Production of SOM Cruise Missile Started

18.08.2014 Products
Production of SOM Cruise Missile Started

Production of SOM Cruise Missile Started

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The Turkish cruise missile SOM has successfully passed through the development and qualification phases and the production has started in July 2013 under the contract between the Turkish Ministry of Defence (MoD) and ROKETSAN Inc.

The scope of the project includes the qualification of the production line and the initial production besides enhancements to the current variants. TÜBİTAK SAGE is responsible for these enhancements as the developer of the SOM missile system. The contract between ROKETSAN Inc. and TÜBİTAK SAGE was signed in January 2014.

SOM System is defined as an autonomous, long range, low observable, all weather, high precision air to surface cruise missile family. It is designed for the use against heavily defended, anti-access and high value stationary targets such as SAM sites, exposed aircraft, strategic assets, C2 centres as well as moving surface (ASuW) targets. Its modular design which enabled the development of four variants of the missile family supports operational flexibility. The GPS-INS navigation is enforced by TRN and IBN capabilities which results in high precision. The high precision at the terminal stage is achieved by the IIR seeker and data fusion.

The missile highly satisfies the requirements for the resistance to counter measures and clutter. The data-link implementation is the major enhancement to the missile within the scope of the current project. This will enable the target update/re-targeting, mission abort, BHI (Bomb Hit Indication) and BDA (Battle Damage Assessment) capabilities in addition to the In Flight Mission Selection Capability. SOM System also involves a Mechanical Training Missile, an Electronic Training Missile and the Test & Programming Unit.

The development activities of the first two variants SOM-A and SOM-B1 were completed in 2011 and 2012 respectively. The GPS/INS version SOM-A and the IIR seeker version SOM-B1 weigh 610kg in total and both carry a 230 kg high explosive blast fragmentation warhead. SOM-B2 differs from the two previous variants in its warhead. The blast fragmentation warhead is replaced by a dual stage tandem penetration warhead in this variant and the total weight is 660kg. The development activities of this variant will be completed in mid-2014.

SOM missile surpasses its competitors in the market by the above mentioned accomplishments. Having almost half the overall weight of the similar systems and its smaller size results in advantages in platform integration. The number of missiles carried per platform is maximized and the range of the platform is increased. Although the warhead size and the range are kept within the MTCR limits, the warhead has been proved to have very high effectiveness which also reduces the collateral damage in combination with high precision of the system. Furthermore, three different warhead types optimized for a wide range of target spectrum contribute to the operational flexibility.

SOM missile has been certified for F-4E/2020 and F-16 Block 40 platforms owned by the Turkish Air Force. SOM missile was used in the Military Exercise Pençe 2013 and reported to have shown great success (Figure 2). The platform integration activities for the JSF program have started in parallel to the SOM-J variant development. These activities are performed in cooperation with Lockheed-Martin Aero and TÜBİTAK SAGE. At the end of this project SOM-J will be available for the use in the internal stations as the current variants will be for the outer ones.

Recently, production line qualification activities continued intensively. Over 50 Turkish and foreign suppliers are involved in the supply chain of the SOM missile system.

Following the completion of the qualification phase, low rate initial production will start immediately. For this purpose, ROKETSAN have allocated its resources at a maximum capacity. 

File Photo: The SOM missile under the wing of the F-16 Block 40, exhibited on 100th anniversary of Turkish Air Force

 



 
 

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