New Generation Cruise Missile “SOM”
Turkish National Cruise Missile production work continues within the “SOM” Project which is conducted by ROKETSAN based on the Turkish Air Force demands.
This Project aiming to produce National Cruise Missile is started back in April 2006 by TÜBİTAK Defense Industry Research and Development Institute.
SOM Project
ROKETSAN is tasked for SOM missile mass production by the Republic of Turkey Ministry of National Defense.
Precision-guided Stand-Off Ammunition Project which is contracted between ROKETSAN and Ministry of National Defense started in July of 2013. National missile project is transferred to Undersecretariat for Defense Industries in December, 2016.
Within the scope of this project, production line qualification improvement and development activities, mass production and after sales services are under progress.
SOM Missiles Properties
SOM is a guided cruise missile, can operate under every weather condition, can be launched from static or mobile platforms against air or ground targets, and has high destructive power, long range and operational elasticity. SOM system architecture offers a lot more operational elasticity when compared to other similar missile systems.
SOM missile weighs 600 kg and has 230 kg warhead. Missile length is almost 4 meters. Within the scope of SOM project, there are 3 variants which are SOM-A, SOM-B1 and SOM-B2.
There is also different variant which is developed for F-35 platform, SOM-J missile. This is a different project, started in 2012 and conducted by ROKETSAN.
All variants of the missile will have global positioning, ground referenced navigation, inertion navigation system. SOM-B1 and SOM-B2 variants also have Infra Red (IR) imaging search head and automatic target identification system in addition to the specs mentioned above.
SOM Missile is introduced in many Defense Industry Fairs ROKETSAN attends and draws big attention and gets compliments. Exportation negotiations are also under progress with potential international customers. With potential customers’ interest kept in mind, we can easily say that SOM missile will be on the market for a long time.