Missile encyclopedia topics

guided missile, self-propelled, unmanned space or air vehicle carrying an explosive warhead. Its path can be adjusted during flight, either by automatic self-contained controls or remote human control. Guided missiles are powered either by rocket engines or by jet propulsion. The American, R. H. Goddard, did important early work on rockets, but guided missiles were first developed in their military form by the Germans, who in World War II employed V-1 and V-2 missiles against Great Britain and the Low Countries. The V-1 was the first cruise missile; it was powered through most of its flight and followed a straight-line trajectory to its target. The V-2, which was powered only during the first part of its flight, was the world's first operational ballistic missile, with a powered launch followed by an unpowered parabolic trajectory, sometimes guided by radio. Such missiles have since become the key strategic weapon of modern warfare and a crucial, and much used, tactical weapon.

Guided missiles are of various types and ranges. Missiles may be aerodynamic, i.e., controlled by aerodynamic surfaces and following a straight-line trajectory to the target, or ballistic, i.e., powered during flight and following a parabolic trajectory. Long-range missiles generally have nuclear warheads, while short-range missiles usually have high-explosive warheads.

Aerodynamic missiles are of four types. Air-to-air missiles are fired by aircraft at enemy aircraft and are often guided by self-contained controls that detect and target the missile toward heat sources. Surface-to-air missiles, such as the U.S. Patriot missile, operate against aircraft or other missiles. Both types may supplement antiaircraft guns. Air-to-surface missiles, launched by aircraft against ground positions, are generally radio-controlled. Surface-to-surface missiles (including ship and submarine launched versions) include many different types, such as antitank weapons. Longer-range surface-to-surface missiles, such as the Iraqi Scud, are in fact short-range ballistic missiles. Cruise missiles, which are launched like a missile but use flipout wings and a turbofan engine to fly like an airplane to the target at altitudes of about 50 ft (15 m), are either air-to-surface or surface-to-surface missiles.

All long-range missiles are ballistic. The intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) can reach targets up to 1,500 nautical miles away, while the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) has a range of many thousands of miles. The first operational U.S. ICBM, the Atlas D, was controlled by radio, but since then inertial guidance, which uses internal gyroscopes to calculate and correct direction (sometimes with celestial, and then terrestrial readings), has been used. The key U.S. offensive ballistic missiles are the Minutemen ICBMs, which are launched from silos, and the submarine-launched Tridents, which replaced the earlier Polaris and Poseidon. All currently deployed ballistic missiles can be equipped with Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs), which permit one booster to carry several warheads, each guided to a separate target. An antiballistic missile (ABM) is designed to detect and intercept enemy ballistic missiles. Space-, air-, sea-, and mobile land-based ABMs were barred by the 1972 ABM treaty, but the United States announced its withdrawal from that agreement in 2001.

The Soviet Union completed the first operative ICBMs in 1958, and the United States, reacting to a supposed "missile gap," gained overwhelming missile superiority by 1962, which in terms of accuracy and payload it never relinquished. Offensive and defensive ballistic missiles have been regulated by a number of arms control agreements between the United States and the USSR/Russia (see disarmament, nuclear). Military ballistic missiles have been used as launchers for civilian space projects (see space exploration).

See L. Martin, The Changing Face of Nuclear Warfare (1987); D. Mackenzie, Inventing Accuracy (1990).

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia Copyright © 2004.
Licensed from Columbia University Press

cruise missile

cruise missile, low-flying, continuously powered offensive missile designed to evade defense systems. Although the German V-1 (1944) was a simple cruise missile, the cruise missile did not realize its potential until the 1970s, when the United States sought to develop a relatively inexpensive method for delivering weapons over long distances with pinpoint accuracy. The missile, which flies at altitudes of about 50 ft (15 m), has a range of up to 2,000 mi (3,200 km). It uses internally stored computerized maps of its route to follow the contour of the terrain and also makes use of information from navigation satellites to adjust its course. A cruise missile can deliver conventional or nuclear weapons. In its various modifications, it can be launched from aircraft, ships, or ground installations against land or naval targets. The U.S. Navy used conventional Tomahawk cruise missiles (TLAM-C) during the Persian Gulf War. Several other nations have developed cruise missiles.

