Whether accıdentally or intentionally-accidental utterance of a CENK missile’s existence has caused a lot of stir among defence news rooms.
There is not enough information even on Tayfun missile. Now we are having to guess what CENK can be.
We don’t yet know if Tayfun is a SRBM or a Tactical Ballistic missile. As it looks like Bora and launched from a Bora Canister most of us assume it is a tactical ballistic missile with a suppressed trajectory. The casual calculation of time flown and distance covered correspond to a suppressed trajectory of a quasi ballistic missile. If we were to assume that Tayfun were a SRBM, then we would expect more than the 90km altitude NOTAM declared, and because of the distance it will have covered at the given flight time the average speed would have been close to almost 7 Mach. So it is more prudent to say that Tayfun is a fast tactical missile with an exceptionally long range.
But more important than the range are ; the accuracy of the missile and it’s ablilty to target and hit moving sea objects. This capability is a game changer event in it’s own right. This information hasn’t been released either.
As CENK missile was mentioned together and within the context of Gezgin, it is therefore logical to assume it can be a cruise missile of some description. As we are developing ramjet powered missiles through Tubitak Sage and Roketsan, the natural continuation of these would be a supersonic anti ship missile like Brahmos. But for an anti ship missile with ramjet, it would be easier to implement a gel based liquid fuelled ramjet rather than a solid fuelled one. However we know that, Roketsan’s Akbaba missile that is being developed, has a solid fuelled ramjet engine. So if CENK is Roketsan’s ramjet powered missile, it probably has a solid fuelled ramjet engine. (Unless it is a Tubitak Sage missile!)
CENK could be a true SRBM too. But due to current events and the messages being directed at certain centres, one is inclined to assume that CENK is a strategically important and technically advanced missile to prove that Turkey is way past the point of being deterred by any of it’s neighbours.