Alpagu should not be confused with the Alpagut, a much larger, unrelated STM and Roketsan joint project that shares little beyond a name root; the two systems, and the reasons they are so often mixed up in casual coverage, are addressed in Variants below.⁴ This article covers Alpagu specifically: its specifications, its slower-than-expected path into Turkish service, its two confirmed export deals, and how it stacks up against fixed-wing rivals like the AeroVironment Switchblade 300 and the Rafael Spike Firefly.

The production airframe measures 653 mm in length with a 105 mm body diameter and an 883 mm wingspan, and the complete round weighs 1.95 kg.² STM's own current product page and independent trade-press coverage both cite a 270 g warhead optimized for anti-personnel effect, though this figure is not universal across secondary sources: at least one drone-cataloguing site lists a 500 g payload and another lists 1.3 kg, a number that appears to conflate Alpagu with Kargu-2's larger 1.3 kg payload capacity.^2,5,14,15 This article treats STM's own 270 g figure, corroborated by Army Technology's independent write-up, as the primary spec.

Propulsion and flight figures are more consistent. Alpagu cruises at roughly 21 m/s (about 76 km/h) and reaches a maximum speed near 28 m/s (about 101 km/h), figures that line up closely with a separate catalog entry citing 105 km/h.^2,14 Typical operating altitude runs 80-200 m above ground level, though at least one summary cites a maximum launch trajectory height of around 400 m, a figure this article treats as a peak rather than a cruise altitude rather than a contradiction of the lower operating band.^2,16 The airframe tolerates wind gusts up to 12 m/s and is launched from its tube by a gas-generator system rather than a rocket motor, keeping the launch signature small.²

Reported endurance sits at 15 minutes across STM's own materials, Army Technology, and multiple trade-press summaries, though one lower-confidence aggregator lists 10 minutes.^2,14 Range is the least settled figure in Alpagu's public specifications: STM's current product materials and a January 2026 Janes report both describe an 8 km line-of-sight control distance, while other summaries, including a Polish-language encyclopedia entry and the marketing framing used to introduce the larger Alpagu-B, describe Alpagu's range as roughly 10 km.^2,9,17 This article treats 8 km as the primary figure sourced to STM's current materials and Janes, and notes 10 km as a commonly repeated but unconfirmed alternative.

Targeting relies on a wide-angle electro-optical/infrared sensor for day and night operation, paired with onboard AI-assisted image processing that tracks a designated target through Alpagu's terminal dive.⁵ STM describes the control architecture as following a man-in-the-loop principle: the mission computer and flight-control system navigate autonomously, but an operator must identify and authorize the target before the terminal strike, mirroring the same operating concept STM uses for Kargu-2.^5,2 The datalink uses AES-256 encryption, and the munition carries a MIL-STD-331-compliant electronic safety, arming, and fuzing system along with a mission-abort and self-destruct capability, safety features aimed at preventing an unauthorized or stray detonation.²

STM first previewed Alpagu's development publicly around 2020, when Turkish trade press reported the fixed-wing munition was expected to enter the Turkish Armed Forces' inventory by the end of that year.¹¹ That target slipped: in mid-2021, STM's general manager Özgür Güleryüz said Alpagu — by then described as weighing 1.9 kg and having passed initial firing tests — was instead expected to enter service by the end of 2021.^12,18 On 18 June 2021, STM staged a live-fire test at the Aksaray Shooting Range in which an Alpagu round flew for about 10 minutes, tracked its target using onboard image-tracking software, and destroyed it with a live warhead; Turkey's then-Presidency of Defense Industries chairman İsmail Demir announced the test's success publicly.¹⁸

Alpagu reached its first export customer before it was formally accepted into Turkish service at all: STM announced in November 2023 that the fixed-wing system, "developed based on wholly indigenous and national resources," had passed all field tests and been delivered in its first export batch to an undisclosed buyer country.^6,19 STM did not disclose the export destination, quantity, or contract value.⁶

