Cruise missile


A cruise missile is an unmanned self-propelled guided missile that sustains flight through aerodynamic lift for most of its flight path. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large payload over long distances with high precision. Modern cruise missiles are capable of traveling at high subsonic, supersonic, or hypersonic speeds, are self-navigating, and are able to fly on a non-ballistic, extremely low-altitude trajectory.

History

The idea of an "aerial torpedo" was shown in the British 1909 film The Airship Destroyer in which flying torpedoes controlled wirelessly are used to bring down airships bombing London.
In 1916, the American aviator Lawrence Sperry built and patented an "aerial torpedo", the Hewitt-Sperry Automatic Airplane, a small biplane carrying a TNT charge, a Sperry autopilot and barometric altitude control. Inspired by the experiments, the United States Army developed a similar flying bomb called the Kettering Bug. Germany had also flown trials with remote-controlled aerial gliders built by Siemens-Schuckert beginning in 1916.
In the Interwar Period, Britain's Royal Aircraft Establishment developed the Larynx, which underwent a few flight tests in the 1920s.
In the Soviet Union, Sergei Korolev headed the GIRD-06 cruise missile project from 1932 to 1939, which used a rocket-powered boost-glide bomb design. The 06/III and 06/IV contained gyroscopic guidance systems. The vehicle was designed to boost to altitude and glide a distance of, but test flights in 1934 and 1936 only reached an altitude of.
In 1944, during World War II, Germany deployed the first operational cruise missiles. The V-1, often called a flying bomb, contained a gyroscope guidance system and was propelled by a simple pulsejet engine, the sound of which gave it the nickname of "buzz bomb" or "doodlebug". Accuracy was sufficient only for use against very large targets, while the range of was significantly lower than that of a bomber carrying the same payload. The main advantages were speed and expendability. The production cost of a V-1 was only a small fraction of that of a V-2 supersonic ballistic missile with a similar-sized warhead. Unlike the V-2, the initial deployments of the V-1 required stationary launch ramps which were susceptible to bombardment. Nazi Germany, in 1943, also developed the Mistel composite aircraft program, which can be seen as a rudimentary air-launched cruise missile, where a piloted fighter-type aircraft was mounted atop an unpiloted bomber-sized aircraft that was packed with explosives to be released while approaching the target. Bomber-launched variants of the V-1 saw limited operational service near the end of the war, with the pioneering V-1's design reverse-engineered by the Americans as the Republic-Ford JB-2 cruise missile.
Immediately after World War II, the United States Air Force had 21 different guided missile projects, including proposed cruise missiles. By 1948, all but four of these projects had been canceled: the Air Materiel 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. Concurrently, the US Navy's Operation Bumblebee, was conducted at Topsail Island, North Carolina, from c. 1 June 1946, to 28 July 1948. Bumblebee produced proof-of-concept technologies that influenced the US military's other missile projects.
During the Cold War, both the United States and the Soviet Union experimented further with the concept, of deploying early cruise missiles from land, submarines, and aircraft. The main outcome of the United States Navy submarine missile project was the SSM-N-8 Regulus missile, based upon the V-1 but powered by an Allison J33 jet engine. The Regulus entered service but was phased out with the advent of submarine launched ballistic missiles that did not require the submarine to surface in order to launch the missile and guide it to its target.
The United States 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 and South Korea. On 7 November 1956, the U.S. Air Force deployed Matador units in West Germany, whose missiles were capable of striking targets in the Warsaw Pact, 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 Hungarian Revolution of 1956.
Between 1957 and 1961 the United States followed an ambitious and well-funded program to develop a nuclear-powered cruise missile, Supersonic Low Altitude Missile. It was designed to fly below the enemy's radar at speeds above Mach 3 and carry hydrogen bombs that it would drop along its path over enemy territory. Although the concept was proven sound and the 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 weapon tipped cruise missiles were seen by the USSR as a primary weapon to destroy United States naval carrier battle groups. Large submarines were developed to carry these weapons and shadow United States battle groups at sea, and large bombers were equipped with the weapons in their air-launched cruise missile configuration.