See K. Werrell, The Evolution of the Cruise Missile (1985).

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia Copyright © 2004.
Licensed from Columbia University Press

antiballistic missile

antiballistic missile: see guided missile.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia Copyright © 2004.
Licensed from Columbia University Press

Cuban Missile Crisis

Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962, major cold war confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. After the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the USSR increased its support of Fidel Castro's Cuban regime, and in the summer of 1962, Nikita Khrushchev secretly decided to install ballistic missiles in Cuba. When U.S. reconnaissance flights revealed the clandestine construction of missile launching sites, President Kennedy publicly denounced (Oct. 22, 1962) the Soviet actions. He imposed a naval blockade on Cuba and declared that any missile launched from Cuba would warrant a full-scale retaliatory attack by the United States against the Soviet Union. On Oct. 24, Russian ships carrying missiles to Cuba turned back, and when Khrushchev agreed (Oct. 28) to withdraw the missiles and dismantle the missile sites, the crisis ended as suddenly as it had begun. The United States ended its blockade on Nov. 20, and by the end of the year the missiles and bombers were removed from Cuba. The United States, in return, pledged not to invade Cuba, and subsequently secretly removed ballistic missiles it had placed in Turkey.

See R. F. Kennedy, Thirteen Days (1969, repr. 1971); A. Chayes, The Cuban Missile Crisis (1974); R. Garthoff, Reflections on the Cuban Missile Crisis (1989); A. Fursenko and T. Naftali, "One Hell of a Gamble" (1997); E. R. May and P. D. Zelikow, ed., The Kennedy Tapes (1997); M. Frankel, High Noon in the Cold War (2004); M. Dobbs, One Minute to Midnight (2008).

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia Copyright © 2004.
Licensed from Columbia University Press

smart bomb

Bomb with a guidance system that directs its path toward a target. It is steered by fins or wings on the bomb that move in response to guidance commands. Guidance systems may be electro-optical, laser, infrared, or inertial. Electro-optical systems send pictures of the area so that the bomb can be guided onto the target. Laser-guided bombs follow the reflections of a laser beam trained onto the target by an aircraft or a spotter on the ground. Infrared guidance responds to radiation generated by warm areas of the target. Inertial navigation is based on inputting coordinates derived from radar systems or from Global Positioning System satellites into the bomb's gyroscopes. Smart bombs, initially used in the Vietnam War, offer far greater accuracy than traditional gravity, or “dumb,” bombs.

Learn more about smart bomb with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.

missile

Components of an infrared-homing (“heat-seeking”) air-to-air missile.

Rocket-propelled weapon designed to deliver an explosive warhead with great accuracy at high speed. Missiles vary from small tactical weapons effective out to only a few hundred feet to much larger strategic weapons with ranges of several thousand miles. They were not developed in any significant way until after World War II. Almost all contain some form of guidance and control mechanism and are therefore often called guided missiles. An unguided military missile, as well as any launch vehicle used to penetrate the upper atmosphere or place a satellite in space, is usually called a rocket. A propeller-driven underwater missile is called a torpedo, and a guided missile powered along a low, level flight path by an air-breathing jet engine is called a cruise missile. With the development of ICBMs, missiles became central to Cold War strategy. Seealso antiballistic missile, Minuteman missile, V-1 missile, V-2 missile.

Learn more about missile with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.

cruise missile

Type of low-flying strategic guided missile developed by the U.S. and the Soviet Union in the 1960s and '70s. The V-1 missile was a precursor. Powered by jet engines, cruise missiles may carry either a nuclear or a conventional warhead. They are designed to hug the ground, which makes them hard to detect by radar. They are launched from ships, submarines, airplanes, and the ground.

Learn more about cruise missile with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.

V-1 missile

or flying bomb or buzz bomb

German missile of World War II. The forerunner of modern cruise missiles, it was about 25 ft (8 m) long and had a wingspan of about 18 ft (5.5 m). It was launched from catapult ramps or sometimes from aircraft; it carried an explosive warhead of almost 1,900 lbs (850 kg) and had an average range of 150 mi (240 km). More than 8,000 V-1s were launched against London in 1944–45, and a smaller number against Belgium. Seealso V-2 missile.

Learn more about V-1 missile with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.