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On May 30, the Turkish military launched a BORA tactical ballistic missile at a position of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) in Iraqi Kurdistan as a part of Operation Claw, that had been launched earlier this week.
The launch represented the first ever successful use of the domestically-produced missile in a real combat mission. The Turkish Yeni Safak newspaper confirmed that the missile hit its target.
Launch of Turkish Bora SRBM against PKK in Northern Iraq pic.twitter.com/KXH09Hl3jP
— Yuri Lyamin (@imp_navigator) May 30, 2019
Turkey’s ROKETSAN revealed BORA missile system and an export version dubbed KHAN in 2017. The export version has a range of 280km and carries a 470kg high-explosive or fragmentation warhead. The range of the domestic version is believed to be longer.
The tactical ballistic missile has a circular error probable (CEP) of 30-50m only thanks to its advanced guidance system, which consists of an inertial navigation system (INS) aided by GPS.
As seen in the video, BORA’s launch vehicle, a VOLAT 8×8 truck, carries two containers, each loaded with a 610mm tactical ballistic missiles.
According to some reports, BORA and KHAN are Turkish-made licensed copies of the Chinese BP-12A tactical ballistic missile. Turkey and China have not confirmed these claims yet.
The decision to use the advanced missile during Operation Claw was likely taken to assist its efficiency in combat conditions. The Turkish military usually uses other, low-cost measures to deal with PKK positions.