Domestic fielding finally caught up on 24 October 2025, when STM announced that Alpagu had completed acceptance trials and formally entered Türkiye's inventory, roughly five years after the system's original end-2020 target and four years after its 2021 target.^20,21 STM General Director Özgür Güleryüz framed the milestone as part of a broader tactical-UAV push: "Our family of tactical UAVs, developed with our advanced engineering capabilities to meet the needs of our country, continues to strengthen operational effectiveness in the field."²⁰ STM's own framing of the October 2025 announcement noted the system had already achieved "early export traction in 2023," effectively confirming that foreign sales preceded domestic service entry.²¹

STM's product line kept expanding afterward. In January 2026, the company announced its first export of Kargu and Alpagu together to an undisclosed NATO and EU member state, a deal covering the airframes plus integration onto armored land vehicles and STM's own battle-management and combat-management software.^7,9 By May 2026, at the SAHA 2026 exhibition in Istanbul, STM unveiled the larger Alpagu-B, a roughly 20 kg fixed-wing munition with a 4 kg warhead, 40 km line-of-sight range, and about 40 minutes of endurance — a scaled-up sibling built to close the gap between the original man-portable Alpagu and STM's much larger Alpagut, discussed in Variants below.⁸

Alpagu's public combat record is thinner and less internationally scrutinized than Kargu-2's. STM markets Alpagu for "counter-terrorism, cross-border operations, and urban warfare," and one lower-confidence drone catalog states the system was adopted by Turkey's SAT (Özel Kuvvetler) special-forces command in 2020 and applied in anti-PKK operations between 2021 and 2023, but no independent news report reviewed for this article documents a specific dated strike, location, or target using Alpagu in that context, so this claim is presented with that caveat.^14,21

During the Haydar Aliyev Exercise-2023 in Kars, four Alpagu rounds reportedly struck their designated targets with full accuracy alongside a separate demonstration in which six Kargu units carried out a coordinated swarm attack, both framed by STM as showcases of Turkish-Azerbaijani interoperability rather than combat use.²³ No confirmed reporting places Alpagu in actual battlefield use during the 2020 Second Nagorno-Karabakh War itself; that conflict's most-documented Turkish loitering-munition presence was the rotary-wing Kargu, whose Azerbaijani service was only officially confirmed by Baku in June 2024.¹

STM's tactical mini-UAV lineup includes several fixed-wing loitering munitions that share design cues and, in one case, a name root, without being interchangeable products.

• Alpagu — the original configuration covered in this article: sub-2 kg, tube-launched, single-soldier, 270 g warhead, roughly 15-minute endurance.²
• Alpagu-B — unveiled at SAHA 2026, a roughly 20 kg "big brother" system carrying a 4 kg warhead out to 40 km with about 40 minutes of endurance, aimed at special-forces and infantry use against artillery, radar sites, light armor, and fortifications rather than personnel alone.⁸
• Alpagut — a separate, considerably larger system co-developed by STM and Roketsan, unveiled in October 2022 at the SAHA Expo in Istanbul; at roughly 45 kg with an 11 kg warhead, a 60+ km operational radius, and 60+ minutes of endurance, it is designed to be released from unmanned combat aircraft such as the Bayraktar Akıncı, with land- and sea-launched variants planned.^4,24

Turkey is Alpagu's home operator, though the exact timeline of Turkish service is layered: field testing and live-fire trials ran from 2020 through mid-2021, one lower-confidence catalog places special-forces adoption in 2020, and STM's own formal announcement of full acceptance into Türkiye's inventory did not come until 24 October 2025.^11,14,20 Two export customers are confirmed but undisclosed: an unnamed country received Alpagu's first export batch following a contract announced in November 2023, and an unnamed NATO and EU member state signed a bundled Kargu-and-Alpagu deal announced in January 2026 that also covers land-vehicle integration and battle-management software.^6,7 STM's broader tactical-UAV portfolio, including Kargu and Alpagu together, was described by the company as having reached 15 countries across four continents by the time of the 2026 European deal, though individual buyers beyond Turkey remain almost entirely undisclosed for Alpagu specifically.⁷

