SARP is ASELSAN's family of stabilized remote weapon stations and the most widely fielded Turkish RCWS, with more than 3,000 units built by early 2021. The baseline SARP 100/12.7 configuration mounts a 12.7 mm machine gun and equips vehicles of the Turkish Army, the Gendarmerie and the police, while export variants serve land and naval customers.
| At a glance | |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer | ASELSAN |
| Operators | Turkish Armed Forces, Gendarmerie, National Police; export customers |
| Program | ASELSAN product line integrated into multiple SSB vehicle programs |
| Production | More than 3,000 built by early 2021 |
| Weapons | 7.62 mm and 12.7 mm machine guns, or 40 mm grenade launcher |
What is the SARP?
SARP keeps the gunner under armor. From a console inside the vehicle, the operator observes by day and night, detects and tracks targets and fires, and stabilization allows accurate fire on the move against moving targets. ASELSAN lists automatic target tracking, automatic ballistic computation, laser ranging and round counting among its functions.
Because the weapon sits on a stabilized mount controlled remotely, the same station can be installed on armored vehicles of very different sizes, from police vehicles to naval vessels. That flexibility, together with a large production base, is why SARP appears as a building block in many other SSB vehicle programs rather than as a stand-alone project.
Key features
Per ASELSAN's July 2025 SARP 100/12.7 data sheet, the station accepts several 7.62 mm guns (PMT 7.62, FN MAG58, M240, PKM), 12.7 mm guns (PMT 12.7, M2HB, NSV, MT12-QCB) and the MK19 Mod3 40 mm automatic grenade launcher. Elevation runs from -30 to +60 degrees with continuous 360-degree traverse. Weight is 212-330 kg without weapon and ammunition, and varies with armor and sensor choices.
The sensors are a day camera, a thermal imager and a laser rangefinder. Options include STANAG 4569 armor, wireless control, under-armor reloading, ATOM 40 ABM smart ammunition and smoke launchers. The ability to accept Western and Eastern-bloc machine guns alike has been an important factor in export campaigns.
Program, service and exports
SARP is used by the Turkish Armed Forces, the Gendarmerie General Command and the National Police. Published figures put more than 2,000 units in Turkish security service and total deliveries at 3,100 by the end of 2020. Current totals are not disclosed.
In April 2020 ASELSAN signed an RCWS contract with an unnamed NATO member, taking the number of countries for which it has designed and built remote weapon stations to 20. The same month it signed for SARP DUAL with Kazakhstan, and in May 2020 Bahrain ordered SARP for naval vessels, the system's first shipborne application.
SARP competes with Kongsberg's Protector, best known as the U.S. Army's CROWS, Rafael's Samson family, Elbit's stations and EOS's R400. Its selling points are a large fielded base, broad weapon compatibility and integration of smart 40 mm ammunition.
Source: Envanter Medya