Group Captain Kumar Kirinde, whose chosen title is “Advent of the Cruise Missile” … conveying an article replete with photographic illustrations — which are mostly missing here.
From an idea of an “aerial torpedo” shown in a 1909 film to the modern-day cruise missiles. The idea of an “aerial torpedo” was shown in the 1909 British silent 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.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruise_missile and Google Imagesu
Introduction
The idea of an “aerial torpedo” was shown in the 1909 British silent 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.
Beginning of the same year, Germany had also flown trials with a remote-controlled Torpedo Glider built by Siemens-Schuckert.
In 1917, the United States Army aircraft board asked Charles Kettering to design an unmanned “flying machine” Kettering’s design, formally was called the Kettering Aerial Torpedo but later known as the Kettering Bug.
In the Interwar Period, Britain’s Royal Aircraft Establishment developed the RAE Larynx (Long Range Gun with Lynx Engine), 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.
Nazi Germany, in 1943, during World War II, 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.
In 1944, Germany deployed the V-1, often called a flying bomb which is considered to be the first operational cruise missile.
All these designs are considederd as forerunners of the modern-day cruise missiles.
The Airship Destroyer, the British silent film
The idea of an “aerial torpedo” was shown in this 1909 film in which flying torpedoes controlled wirelessly are used to bring down airships bombing London.This fim
Hewitt-Sperry Automatic Airplane
The Hewitt-Sperry Automatic Airplane was a project undertaken during World War I to develop a flying bomb, or pilotless aircraft capable of carrying explosives to its target. It was funded by the US Navy and created by Elmer Sperry. This automatic airplane one of the first successful precursors of the cruise missile.
Before World War I, the possibility of using radio to control aircraft intrigued many inventors. One of these, Elmer Sperry, succeeded in arousing the US Navy’s interest. Sperry had been perfecting gyroscopes for naval use since 1896 and established the Sperry Gyroscope Company in 1910. In 1911, airplanes had only been flying for eight years, and yet Sperry became intrigued with the concept of applying radio control to them. He realized that for radio control to be effective, automatic stabilization would be essential, so he decided to adapt his naval gyro-stabilizers (which he had developed for destroyers).
Elmer Sperry
In 1913, the Navy provided a flying boat to test and evaluate the gyro-based autopilot. Sperry’s son Lawrence served as an engineer during the test phase. In 1914, Lawrence Sperry was in Europe and observed the developing techniques of aerial warfare, including the use of aircraft. In 1915, the New-York Tribune broke the news of the project.In 1916, the two Sperrys joined Peter Hewitt, an early inventor of radio-related devices, to develop an explosive-laden pilotless airplane.
The first test flights of an autopilot-equipped aircraft was in September, 1917, and took place with a human pilot on board to fly the takeoff. By November, the system successfully flew the aircraft to its intended target at a 30-mile (48 km) range, where the distance-measuring gear would drop a bag of sand. Accuracy was within two miles (3.2 km) of target.
Hewitt-Sperry Automatic Airplane
Having observed the test flights, Rear Admiral Ralph Earle, the Chief of Bureau of Ordnance (BUORD) of the US Navy proposed a program to eliminate the German U-boat threat, one element of which was to use flying bombs, launched from Navy ships, to attack the German submarine bases. Ultimately this plan was rejected. Not only was Earle’s recommendation rejected, but the Navy declared that though development of the system was to continue, no production resources were to be diverted to it, and it was not to go into production.
Siemens torpedo glider
The Siemens torpedo glider (often referred to as an aerial torpedo) was an early precursor to the modern glide bomb developed in World War I but never used in combat. It featured a naval torpedo attached to an airframe which was to be remotely wire-guided.
In October 1914, Dr. Wilhelm von Siemens proposed what became known as the Siemens torpedo glider, a wire-guided flying missile that would have comprised a naval torpedo with an attached airframe. It was not intended that it be flown into a target; rather, at a suitable altitude and position, a signal would have been transmitted which would cause the airframe components to detach from the torpedo which would then enter the water and continue towards its target.
