Where ATMACA Fits in the Global Anti-Ship Missile Market

ATMACA competes in the most crowded part of the anti-ship missile market: subsonic, sea-skimming weapons in the 200-250 km class, where its direct rivals are MBDA’s Exocet MM40 Block 3c, Kongsberg’s Naval Strike Missile, Saab’s RBS15 and South Korea’s Haeseong. ROKETSAN publishes a 250 km range and a 220 kg warhead, which places ATMACA at the long end of that bracket on range and at the heavy end on warhead mass. But range is not why it is winning orders. ATMACA’s market position rests on two things a datasheet does not show: an ITAR-free propulsion and seeker chain, and a supplier whose export licences do not run through Washington or Oslo.

The class ATMACA actually competes in

Anti-ship missiles sort into three commercial tiers, and confusing them is the single most common error in comparisons of this weapon.

The top tier is long-range and either stealthy or supersonic: Lockheed Martin’s AGM-158C LRASM, Russia’s Oniks, India and Russia’s BrahMos. These are strike weapons priced accordingly and sold to a short list of buyers. The bottom tier is short-range and cheap, dominated by Chinese C-802-family exports and older Exocet blocks still in circulation.

ATMACA sits in the middle tier, and so does almost every missile a mid-sized navy will realistically buy. This is the segment that arms corvettes, frigates and fast attack craft in the Gulf, Southeast Asia, the eastern Mediterranean and West Africa. It is where the volume is, where the competition is thickest, and where the decision is rarely made on kinematics.

Within that tier, ATMACA’s published numbers are competitive rather than dominant. Its 250 km figure beats the roughly 124 km of a ship-launched Harpoon Block II and the 200 km MBDA quotes for the Exocet MM40 Block 3c, and sits above Kongsberg’s published “in excess of 100 nautical miles” (about 185 km) for NSM. Its 220 kg warhead is close to Harpoon’s 221 kg and well above NSM’s roughly 120 kg. What it does not have is NSM’s shaped, low-observable airframe and passive imaging infrared terminal seeker, which is a genuinely different design philosophy: NSM trades warhead mass and range for a missile that does not announce itself with an active radar in the terminal phase.

The incumbent is leaving the new-build market

The reason this segment is moving at all in 2026 is Harpoon. Boeing’s missile has been the default Western anti-ship weapon since 1977, with roughly 6,000 rounds delivered and some 30 Foreign Military Sales partners. On 15 April 2026 the US Navy announced that the final, 300th missile of the Lot 91 multi-year production agreement had been delivered — a lot built largely to satisfy allied demand. No follow-on multi-year new-build lot has been announced, and the US Navy’s own successors are NSM for over-the-horizon surface launch and LRASM for air launch.

Harpoon is not disappearing. Block II Update obsolescence work continues and thousands of rounds remain in inventory worldwide. But for a navy that needs new missiles rather than refurbished ones, the most widely fielded anti-ship weapon in the world is no longer the obvious place to start a procurement. Thirty operators now face a replacement decision at roughly the same time, and everything in the middle tier is bidding for that traffic.

In 2026, export-licence risk stopped being theoretical

The clearest evidence for how this market now works came from Malaysia, and it did not involve a Turkish missile at all.

In April 2018 Malaysia contracted Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace for Naval Strike Missiles to arm six Maharaja Lela-class Littoral Combat Ships, in a deal reported at around €124 million. In March 2026, days before the missiles were due to ship, Norwegian authorities revoked the export licences, citing Norway’s national security interests. Malaysia had by then paid the great majority of its contractual obligations. The financial consequences followed quickly: Malaysia’s defence ministry confirmed a compensation claim of about RM1.06 billion — roughly €129.86 million in direct costs already paid plus about €96.26 million in indirect costs — and Defence Minister Mohamed Khaled Nordin said publicly that Norway’s action had damaged international trust.

Malaysia then reopened the requirement. On 28 June 2026 the minister said four suppliers from Türkiye, South Korea and two European countries had been shortlisted for the LCS missile, and he named the criteria in unusually plain terms: full interoperability with the ships’ French-built combat management system, and delivery speed. “If the delivery timeline takes up to eight years, that is not a viable option for us,” he said.

Separately, and before that competition concluded, Malaysia had already bought Turkish. On 22 April 2026 at the DSA exhibition in Kuala Lumpur, ROKETSAN signed a contract with Malaysia’s Ministry of Defence for 24 ATMACA rounds valued at €79.5 million (about RM369.2 million), to arm the three Littoral Mission Ship Batch 2 corvettes being built in Istanbul with STM as prime contractor. These are derivatives of the Ada-class design that anchors Türkiye’s MİLGEM family, so the missile and the hull came from the same industrial base.

The lesson a procurement officer takes from that sequence is not that Turkish missiles fly better. It is that supplier jurisdiction is a technical risk with a cash value, and that a weapon whose engine, seeker and licence all sit inside one country carries less of it.

How ATMACA compares on published figures

The table below uses only figures published by manufacturers or official programme material. Where a number is a manufacturer’s stated minimum it is shown as such. Terminal seeker type matters more than range in this class, because it determines how the missile behaves against modern electronic countermeasures.

