Siper

The missile Turkey built because nobody would sell it one — the Siper ("rampart") is Ankara's indigenous long-range surface-to-air system, conceived after Washington wouldn't transfer Patriot on Turkish terms and the Russian S-400 purchase got Turkey expelled from the F-35 program and sanctioned. Now the 100-plus-kilometer top tier of the "Steel Dome" national air-defense network, Block 1 entered service with formal induction in January 2026; a 150 km Block 2 is in live-fire testing, ballistic-missile-defense blocks are announced — and every performance figure remains a Turkish official claim awaiting independent test.

Overview

The Siper (originally HİSAR-U, for uzun menzil — long-range) crowns the air-defense family that Aselsan, Roketsan and TÜBİTAK SAGE built to give Turkey what neither ally nor adversary would provide: a sovereign long-range SAM. The Block 1 missile — a scaled-up HİSAR-RF with an ATMACA-derived booster, active radar seeker and dual-pulse motor — engages at 100+ km and 20+ km altitude (official figures), fired from six-round trailer launchers in 14-vehicle batteries built around two Aselsan AESA radars: the ALP 310-G early-warning set (500–600 km detection claimed) and the AKREP 1000-G fire-control radar. It is the outermost layer of the Steel Dome (Çelik Kubbe) — the integrated network announced in August 2024 that stacks SUNGUR MANPADS, KORKUT guns, GÜRZ point defense and the HİSAR-A/O tiers under AI-supported command-and-control, with $460 million of hardware delivered in a single August 2025 ceremony and $6.5 billion in expansion contracts signed that November. The roadmap runs through a Block 2 (150+ km, larger monoblock missile — live-fire tested against an evasively maneuvering target drone in June 2026), a planned Block 3 (180+ km with anti-ballistic capability) and a Block 4 announced in May 2026 as Steel Dome's upper-tier missile defense. The caveats are structural: no combat record, no independent verification of any figure, and coverage dominated by Turkish state-adjacent outlets — the Siper is a serious program whose numbers must all be read as claims.

🔒 The full Siper file is for BattlePolicy Pro members. Below the line: development history, design and capabilities, variants, the combat record, advantages and limitations, comparable systems, outlook, the full specifications table, our sourcing, and the analyst assessment — procurement, suppliers and the BattlePolicy verdict. Unlock the full file with BattlePolicy Pro →