Dr. Wilhelm von Siemens
Flight testing was performed from January 1915 onwards, using airships as carriers. Different types of biplane and monoplane airframes were tested, to which a torpedo was fitted, before a biplane layout was adopted due to its greater carrying ability. The last test flight was performed on August 2, 1918.
Siemens torpedo glider
It was planned to use the Siemens torpedo glider as a carrier craft, but the Armistice which brought the World War I to an end stopped the project.
Kettering Aerial Torpedo (Kettering Bug)
In November 1917, about six months after the US declared war on Germany, the United States Army aircraft board asked Charles Kettering, American inventor, engineer, and businessman to design an unmanned “flying machine” which could hit a target at a range of 40 miles (64 km).
Charles Kettering
Kettering’s design, formally called the Kettering Aerial Torpedo but later known as the Kettering Bug, was built by the Dayton-Wright Airplane Company. Orville Wright acted as an aeronautical consultant on the project, while Elmer Ambrose Sperry designed the control and guidance system. A piloted development aircraft was built as the Dayton-Wright Bug.
Kettering Bug
The Bug was launched using a dolly-and-track system, similar to the method used by the Wright Brothers when they made their first powered flights in 1903. Once launched, a small onboard gyroscope guided the aircraft to its destination. The control system used a pneumatic/vacuum system, an electric system and an aneroid barometer/altimeter.
To ensure the Bug hit its target, a mechanical system was devised that would track the aircraft’s distance flown. Before takeoff, technicians determined the distance to be traveled relative to the air, taking into account wind speed and direction along the flight path. This was used to calculate the total number of engine revolutions needed for the Bug to reach its destination. When a total revolution counter reached this value a cam dropped down which shut off the engine and retracted the bolts attaching the wings, which fell off. The Bug began a ballistic trajectory into the target; the impact detonated the payload of 180 pounds (82 kg) of explosives.
Despite some successes during initial testing, the “Bug” was never used in combat. Officials worried about their reliability when carrying explosives over Allied troops. The aircraft and its technology remained a secret until World War II.
RAE Larynx
The Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) Larynx (from “Long Range Gun with Lynx engine”) was an early British pilotless aircraft, to be used as a guided anti-ship weapon. It was an early cruise missile guided by an autopilot.
In 1925, the RAE was ordered to build a prototype anti-shipping wireless control missile that could fly at 190 mph (310 km/h) with 100 lb (45 kg) of explosives, soon increased to 200 lb (91 kg), for 200 to 300 mi (320 to 480 km).
Just before testing began the Admiralty dropped a requirement for radio control in favour of an autopilot and a device powered by the engine to measure distance flown. Wireless control needed the operator be see the Larynx but the navy wanted a flying bomb that was not reliant on another aircraft carrying the operator, since a ‘shepherding’ aircraft would not always be available. The cost of this was a dramatic loss of the accuracy needed to hit a ship, especially at 300 mi (480 km).
The aircraft that emerged was the Larynx, a small monoplane, with autopilot, and powered by a 200 hp (150 kW) Armstrong Siddeley Lynx IV engine, that gave it a maximum speed of 200 mph (320 km/h), faster than contemporary fighter aircraft. The aircraft had the that had been developed by Professor Archibald Low during the First World War.
The RAE was very busy in the late 1920s, designing autopilots for manned bombers, lacked the means for research into more accurate guidance devices for pilotless aircraft and work on the Larynx was reduced to a long-term project; experiments were stopped in 1936.
GIRD-06 cruise missile project
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. GIRD the abbreviation for Gruppa izucheniya reaktivnogo dvizheniya (Group for the Study of Reactive Motion). The 06/III (RP-216) and 06/IV (RP-212) prototyes contained gyroscopic guidance systems. The vehicle was designed to boost to 28 km (17 mi) altitude and glide a distance of 280 km (170 mi), but test flights in 1934 and 1936 only reached an altitude of 500 metres (1,600 ft).
Members of the Group for the Study of Reactive Motion in 1931. The head of the group Sergei Korolev is seated in the middle.