Compiled by DefenceTürkiye from manufacturer product pages and official programme material. Figures that manufacturers describe as minimums are shown as minimums. No unpublished parameter has been estimated.

What ATMACA has actually sold

Two export contracts are on the public record, and both are small.

Indonesia was the first. Janes reported in January 2024 that Indonesia had contracted for 45 ATMACA rounds with associated launcher units and user terminals, through the local company PT Republik Defensindo. The value was not disclosed. In June 2025, at Indo Defence in Jakarta, ROKETSAN went further and signed a joint venture agreement with its Indonesian partner covering assembly and production of the missile in-country, with structured technology transfer and training for Indonesian engineers. A separate agreement with Türkiye’s Sefine Shipyard covers integrating ATMACA onto two KCR-70M fast attack craft being built for the Indonesian Navy.

Malaysia followed in April 2026 with the 24-round, €79.5 million LMS Batch 2 contract described above.

Set against NSM’s selection by around a dozen states, that is a thin order book. What it is not is a paper programme. Both customers are navies that can buy from anyone, both went through competitive evaluation, and Indonesia asked for — and got — local production rights rather than crated deliveries. That is a pattern Turkish industry uses deliberately, and one visible across its overseas manufacturing footprint.

The price question, and what €79.5 million does not tell you

ROKETSAN has never published an ATMACA unit price, and Türkiye’s Presidency of Defence Industries does not publish domestic procurement values product by product. Envanter Medya’s Turkish-language examination of why no ATMACA unit price has ever been released works through the reasons in detail; the short version is that anti-ship missiles are not shelf-priced anywhere in the world.

The Malaysian contract is therefore the first ATMACA deal with a published figure attached, and it is worth being precise about what it is. €79.5 million for 24 rounds divides out to about €3.3 million per missile — and that number is close to meaningless on its own. A naval missile package carries launchers, canisters, combat-system integration work, mission planning equipment, test rounds, spares, training and support, and the split between missile and everything else is never disclosed.

The same trap applies to the competition, which is the useful part. The two most concrete public references for Harpoon are US Defense Security Cooperation Agency notifications: Japan in May 2015, for 48 UGM-84L Block II rounds and associated support, estimated at $199 million; and Taiwan in October 2020, for up to 400 RGM-84L-4 rounds plus 100 coastal defence systems, 100 launcher transporters and 25 radar trucks, estimated at $2.37 billion. Divide naively and you get roughly $4.1 million and $5.9 million per missile — two wildly different answers for the same weapon, because the packages contain different things. Envanter Medya’s breakdown of those two Harpoon notifications is a good worked example of why the arithmetic misleads.

The honest comparative statement is narrow: ATMACA’s one published package price sits below the naive per-round figures derived from the Harpoon notifications, on a smaller and differently scoped package. Anyone quoting a firm ATMACA unit cost is guessing.

The supply chain behind the missile

ATMACA’s export argument only holds if the missile itself is free of third-country veto points, and this is where the programme’s history matters.

Early ATMACA airframes flew on the French Microturbo TRI-40. In March 2024 ROKETSAN announced that the missile had hit its target powered by the Kale KTJ-3200, a 3.2 kN turbojet developed in Türkiye and marketed by Kale as free of ITAR restrictions. The same engine family powers the SOM cruise missile, and a larger KTJ-3700 powers the land-launched variant. The radio-frequency seeker is ASELSAN’s. That combination is what lets Türkiye describe ATMACA as exportable on its own authority — a claim we have examined in general terms in our guide to what “ITAR-free” does and does not mean for Turkish weapons.

The engine has since become a product in its own right. On 5 April 2025 Kale signed an agreement to supply KTJ-3200 turbojets for Brazil’s MANSUP-ER anti-ship missile, with deliveries in batches over three years from late 2025. Türkiye is therefore simultaneously a competitor in this market and a component supplier to one of its competitors — a position that is rare, commercially sensible, and a reasonable indicator of where Turkish industry’s comparative advantage actually lies. ROKETSAN’s wider portfolio and its export constraints follow the same logic.

Where ATMACA is weak

Four limitations are worth stating plainly.

No public combat record. Harpoon, Exocet and Chinese C-802 derivatives have all been used in anger. ATMACA has an extensive test record — including a 2021 sinking exercise against a decommissioned hull — but no documented operational employment. For some buyers that is disqualifying; for most it is a discount factor.

A subsonic, conventionally shaped airframe. ROKETSAN claims low radar cross-section, but ATMACA is not a shaped stealth design in the NSM sense, and it is not supersonic. Against a modern layered air defence it faces the same problem as Harpoon and Exocet.

An active radar terminal seeker. This is a design choice with real advantages — reacquisition, re-attack, all-weather performance — but it emits, and the missile’s most credible Western competitor deliberately does not.

A two-customer export record. Sixty-nine rounds across two contracts is not yet a market position; it is a bridgehead. Whether it becomes one depends heavily on tenders that are still open.

What comes next

Three announced developments will move ATMACA’s standing, and all three are on the public record.

