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Türkiye Conducts First Shipborne TB3 Drone Precision Strike from TCG Anadolu in NATO Baltic Exercise.
A Bayraktar TB3 unmanned combat aerial vehicle launched from the amphibious assault ship TCG Anadolu conducted a live maritime strike during NATO exercise Steadfast Dart 2026 on 14 February 2026. The event signals Türkiye’s transition from demonstration trials to an operational naval drone capability integrated into allied command structures.
On 14 February 2026, Türkiye’s Ministry of National Defence announced that a Bayraktar TB3 unmanned combat aerial vehicle embarked on the drone-carrying amphibious assault ship TCG Anadolu had executed a live maritime strike during NATO exercise Steadfast Dart 2026 in the Baltic Sea. According to the official statement published on the ministry’s verified X account, the TB3 took off from the ship, engaged a surface target with two MAM-L precision-guided munitions and then recovered safely back on board. This marks the first time a Turkish shipborne UCAV has flown a complete combat profile from a naval platform within a NATO exercise, turning a national demonstration program into an operationally relevant capability under allied command.
A Bayraktar TB3 unmanned combat drone launched from Türkiye’s TCG Anadolu executed a live precision strike on a Baltic Sea target during NATO’s Steadfast Dart 2026 exercise, marking the first operational shipborne UCAV combat profile flown by the Turkish Navy under allied command (Picture Source: Turkish MoD, Baykar, GIS Geography)
The mission took place as Steadfast Dart 2026, NATO’s largest exercise of the year, entered its main phase. The drill is designed as a joint deployment test for the newly created Allied Reaction Force, with around 10,000 personnel, more than 1,500 vehicles and 17 ships from over a dozen allies validating rapid reinforcement towards the Baltic region by sea, land and air. For Türkiye, choosing the Baltic Sea as the scene for the first combat use of a shipborne UCAV in a NATO context is more than a technical milestone: it signals that Ankara is prepared to project its indigenous unmanned capabilities well beyond home waters and integrate them into multi-domain allied operations on Europe’s northern flank.
Operationally, the sortie showcased the full ship-to-target cycle that underpins the Turkish “drone carrier” concept. The TB3 launched from Anadolu’s ski-jump deck, climbed to its working altitude over the exercise area, located and engaged a designated surface target with two Roketsan MAM-L glide munitions, then returned to the ship and landed on the same deck from which it had departed. The entire sequence was conducted under NATO airspace control and safety procedures, proving that Anadolu’s flight deck, combat system and communications architecture can sustain live weapon employment by a UCAV within an allied task group. The mission validates not only the technical integration between ship and drone but also the doctrinal and procedural work that allows a Turkish unmanned strike asset to plug into NATO’s command-and-control framework.
The TB3 strike is also the most visible element of a much larger Turkish force package at Steadfast Dart 2026. Ankara is fielding roughly 2,000 personnel to the exercise, representing about one fifth of the total troops deployed under the Allied Reaction Force flag. Alongside TCG Anadolu, the Turkish naval contribution includes the new I-class frigate TCG Istanbul and the modernised Barbaros-class frigate TCG Oruçreis, providing area air defence, anti-submarine warfare and surface combat capabilities. On the land side, the 66th Mechanised Infantry Brigade has been embarked on Anadolu with BMC Vuran 4x4 tactical armoured vehicles and logistics elements. In this context, the TB3 is not a stand-alone technology demonstrator but the aerial overwatch and precision fire-support component of a joint amphibious force, able to monitor landing areas, track small surface contacts threatening the brigade and deliver timely, scalable effects from the sea.
