The new system developed and tested by Roketsan, a state-owned weapons manufacturer, is said to be called Tayfun.
Turkey aims to become more independent in the development and production of military equipment and systems. Statistics show that Turkey has reduced its dependency on arms imports, decreasing this by fifty-nine percent in the five-year period of 2016 to 2020, as compared to 2011 to 2015. On the other hand, the country’s arms exports are on the rise. In recent years, Turkey has become a major player in the international market for armed drones, most notably the Bayraktar TB2.
Turkey is secretly developing a short-range ballistic missile and successfully tested it over the Black Sea on October 18, Bloomberg reported. According to Turkish media reports, it has a range of at least 560 km (350 miles). This is a significant step forward for the Turkish defense industry. For comparison, its predecessor, the Bora missile system, has a range of about 280 kilometers and is already part of the arsenal of the Turkish Armed Forces. The Yildirim ballistic missile, with a range of 150km, has also been built.
The new system developed and tested by Roketsan, a state-owned weapons manufacturer, is said to be called Tayfun. Accordingly, Tayfun was launched from a mobile launcher at an airport near the northeastern port city of Rize. With a reported range of 560km in 458 seconds, this is the longest range a Turkish-made missile has ever launched.
The Tayfun missile is said to be capable of hitting land and sea targets and has a range of just under 1,000km – typical of short-range ballistic missiles. Turkey has been working on the secretive missile project for several years, Bloomberg was told, stopping short of providing further details. Even though there is no international treaty that bans ballistic missile development programmes, Turkey has been cautious about revealing information about its weapons manufacturing capabilities. According to the revealed images, the Tayfun missile’s launcher is very similar to the BORA tactical ballistic missile’s launcher, the development of which started in Turkey in 2009, so it cannot be ruled out that Tayfun is a further development of this project.