Categories

Cruise missiles can be categorized by payload/warhead size, speed, range, and launch platform. Often variants of the same missile are produced for different launch platforms.
Guidance systems can vary across missiles. Some missiles can be fitted with any of a variety of navigation systems. Larger cruise missiles can carry either a conventional or a nuclear warhead, while smaller ones carry only conventional warheads.

Hypersonic

A hypersonic cruise missile travels at least five times the speed of sound.
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.
Examples:
  • ASALM US ALCM prototype, test-flown to hypersonic Mach 5.5
  • 3M-54 Kalibr
  • 3M-51 Alfa
  • Air-Sol Moyenne Portée – supersonic stand-off nuclear missile
  • ASM-3
  • BrahMos /
  • Blyskavka – Artem Luch Pivdenmash
  • CX-1
  • CJ-100 / DF-100
  • FC/ASW – transnational cruise missile programme / /
  • Hsiung Feng III
  • Hyunmoo-3
  • Kh-20
  • Kh-31
  • Kh-32
  • Kh-80 /
  • P-270 Moskit /
  • P-500 Bazalt /
  • P-700 Granit /
  • P-800 Oniks / Kh-61 /
  • P-1000 Vulkan /
  • YJ-12
  • YJ-18
  • YJ-91
  • Yun Feng
  • SSM-N-9 Regulus II

    Intercontinental-range supersonic

  • Burya
  • MKR
  • RSS-40 Buran
  • SLAM
  • SM-64 Navaho

    Long-range subsonic

China, France, India, Iran, Israel, Japan, North Korea, Russia, South Korea, Ukraine, and the United States have developed several long-range subsonic cruise missiles. These missiles have a range of over and fly at about. They typically have a launch weight of about and can carry either a conventional or a nuclear warhead. Earlier versions of these missiles used inertial navigation; later versions use much more accurate TERCOM and DSMAC systems. Most recent versions can use satellite navigation.
Examples:
  • 3M-54 Kalibr
  • AGM-86 ALCM
  • AGM-129 ACM
  • AGM-181 LRSO
  • BGM-109 Tomahawk
  • BGM-109G Ground Launched Cruise Missile
  • Kh-55 and Kh-65
  • Kh-101
  • Iskander-K
  • Hwasal-2
  • RK-55
  • Nirbhay
  • MdCN
  • Paveh
  • Hoveyzeh
  • Abu Mahdi
  • Quds 1 Houthi
  • Hsiung Feng IIE
  • Hyunmoo III
  • Type 12 SSM
  • MGM-13 Mace
  • DF-10/CJ-10
  • Popeye Turbo SLCM
  • Deep Precision Strike Capability DPSC , part of the Trinity House Agreement.
  • FP-5 Flamingo

    Intercontinental-range subsonic

  • 9M730 Burevestnik
  • SM-62 Snark

    Medium-range subsonic

These subsonic missiles have ranges between 300 km and 1000 km.
Examples:
  • AGM-158 JASSM
  • AGM-158C LRASM
  • Atmaca
  • Babur
  • Harbah
  • Hatf-VIII / Ra'ad Mark-2 ALCM
  • Hsiung Feng IIE
  • Hyunmoo-3
  • Iskander-K
  • KD-63
  • NASM-MR
  • Taurus KEPD 350 / /
  • Kh-50 and Kh-101 Kh-65 variants
  • MGM-1 Matador
  • Ra'ad ALCM
  • Raad
  • SOM – 500 km, 1500 km and 2500 km versions
  • SSM-N-8 Regulus
  • P-5 Pyatyorka / /
  • S8000 Banderol
  • Storm Shadow / SCALP-EG /
  • Type 12 SSM
  • Ya-Ali
  • Zarb
  • Ragnarök
  • Narwhal
  • Taimoor
  • Lanca
  • Ruta