Cruise missile
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
United States/
UK Tomahawk cruise missile
A modern
Taurus KEPD 350 cruise missile of the
German Luftwaffe
A
cruise missile is a
guided missile that carries an explosive payload and uses a lifting wing and a propulsion system, usually a
jet engine, to allow sustained flight; it is essentially a
flying bomb. Cruise missiles are generally designed to carry a large conventional or
nuclear warhead many hundreds of kilometers with high accuracy. Modern cruise missiles can travel at
supersonic or high
subsonic speeds, are self-navigating, and fly on a
non-ballistic very low altitude trajectory to avoid
radar detection. In general (and for the purposes of this article), cruise missiles are distinct from
unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) in that they are used only as weapons and not for
reconnaissance, the
warhead is integrated into the vehicle, and the vehicle is always sacrificed in the mission.[
citation needed]
Concise history In the period between the World Wars
Great Britain developed the
Larynx (Long Range Gun with Lynx Engine) which underwent a few flight tests in the 1920s.[
citation needed] In the
Soviet Union Sergey Korolev headed the
GIRD-06 cruise missile project from 1932-1939, which used a rocket-powered boost-glide design.[
citation needed] The 06/III (RP-216) and 06/IV (RP-212) contained gyroscopic guidance systems.
Germany first deployed cruise style missiles, during
World War II. The
V-1 contained a gyroscopic guidance system and was propelled by a simple
pulse-jet engine, the sound of which gave the V-1 its nickname of "buzz bomb". Accuracy was sufficient only for use against very large targets (the general area of a city). The V-1 and similar early weapons are often referred to as
flying bombs. Also in World War II the Imperial Japanese forces used piloted aircraft with an explosive payload known as
kamikazes, and the purpose-built and piloted
rocket engined
Ohka.
Immediately after the war the
United States Air Force had 21 different guided missile projects including would-be cruise missiles. All were cancelled by 1948 except four: the
Air Material Command BANSHEE, the
SM-62 Snark, the
SM-64 Navaho, and the
MGM-1 Matador. The BANSHEE design was similar to
Operation Aphrodite; like Aphrodite it failed, and was canceled in April 1949.
[1]
During the
Cold War period both the
United States and the
Soviet Union experimented further with the concept, deploying early cruise missiles from land, submarines and aircraft. The main outcome of the U.S. Navy submarine missile project was the
SSM-N-8 Regulus missile, based upon the V-1.
The U.S. Air Force's first operational surface-to-surface missile was the winged, mobile, nuclear-capable
MGM-1 Matador, also similar in concept to the V-1. Deployment overseas began in 1954, first to West Germany and later to the Republic of China (Taiwan) and South Korea. On November 7, 1956 U. S. Air Force Matador units in West Germany, whose missiles were capable of striking targets in the Warsaw Pact, deployed from their fixed day-to-day sites to unannounced dispersed launch locations. This alert was in response to the crisis posed by the Soviet attack on Hungary which suppressed the
1956 Hungarian Revolution.
Between 1957 and 1961 the United States followed an ambitious and well-funded program to develop a nuclear-powered cruise missile,
Project Pluto. It was designed to fly below the enemy's radar at speeds above
Mach 3 and carry a number of
hydrogen bombs that it would drop on its path over enemy territory. Although the concept was proven sound and the 500
megawatt engine finished a successful test run in 1961, no airworthy device was ever completed. The project was finally abandoned in favor of
ICBM development.
While
ballistic missiles were the preferred weapons for land targets, heavy nuclear and conventional tipped cruise missiles were seen by the USSR as a primary weapon to destroy U.S. naval
carrier battle groups. Large submarines (e.g.
Echo and
Oscar classes) were developed to carry these weapons and shadow U.S. battle groups at sea, and large bombers (e.g.
Backfire,
Bear, and
Blackjack models) were equipped with the weapons in their air-launched cruise missile (ALCM) configuration.
General design
Cruise missiles generally consist of a guidance system, payload, and propulsion system, housed in an airframe with small wings and
empennage for flight control. Payloads usually consist of a conventional warhead or a
nuclear warhead. Cruise missiles tend to be propelled by a
jet engine,
turbofan engines being preferred due to their greater efficiency at low altitude and sub-sonic speed.
Guidance systems
Guidance systems also vary greatly. Low-cost systems use a
radar altimeter, barometric altimeter and
clock to navigate a
digital strip
map. More advanced systems use
inertial guidance,
satellite navigation and
terrain contour matching (TERCOM). Use of an
automatic target recognition (ATR) algorithm/device in the guidance system increases accuracy of the missile. The
Standoff Land Attack Missile features an ATR unit from
General Electric.
Categories
Cruise missiles can be categorized by size, speed (subsonic or supersonic), and range, and whether launched from land, air, surface ship, or submarine. Often versions of the same missile are produced for different launch platforms; sometimes air- and submarine-launched versions are a little lighter and smaller than land- and ship-launched versions.
Guidance systems can vary across missiles. Some missiles can be fitted with any of a variety of navigation systems (
Inertial navigation,
TERCOM, or
satellite navigation). Larger cruise missiles can carry either a conventional or a nuclear warhead, while smaller ones carry only conventional warheads.
Hypersonic
A
Hypersonic variant of the
BrahMos cruise missile called the
BrahMos-II[2] is being developed by
India. The development of the missile has already started and has been Lab Tested with speeds of Mach 5.26 Once developed it will be the first Hypersonic cruise missile and the fastest cruise missile in the world.
Supersonic
These missiles travel faster than the speed of sound, usually using ramjet engines. The range is typically 100-500 km, but can be greater. Guidance systems vary.
BrahMos at the Indian
Republic Day Parade
Examples:
.
