Aselsan’s Steel Dome – Türkiye’s multi-layered integrated air and missile defence (IAMD) architecture – received its first operational exercise deployment at Exercise EFES 2026, with all four effector layers positioned together at the Doğanbey live-fire area in Seferihisar, İzmir, during the Distinguished Observer Day on 20–21 May 2026.
All elements of the system were prominently displayed overlooking the Aegean Sea on a thin stretch of coast, next to a banner reading “Çelik Kubbe” — the Turkish name for the architecture. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who attended the Distinguished Observer Day in person, watched the demonstration alongside defence ministers and military chiefs from the 50 participating countries.
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The system as demonstrated at EFES 2026 brings together the long-range Siper interceptor, the medium-range Hisar-O, the short-range Hisar-A, and the very-short-range Sungur man-portable air defence system in a layered configuration designed to intercept threats ranging from cruise missiles and tactical ballistic missiles down to small commercial-grade drones. The architecture reflects Türkiye’s effort to build up different ranges of protection rather than rely on a single system, with long-range and short-range elements brought together so that threats can be detected, tracked, and intercepted at different stages of their flight profiles.
MKE’s TOLGA short-range air defence system was also integrated into the live demonstration during the daytime phase of the Distinguished Observer Day, adding a gun-based close-in layer beneath the missile-based effectors.
The long-range component – Siper Block I – formally entered operational service in January 2026 after passing acceptance testing. The Secretariat of Defence Industries confirmed the Siper-1 battery was tested in a scenario designed to reflect real-world airspace congestion, where the system was tasked with identifying and intercepting a hostile target while friendly airborne elements operated in the same engagement area. SSB head Haluk Görgün described the test as confirmation of the system’s ability to discriminate between friendly and hostile tracks under operationally demanding conditions – a capability that is among the most difficult requirements in any IAMD architecture.
The Steel Dome’s scope extends beyond traditional missile-based interception into gun-based, directed-energy, and electronic warfare layers. The Gürz hybrid air defence system from Aselsan integrates missile, gun, and laser technologies on a single platform, while the Korkut self-propelled anti-aircraft gun uses ATOM programmable airburst ammunition to defeat drones and cruise missiles at short range. KORAL provides radar electronic attack, PUHU handles communications electronic warfare, and the EJDERHA high-power microwave weapon delivers non-kinetic disruption of incoming threats before they reach the engagement layers.
Chief of the General Staff General Selçuk Bayraktaroğlu, in his post-exercise summary, confirmed that AI-assisted programs were used effectively in command-and-control processes during EFES 2026 – indicating that the Steel Dome’s C2 layer was operationally tested with automated decision support rather than relying solely on human operators for threat evaluation and weapon assignment.
The EFES 2026 deployment is the first time the Steel Dome architecture has been exercised as an integrated system-of-systems in a field environment rather than tested as individual component systems on separate ranges. Previous public appearances – at IDEF 2025 and DIMDEX 2026 in Doha – were static exhibition displays. The 47 major Steel Dome components delivered to the Turkish Armed Forces in August 2025 – worth an estimated $460 million per Aselsan’s own disclosure – appear to have reached a level of integration sufficient for a coordinated field deployment in front of an international audience.
That said, available reporting has not confirmed whether any of the Steel Dome layers conducted live intercepts during the exercise, or whether the demonstration was limited to coordinated tracking, cueing, and C2 integration without actual missile or gun engagements against aerial targets. The distinction matters: deploying all four layers to a field site and demonstrating coordinated communication under a common operational picture is not the same as a live-fire engagement against representative threat profiles under contested electromagnetic conditions.
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