TCG Anadolu itself sits at the centre of this concept. Derived from the Spanish Juan Carlos I design, the 232-metre, roughly 27,000-ton vessel is officially classed as an amphibious assault ship but has been reconfigured by the Turkish Navy to act as a drone carrier with a full-length flight deck and ski-jump ramp. Anadolu combines a large well deck for landing craft, a vehicle deck capable of carrying armoured units, a hospital and extensive command-and-control facilities with the ability to embark a sizeable unmanned air wing. Turkish sources indicate capacity for several dozen UCAVs, supported by the GENESIS-ADVENT combat management system and modern 3D radar and electro-optical sensors. Originally conceived as a platform for short take-off and vertical landing fighter aircraft before Türkiye’s exclusion from the F-35 program, Anadolu has become a flagship for a different model of power projection where unmanned aviation, amphibious forces and surface combatants are tightly integrated.
The Bayraktar TB3, developed by Baykar, is the central enabler of that model. Purpose-built as a carrier-capable medium-altitude long-endurance UCAV, the TB3 has an 8.35-metre fuselage, 14-metre wingspan with folding outer panels and a maximum take-off weight in the 1.45–1.6-tonne class. It can carry up to 280 kg of payload on six underwing hardpoints and is powered by a TEI-PD170 turbodiesel engine, giving it endurance beyond 24 hours depending on loadout. Unlike its land-based predecessor TB2, the TB3 is tailored to ship operations: reinforced landing gear, low stall speed and the ability to launch from a short ski-jump allow it to take off and land on an LHD-class ship without catapults or arresting wires. In its baseline configuration the TB3 carries an ASELFLIR-500 electro-optical/infrared turret for day-night surveillance and targeting; test campaigns and industry statements point to options for a small X-band active electronically scanned array radar, electronic warfare pods and even sonobuoy dispensers, turning the aircraft into a modular sensor node for surface, sub-surface and electronic surveillance.
From the perspective of an amphibious task force, this combination of endurance and modular payload is as important as the TB3’s strike role. Compared with traditional shipborne helicopters, the UCAV offers significantly longer time on station and lower operating costs, albeit at lower speed and with greater vulnerability in highly contested airspace. In a Baltic scenario, a TB3 orbiting ahead of an amphibious group can maintain continuous watch over landing beaches, choke points and approaches used by small surface combatants or unmanned boats. Equipped with radar or a wide-area EO/IR system, it can contribute to early detection of fast attack craft or missile-armed patrol boats moving under cover of coastal clutter. If sonobuoy and acoustic processing payloads are integrated as planned, TB3 could also provide basic anti-submarine awareness in shallow coastal waters, acting as a “poor man’s” airborne early warning and ASW asset for mid-sized navies that lack dedicated fixed-wing patrol aircraft.
The live firing in the Baltic showcased one specific part of this toolbox: precision engagement using Roketsan’s MAM-L smart micro munition. Official data describe MAM-L as a lightweight, semi-active laser-guided glide weapon approximately 1 m long, 160 mm in diameter and weighing about 22 kg, with an effective range of up to 15 km when released from altitude. Warhead options include tandem anti-armour, high-explosive blast-fragmentation and thermobaric charges suited for targets ranging from main battle tanks and light armoured vehicles to personnel, radar sites and small craft. In the Baltic Sea engagement, the TB3’s use of two MAM-L rounds against a single surface target demonstrated the ability to deliver controlled, repeated effects with limited collateral risk in a congested maritime environment. Looking beyond this single weapon, the TB3’s six hardpoints and 280-kg payload allow it to carry a mixed load of munitions, including MAM-T glide bombs for longer-range strikes, the UAV-122 aeroballistic missile and the KEMANKEŞ-1 loitering munition, while future integration plans mention TOLUN small diameter bombs and SUNGUR short-range air-to-air missiles. A single airframe can therefore combine target designation, initial strike and follow-up attack or area denial in one sortie.
