely exportable solution.
The Russian UR-77 Meteorit, by contrast, is an older but still widely used system that illustrates another model in minefield breaching. Based on the 2S1 Gvozdika self-propelled howitzer chassis, the UR-77 carries two rocket-propelled line charges (MDK-3) that, once launched, create a corridor around 6 m wide and up to roughly 90 m long. The system has been in service since the late 1970s and has seen combat in the Chechen wars, the Syrian conflict and, more recently, in the war in Ukraine, where both Russian and Ukrainian forces have employed it. Reports from Syria and Ukraine indicate that the UR-77 has sometimes been used in an offensive urban role, detonating its line charges to demolish buildings or fortified positions over an entire street front, underlining the destructive potential of such systems beyond pure mine clearance. While effective, the Meteorit reflects Soviet-era design priorities: it offers limited crew protection by contemporary standards, lacks integrated lane-marking systems and is optimised for relatively narrow corridors tailored to older mechanised formations.
Placed beside the ABV and UR-77, ALPAY occupies a middle ground that is significant from both an operational and geopolitical perspective. Its 10 m × 100 m corridor is comparable to the lanes produced by Western line-charge systems, while the claimed 99% clearance reliability and 200 m stand-off provide tactical reassurance to advancing units without exposing an expensive heavy chassis to the initial blast. For militaries that cannot afford to field specialised breacher tanks or that operate a heterogeneous fleet of armoured vehicles, a trailer-mounted, high-capacity line charge offers a more affordable way to modernise breaching capabilities. At the same time, Türkiye positions itself as a supplier of a contemporary alternative to Russian equipment in markets where UR-77-type systems have long been dominant, from the Middle East to parts of Africa and Asia.
Beyond the technical comparison, ALPAY’s emergence speaks to broader strategic trends. Minefields and improvised explosive devices have re-emerged as key instruments in positional warfare, as seen along the front lines in Ukraine, where dense belts of anti-tank and anti-personnel mines have slowed mechanised manoeuvre and raised casualty rates. The ability to open a reliable corridor quickly, under fire and with limited manpower, is now a central requirement not only for NATO’s eastern flank but also for states facing insurgent threats or protecting contested borders. By fielding a domestically designed line-charge system and putting it into operational service, Türkiye signals that it intends to be self-sufficient in this critical capability and to offer an export product that competes directly with established U.S. and Russian solutions. This adds another layer to Ankara’s broader strategy of leveraging its defence industry to gain influence in regions exposed to the long-term consequences of mine warfare.
As minefields continue to shape modern battlefields and post-conflict environments, systems like ALPAY will increasingly determine whether mechanised forces can manoeuvre and whether civilian populations can safely return to contaminated areas. MKE’s trailer-mounted line-charge solution, with its 400 kg C4 payload, 10×100 m corridors and claimed 99% reliability, offers Türkiye a flexible breaching tool that can be deployed with various platforms and exported to partners seeking alternatives to U.S. and Russian equipment. In a world where access to high-end armoured breachers is limited and legacy Soviet systems raise questions about survivability and collateral damage, ALPAY gives Ankara a credible, domestically controlled option that could influence both the tactical conduct of future operations and the strategic balance in the global market for combat engineering systems.