What is Missile ?

Inertial guidance has become so accurate that the United States’ MX Peacekeeper ballistic missile, with a range of more than 6,000 miles (more than 9,650 km), has a 50-percent chance of delivering its 10 nuclear warheads within 400 feet (120 m) of their targets.

Advances in computers and microcircuitry led to the development of the Boeing AGM‐69A SRAM (short‐range attack missile), only 14 feet long and weighing but 2,320 pounds. Eight SRAMs could be fitted into each of the rotary launchers installed in a B‐52 bomb bay.

The guidance system is the most important and sophisticated part of the missile. In tactical missiles, electronic sensors locate the target by detecting energy emitted or reflected from it.

The most modern cruise missile in service is the AGM‐129 Advanced Cruise Missile, manufactured in the early 1990s by General Dynamics. The AGM‐129 has stealth characteristics coupled with a 2,000‐mile range and Mach .9 speed. A total procurement of 2,000 missiles was planned, but the breakup of the Soviet Union and some program delays resulted in termination of the program after 461 missiles were delivered.

For example, heat-seeking missiles carry infrared sensors that allow them to “home” onto the hot exhaust of jet engines.

The AGM‐84E‐1 standoff land‐attack missile (SLAM) is a derivative of the Harpoon (described below) and has similar physical characteristics and performance. It was created by combining the basic Harpoon with components of other systems, including the Maverick infrared seeker, a Global Positioning System, and a Walleye data link.

Antiradiation missiles home onto radar emissions, while one type of optically homing missile may “lock” onto an image of the target that is captured by a television camera.

The former Soviet Union developed a parallel series of cruise and attack missiles, the most important of which was the AS‐15 “Kent.” The Kent corresponds to the ALCM and could be launched by air, land, or sea. It has an estimated range of 1,800 miles.

Upon receiving information through its sensor, the guidance system relays instructions for course correction to the control mechanism through some type of autopilot contained within the missile or through commands transmitted from the launch platform.

The current antiradar missile is the AGM‐88 High Speed Anti‐radiation Missile (HARM), developed jointly by the Naval Weapons Center at China Lake, California, and Texas Instruments. The Mach 2+ HARM has a much greater capability to lock on to enemy radar than its predecessors.

Almost all missiles are steadied in flight by stabilizing fins. In addition, guided missiles contain control systems to adjust their flight paths.

The vulnerability of ships to missiles was first demonstrated in World War II, when a Luftwaffe Dornier Do 217 sank the Italian battleship Roma with two Fritz‐X missiles. In the 1982 Falklands War, Argentine Naval Air Force Super Entendard fighters launched Aerospatiale MM 38 Exocet missiles to sink the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Sheffield and the aviation supply ship HMS Atlantic Conveyor.

The simplest control systems are aerodynamic, making use of movable vanes or flaps that alter the flow of air past the stabilizing fins.

Beginning with the World War II American “Bazooka” and the German Panzerfaust, antiarmor missiles became common, for they provide infantry with an inexpensive, flexible, and effective means to defeat opposing armor. The improvements in the guidance, propulsion, and warheads of antitank weapons have exceeded the ability of tank designers to defend against them.

A more complicated system—used especially in ballistic missiles, which often travel beyond the Earth’s atmosphere—is thrust vectoring.

The proliferation of antitank missiles can be traced to the French Nord SS‐10 guided missiles. Used by French helicopters in Algeria (the first combat role for helicopters), the SS‐10 has been called the “smallest, cheapest and most significant” missile since 1945 in that it expanded on German World War II practice and was exported to many foreign countries. A host of wire‐guided missiles followed, most line‐of‐sight missiles with manual control systems and an effective range of just over 1 mile.

In this system the stream of gases from the rocket engine is deflected by placing vanes within the exhaust nozzle or by swiveling the entire engine.

The second generation of weapons used computer technology to allow the gunner to “fly” the missile to the target by keeping it centered in his sights. The subsequent generation will be almost fully automatic, making full use of computers, television, fiber optics, guidance by lasers, and other technological advances.

The most important U.S. airborne antitank guided missile is the Rockwell International AGM‐114 Hellfire (the name deriving from “helicopter fire and forget”). Initially fielded as a laser‐guided weapon, the Hellfire accepts other guidance packages, including imaging‐infrared, radio frequency, and millimeter wavelength seekers.

The first and most widely used U.S. antitank guided missile is the Hughes BGM‐71 TOW (tube‐launched, optically tracked, wired‐guided) weapon, which is fired from helicopters as well from a variety of ground installations. First used in Vietnam in May, 1972, the TOW had a sensational 80 percent hit record.

Number of Mark 39 hydrogen bombs that were accidently released in 1961 from a U.S. Air Force B-52 that broke up in midair over Goldsboro, North Carolina. Neither bomb detonated, but each had a yield of 3.8 megatons; the detonation of one would have been some 260 times more powerful than the weapon dropped on Hiroshima.

Number of states that are home to Minuteman III missile launch sites (Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota and Wyoming).

Number of formally recognized nuclear weapons states under the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: the United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France and China.

Number of countries believed to host U.S. non-strategic nuclear weapons: Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey.

Number of nuclear weapon types in the current U.S. arsenal: W76 and W88 warheads for submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs); W78 and W87 warheads for intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs); W80 warheads for the air-launched cruise missile (ALCM); and B61 (multiple variants) and B83 gravity bombs. Under the “3+2” plan, it is proposed over time to reduce the warhead types to three warheads for ballistic missiles, one gravity bomb (B61) and one warhead for ACLMs.