Turkish testing in recent years has also highlighted how TB3 fits into a broader unmanned kill chain at sea. During earlier exercises in the Eastern Mediterranean, TB3s operating from Anadolu have directed ASELSAN’s ALBATROS-S unmanned surface vehicles onto sea targets, acting as off-board sensors and communications relays that overcome the line-of-sight limits of a surface platform. In such scenarios, the UCAV identifies and tracks a hostile vessel, relays its coordinates to a swarm of kamikaze USVs or to anti-ship missiles fired from ships or coastal batteries, and can provide mid-course updates to weapons in flight. The Baltic strike itself used only MAM-L, but it underlines TB3’s role as an airborne node that can fuse surveillance, targeting and weapon guidance for multiple effectors. Extrapolated to a NATO context, a TB3 launched from Anadolu could in principle feed targeting data not only to Turkish weapons but, if interfaces are standardised, to allied ships and missile systems, reinforcing the alliance’s distributed maritime strike networks.
Beyond operations, the capability also has an industrial and European dimension. In 2025, Leonardo and Baykar created the 50/50 joint venture LBA Systems, headquartered in Italy, to co-develop and produce unmanned systems including the TB3. Public statements by Leonardo executives indicate that certification of TB3 on Italian flight-deck ships is targeted for 2026, with production lines planned at facilities such as Ronchi dei Legionari. Through LBA Systems, Leonardo is proposing to integrate its own payloads onto TB3, notably Osprey AESA radars, LEOSS-T electro-optical/infrared turrets and ULISSES acoustic processors for sonobuoy-based ASW. If these plans materialise, a Turkish-designed UCAV produced in the European Union and equipped with European sensors could operate from EU navies’ amphibious ships, offering a relatively affordable carrier-capable drone option and deepening industrial interdependence inside NATO.
Anadolu’s deployment to the Baltic and the TB3’s live strike tie together several strands of Turkish maritime policy. The “Blue Homeland” doctrine, articulated by Turkish naval officers since the mid-2000s, emphasises securing wider maritime zones in the Black Sea, Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean as a pillar of national autonomy. Over the past decade that doctrine has driven a major modernisation of the fleet and the development of indigenous sensors, weapons and platforms. By projecting a drone-equipped amphibious flagship into the Baltic under NATO colours, Ankara demonstrates that these investments do not only serve national disputes in the Eastern Mediterranean but can be leveraged for collective defence on the alliance’s northern flank. For potential adversaries, including Russia’s Baltic Fleet, the appearance of a drone carrier capable of persistent surveillance and precision strikes complicates planning for sea denial and coastal defence, even if TB3 itself is not optimised for penetrating dense integrated air defence systems.
At the same time, the capability is not without constraints. The TB3 remains a non-stealth, propeller-driven aircraft whose survivability against modern medium- and long-range surface-to-air missiles or fighter aircraft is limited, especially in heavily contested airspace. Its dependence on data links makes it vulnerable to electronic warfare and jamming, which are likely to feature prominently in any high-intensity conflict in the Baltic region. These vulnerabilities underline the need to operate TB3 under the protective umbrella of shipborne air defence and electronic warfare assets and within carefully planned airspace control measures. They also mean that, in a NATO context, UCAV operations must be harmonised with stringent identification and deconfliction procedures in crowded sea lanes, which can slow the tempo of strikes even when sensors and weapons would technically allow rapid engagement.
However, the Bayraktar TB3’s successful MAM-L strike from TCG Anadolu during Steadfast Dart 2026 confirms that Türkiye’s drone-carrier concept has left the experimental phase and entered the realm of operational contribution to allied deterrence. The combination of a large amphibious ship configured as a UCAV platform, a carrier-capable drone with long endurance and modular payloads, and a growing family of indigenous precision munitions and unmanned surface vehicles gives the Turkish Navy, and by extension NATO, a new instrument for maritime surveillance and strike in contested littorals. As LBA Systems prepares to bring TB3 into European production lines and other navies explore similar concepts, the Baltic Sea demonstration is likely to serve as a reference point for future doctrine on how unmanned air wings can be integrated into amphibious task groups and multinational naval forces. For now, the image of a Turkish UCAV launching from an amphibious ship in the Baltic and returning after a successful strike encapsulates a broader shift: unmanned systems have become central, not peripheral, to how the alliance plans to fight and deter at sea.
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.