The submarine-launched variant, designated AKATA, was test-fired from a Turkish Navy submarine on 12 March 2025 and unveiled at IDEF 2025. It is an encapsulated round for standard 533 mm torpedo tubes, launchable from between 15 and 60 metres, with the same 250 km-plus reach. That adds the submarine market to ATMACA’s addressable base and is directly relevant to Türkiye’s own MİLDEN submarine programme.

The land-attack role is being expanded in two directions. On 27 March 2026 ROKETSAN announced that an ATMACA fired from the corvette TCG Burgazada struck a designated land coordinate, giving surface ships a coastal strike option from the same launcher. Separately, the truck-launched KARA ATMACA land-attack cruise missile entered Turkish Land Forces service, with deliveries confirmed by Defence Minister Yaşar Güler in April 2026, and a NATO press release of 7 July 2026 recorded Türkiye committing to procure a substantial number of them.

The Malaysian LCS decision is the nearest-term commercial test. If ATMACA is selected to arm the Maharaja Lela-class after Norway’s licence revocation, it will be the first time a Turkish missile has directly replaced a cancelled Western system on a Western-designed warship — and the first ATMACA integration onto a foreign combat management system. If it is not selected, the reason will be equally informative.

FAQ

What is the range of the ATMACA missile?

ROKETSAN publishes 250 km for the ship-launched ATMACA. The submarine-launched AKATA variant is described as exceeding 250 km. The larger truck-launched land-attack version is a different weapon with different published figures.

Which countries have bought ATMACA?

Two export customers are on the public record. Indonesia contracted for 45 rounds with launchers and user terminals, reported by Janes in January 2024, and signed a co-production joint venture in June 2025. Malaysia signed for 24 rounds worth €79.5 million on 22 April 2026. Türkiye’s own navy and land forces are the largest operators.

How much does an ATMACA missile cost?

No unit price has ever been published. The only public contract value is Malaysia’s €79.5 million for 24 rounds, which works out at roughly €3.3 million each — but that package also covers launchers, integration, support and spares in undisclosed proportions, so it is not a missile price.

Is ATMACA better than Harpoon?

They are not straightforwardly rankable. ATMACA’s published range is roughly double that of a ship-launched Harpoon Block II and its warhead is comparable, and it is a newer design with a datalink offering target update, re-attack and mission abort. Harpoon has a vastly larger installed base, a combat record, four decades of integration work on hundreds of ship classes, and a support ecosystem ATMACA cannot match. For a navy already operating Harpoon, the practical question is which replacement is available and integrable, not which is better.

Is ATMACA ITAR-free?

ROKETSAN and Kale present the current configuration as free of US export-control content. The KTJ-3200 turbojet that has powered the missile since 2024 is Turkish-developed and marketed as ITAR-free, replacing the French Microturbo TRI-40 used on early airframes, and the radio-frequency seeker is ASELSAN’s. Buyers should still verify the specific configuration they are offered rather than rely on a general claim.

Can ATMACA be produced under licence in the buyer’s country?

Indonesia’s June 2025 joint venture agreement covers in-country assembly and production with technology transfer and engineer training, so the answer on current evidence is yes, at least for buyers of sufficient scale. The terms of that arrangement have not been published.

Has ATMACA been used in combat?

There is no publicly documented operational use. The programme’s record is a test record, including a 2021 sinking exercise and repeated live firings from corvettes, frigates and a submarine.

Sources

• ROKETSAN, ATMACA Anti-Ship Missile product page — published range, warhead, guidance, seeker, mission capabilities and launch platforms
• Naval News, Malaysia taps Roketsan for Atmaca anti-ship missiles, 23 April 2026 — contract date, quantity and value
• Malay Mail, Malaysia shortlists four countries for new LCS anti-ship missile system, 28 June 2026 — the defence minister’s criteria and the NSM licence revocation
• Janes, Indonesia awards contract for 45 Atmaca anti-ship missile rounds — the first export contract
• Janes, NATO summit 2026: Türkiye furthers Atmaca procurement — the 7 July 2026 NATO press release and Turkish land-based procurement
• Army Recognition, US Navy delivers final Lot 91 Harpoon Block II missile, 15 April 2026 — Harpoon production and operator numbers
• Naval News, Turkish Navy to outfit 11 platforms with Atmaca AShMs until 2027 — the STM integration contract
• Defense News, Turkey’s own Atmaca missile to replace Harpoons on its Navy ships — the Turkish Harpoon inventory being replaced
• Quwa, Kale sells KTJ-3200 turbojets for Brazil’s MANSUP-ER — the 5 April 2025 engine agreement
• The Defense Post, Turkish Atmaca anti-ship missile completes first submarine launch, March 2025 — the AKATA firing
• Army Recognition, ATMACA demonstrates land-attack strike capability from TCG Burgazada, March 2026
• US Defense Security Cooperation Agency notifications to Congress (Japan, May 2015; Taiwan, October 2020) — the Harpoon package reference values
• MBDA and Kongsberg product material, and Royal Australian Navy weapon pages, for the published Exocet MM40 Block 3c, Harpoon Block II and Naval Strike Missile figures used in the comparison table