ASELSAN’s SMASH 300 Naval Gun Debuts With First Firing Tests
ASELSAN has put a new naval gun through its first public firing trials, unveiling the SMASH 300 remote-controlled weapon station on September 19 as the latest addition to a product line that has already sold more than 560 units to 18 countries.
The 25mm system fired for the first time at the Karapınar test range in Konya, central Türkiye, with a pre-production unit engaging both surface targets and small aerial threats during the trial. ASELSAN said the tests demonstrated the weapon’s ability to work against mini and micro-class drones as well as conventional surface threats — the two categories of target that now dominate naval planners’ threat assessments from the Black Sea to the Red Sea.
What SMASH 300 Adds
SMASH 300 is built around ASELSAN’s ATOM smart ammunition, a programmable air-burst round designed to detonate at a set distance from a target rather than relying on a direct hit — a feature aimed squarely at small, fast-moving drones that are difficult to strike with conventional rounds. The company says the new variant carries a larger ammunition load than earlier SMASH systems and adds an upgraded electro-optical suite, combining thermal and daylight cameras with a laser rangefinder and target-classification software.
ASELSAN has not disclosed the system’s engagement range, rate of fire, or pricing, and the Karapınar trials involved a pre-prototype rather than a production-standard unit. Company statements describe the tests as validating the design’s core functions rather than marking the start of serial production.
The SMASH family dates to 2006 and has grown into one of ASELSAN’s most widely exported product lines, with the company citing roughly 10 percent global market share in the stabilized remote weapon station category — a segment also contested by Israeli, South Korean and European suppliers. Earlier SMASH 200 variants, built around 25mm and 30mm guns, are already in service on Turkish and export naval platforms; SMASH 300 is pitched as the next step in that lineage rather than a replacement for it.
Why It Matters
Naval remote weapon stations have become a crowded but strategically important market since 2022, as low-cost first-person-view and loitering drones have proven capable of damaging or sinking warships far more expensive than the drones themselves. Navies that once relied on large-caliber close-in weapon systems for last-ditch defense are now shopping for cheaper, faster-reacting guns that can engage swarms of small targets without expending expensive interceptor missiles.
For ASELSAN, a fast-reacting counter-drone gun fits directly into the wider Çelik Kubbe (Steel Dome) air-defense architecture the company has been building out across land, air and naval domains, alongside systems such as GÜRZ and KORKUT. A naval-specific, AI-assisted variant gives ASELSAN another offering to set against the growing number of counter-drone weapons entering the market worldwide, at a time when the company’s SMASH line already has an export track record that few competitors in this niche can match.
No customer or delivery timeline has been announced for SMASH 300. ASELSAN’s own account of the trials frames the system as newly revealed rather than combat-ready, and further testing — including live-fire qualification with production-representative hardware — would typically precede any order.