Alpagu occupies the lightest end of the fixed-wing loitering-munition field, lighter even than its own rotary-wing stablemate Kargu-2. At 1.95 kg against Kargu-2's roughly 7.06 kg takeoff weight, Alpagu trades Kargu-2's 30-minute hover-and-loiter endurance and larger 1.3 kg payload capacity for a faster, lighter, more disposable single-pass munition; Alpagu's reported 101 km/h top speed comfortably outruns Kargu-2's 72 km/h, consistent with a fixed-wing airframe built for a fast terminal dive rather than sustained hovering.^2,25 Both share the same STM man-in-the-loop control philosophy and are frequently sold as a package, giving a customer a hovering hunter-killer and a faster fixed-wing striker from one supplier rather than two.⁷

Against Western rivals in its own weight class, Alpagu compares closely with the Rafael Spike Firefly: Firefly's 3 kg munition round and 350 g fragmentation warhead are only modestly heavier than Alpagu's 1.95 kg airframe and 270 g charge, and both are pitched at the same one-squad, urban and short-range engagement niche.²⁶ Firefly's disclosed range bands (roughly 500 m in dense urban terrain, up to about 1.5 km in the open) are considerably shorter than Alpagu's 8 km control distance, suggesting Alpagu trades some of Firefly's reported urban stealth optimization for a longer stand-off leash.²⁶ The AeroVironment Switchblade 300 sits closer to Alpagu on paper — a roughly 2.5 kg round with about 10 km of range and 15 minutes of endurance, nearly matching Alpagu's own disclosed figures — making the two systems each other's closest direct Western-versus-Turkish analogue in the tube-launched, single-soldier category.²⁷

Alpagu's own larger siblings illustrate where the gaps in STM's lineup used to sit. Before Alpagu-B's 2026 debut, there was a wide capability jump directly from Alpagu's 8 km/15-minute envelope to Alpagut's 60+ km/60+ minute, air-launched standoff class — a jump of roughly seven-fold in range and four-fold in endurance with no intermediate step. Alpagu-B's 40 km/40-minute, 20 kg profile now sits almost exactly between the two, giving STM a graduated family running from shoulder-launched munition through vehicle-launched intermediate system to UCAV-released standoff weapon, a spread that few single-country loitering-munition producers offer end to end. Commercially, that breadth is arguably Alpagu's strongest export argument: rather than compete purely on range or warhead size against systems like the ZALA Lancet (up to 12 kg, 40 km official range) or the Elbit SkyStriker (roughly 35 kg, about 100 km range, up to two hours of endurance), Alpagu is priced and packaged as the cheapest, lightest entry point into an STM family a buyer can later scale up within, a bundling strategy the January 2026 NATO/EU deal — which paired Alpagu with Kargu and vehicle integration in a single contract — appears to validate.^28,29,7

What are the STM Alpagu specifications? Alpagu weighs 1.95 kg, measures 653 mm long with an 883 mm wingspan, and carries a 270 g warhead. It reaches roughly 101 km/h at maximum speed, flies for about 15 minutes, and is controlled out to roughly 8 km line of sight, though some secondary sources put its range closer to 10 km.^2,9

What is Alpagu's range and price? STM's current materials and a January 2026 Janes report cite an 8 km control range; no public unit price has been disclosed by STM or independent trade press as of this writing.^2,9

Who makes the Alpagu drone? STM — Savunma Teknolojileri Mühendislik ve Ticaret A.Ş., a Turkish state-linked defense engineering firm based in Ankara — designed, builds, and markets Alpagu.^1,2

Is Alpagu in Turkish military service? Yes, as of STM's formal announcement on 24 October 2025 that Alpagu had completed acceptance trials and entered Türkiye's inventory, though field testing and reported special-forces use trace back to 2020-2021.^20,14

Alpagu vs Kargu-2 — what's the real difference? Kargu-2 is a rotary-wing quadcopter (about 7 kg, 30-minute endurance, 10 km range) built to hover and loiter over a target area; Alpagu is a fixed-wing, tube-launched munition (1.95 kg, 15-minute endurance, roughly 8 km range) built for a faster single-pass strike. Both are STM products sharing the same man-in-the-loop control concept and are often sold together.^2,25

Alpagu vs Alpagut — are they the same weapon? No. Alpagu is STM's solo, sub-2 kg, single-soldier munition. Alpagut is a separate, roughly 45 kg system co-developed with Roketsan, built to be released from unmanned combat aircraft like the Akıncı at ranges beyond 60 km. They share a name root, not a design.^4,24