Stand Off Missile (SOM) is an air to surface cruise missile family against highly defended stationary and moving land/surface (ASuW) targets. Its modular design supports operational flexibility.
The SOM-J will be the compatible version of the SOM for the F-35 Fighter
The first flight test of SOM was performed in 2011 and serial production was started in 2013 under the contract between ROKETSAN and Turkish MoD. As part of the serial production frame the production line qualification has been completed and the first batch of missile deliveries with the components of the SOM Missile System, including the Test & Programming Unit and the Captive & Dummy Training Missiles, has been successfully delivered. Further capability enhancement activities are still in progress within this contract.
A contract for the in-house development of a smart munition compatible with the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which will be based on the existing SOM technology, was signed in 2012 between ROKETSAN and the Undersecretariat for Defence Industries. Within this scope, SOM-J development activities besides the platform integration studies in collaboration with the Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, the main contractor of JSF Program, have been initialized in 2014. SOM-J System development and integration activities for the system qualification are still in progress. Currently, the projects covering the scope of SOM Development, SOM Production and SOM-J development activities are all contracted by the Undersecretariat for Defence Industries.
SOM provides availability to adaptation to various missions due to its open architecture software. Composite materials are used within its structure and the radar absorbing material enables low visibility. SOM provides the advantage of smaller size and weight, compared to similar systems with a 250+km range for SOM and 200+km range for SOM-J. SOM operational concept will be enhanced by in flight re-programming and network capabilities to be enabled by the integration of data link.
Currently, SOM supplies the selection among pre-planned missions and controllable impact points and parameters. SOM-A and SOM-B1 defeats the targets by a high explosive blast fragmentation type warhead, while SOM-B2 and SOM-J carries a dual stage tandem penetrator and a semi-armor piercing type warhead respectively. In addition to inertial navigation, global positioning and terrain referenced navigation systems SOM-B1, SOM-B2 and SOM-J are equipped with an imaging infra-red seeker. SOM-A and SOM-B1 have been certified for the F-4 and F-16 platforms.
