What is cruise missile?

Answer 1

A cruise missle is a long-ranged tactical guided missle launched from an aircraft, ship, submarine, or land-base launch platform. They are extemley fast and accurate, and are used for precision strikes on military intallations such as command bunkers or air bases.

A cruise missile is not very fast (subsonic) compared with rocket-propelled missiles which do not need wings, but fly on their own forward momentum. A cruise missile is jet-propelled which gives it a much longer range, but it needs small wings to stay in the air because of its lower thrust-weight ratio. The German V-1 of 1944 was the first cruise missile, just as the V-2 was the first ballistic missile. In the 1950's, the US Navy launched V-1s (called Loons) from submarines, but the sub had to proceed to the launch point on the surface. Later, a watertight storage cylinder allowed the sub to proceed to the launch point while submerged, but it still had to surface to launch its Regulus cruise missile. These subs were diesel-electric, and although the nuclear-powered USS Halibut carried Regulus missiles in an internal hangar, it still had to surface to launch them. Today, a USN cruise missile submarine carries multiple Tomahawk cruise missiles in individual launch tubes, but it still must surface to launch them because a cruise missile is an air-breather, unlike ballistic missiles which can be launched from submarines while underwater. [Note: this is incorrect. Cruise missiles can be launched from underwater - they are simply shot out of their tube by compressed air or a small rocket motor. Once they reach the surface, their jet turbine engine is then activated.]

Several countries use cruise missiles, but the USN Tomahawk is the best known. The USAF had its own cruise missile in the 70's, using the B-52 bomber or 747 airliner as a launch platform. Improved technology allows a cruise missile to stay closer to the ground (or water) than the old Nazi V-1, which makes them more difficult to counter. The V-1 could be shot down by fighters or anti-aircraft fire. Their accuracy has also improved. The V-1 simply flew to its approximate target whereupon the motor shut off and it dropped like a bomb; hence the name flying bomb, but a Tomahawk can hit its target with great precision. A cruise missile can be thought of as a kamikaze plane without a pilot. It flies to its target like an airplane and then blows up.