STM’s Kargu drones perform historic live-fire swarm attack

Turkish defence company STM has achieved a world first in autonomous warfare by deploying a swarm of 20 kamikaze drones armed with live explosives during a military exercise in southwestern Türkiye. The operation occurred during the night phase of the EFES-2026 drills, where the Kargu drones destroyed their targets using a highly coordinated saturation attack.

Advanced autonomous coordination

The drones were launched and monitored by a single human operator, leveraging domestically developed algorithms and a distributed architecture to autonomously navigate the combat zone. The swarm’s intelligence system enabled real‑time communication to identify, classify, and distribute targets once in the designated airspace. The drones executed a simultaneous dive and detonated their anti‑personnel warheads with high accuracy. STM General Manager Ozgur Guleryuz stated that the deployment demonstrated the operational maturity of autonomous systems on the battlefield.

Proven combat system

The baseline Kargu system, fully developed through domestic means, entered Turkish Armed Forces inventory in 2018. The rotary‑wing drone has been extensively used for counter‑terrorism, special forces, and cross‑border operations. STM has exported the system to 15 countries. Kargu features electro‑optical and infrared cameras for precision day‑and‑night strikes, over 30 minutes of endurance, a 10‑km operational range, and in‑house software allowing effective operation even when GPS is jammed. The success marks a major milestone for Türkiye’s rapidly growing defence industry.