Mistel composite aircraft
Mistel (German, ‘mistletoe’, a parasitic plant) was the larger, unmanned component of a composite aircraft configuration developed in Germany in 1943 during World War II. The composite comprised a small piloted control aircraft mounted above a large explosives-carrying drone, the Mistel, and as a whole was referred to as the Huckepack (‘Piggyback’).
The most successful of these used a modified Junkers Ju 88 bomber as the Mistel, with the entire nose-located crew compartment replaced by a specially designed nose filled with a large load of explosives, formed into a shaped charge. The upper component was a fighter aircraft, joined to the Mistel by struts. The combination would be flown to its target by a pilot in the fighter; then the unmanned bomber was released to hit its target and explode, leaving the fighter free to return to base. The first such composite aircraft flew in July 1943 and was promising enough to begin a programme by Luftwaffe test unit KG 200, code-named “Beethoven”, eventually entering operational service.
Ju 88H and Fw 190 combined to form a model 3B Mistel
A captured example of a Mistel trainer with United States Army personnel examining the aircraft
V-1
In 1944, during World War II, Germany deployed the V-1, often called a flying bomb which is considered to be the first operational cruise missile. It 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 (the general area of a city), while the range of 250 km (160 mi) was significantly lower than that of a bomber carrying the same payload. The main advantages were speed (although not sufficient to outperform contemporary propeller-driven interceptors) and expendability.
V-1 (V is denote Vengeance Weapon)
Bomber-launched variants of the V-1 saw limited operational service near the end of the war.
Model of an Arado Ar 234 carrying a V-1 at the Technikmuseum Speyer, Germany
Near the end of the war, the pioneering V-1’s design was reverse-engineered by the Americans as the Republic-Ford JB-2 cruise missile.
JB-2 being air launched for flight test by a Boeing B-17 during testing of the weapon (L) and in flight after the air launch, 1944
Republic-Ford JB-2 at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. 2018
Advent of modern-day cruise missiles
During the Cold War (1947-1991), both the United States and the Soviet Union experimented further with the concept of deploying cruise missiles from land, submarines, and aircraft. The United States Air Force’s first operational surface-to-surface missile that was developed in 1949 was the winged, mobile, nuclear-capable MGM-1 Matador, similar in concept to the German V-1.
Following this, between 1957 and 1961, the United States followed an ambitious and well-funded program to develop a nuclear-powered cruise missile. It was the supersonic low altitude missile (SLAM) project which was later abandoned in favor of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) development.
While ballistic missiles were the preferred weapons for land targets, heavy nuclear and conventional weapon tipped cruise missiles were seen by the Soviet Union 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 (ALCM) configuration. 10Kh was the designation for the initial series of Soviet Union pulse jet engine powered air-launched cruise missiles, reverse engineered from the German V-1, flying bomb.
10Kh
The first production 10Kh was ready on 5 February 1945. As no launching ramps had been constructed, the first test was an air launch from a Petlyakov Pe-8 heavy bomber on 20 March 1945.
Conclusion
Modern-day 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 (for instance, air- and submarine-launched versions). Guidance systems of these missiles vary with some missiles 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. Following are modern-day cruise missiles categorized by speed and range.
Hypersonic – a hypersonic cruise missile travels at least five times the speed of sound (Mach 5).
3M22 Zircon, a Russian scramjet-powered, nuclear-capable hypersonic cruise missile
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.
BrahMos ramjet-powered supersonic cruise missile, a joint venture production between the Indian Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the Russian Federation’s Rocket Design Bureau, NPO Mashinostroyeniya
Long-range subsonic – these missiles have a range of over 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) and fly at about 800 kilometres per hour (500 mph).
AGM-86 ALCM, an American subsonic air-launched cruise missile
Medium-range subsonic – these subsonic missiles have ranges between 300km and 1000km.
Atmaca, a Turkish an all-weather, long range, precision strike, anti-ship, surface-to-surface and submarine-launched subsonic cruise missile
Short-range subsonic – these are subsonic missiles have a range of up to 300 km (190 mi)
The YJ-62 , a Chinese subsonic short-range land-attack and anti-ship cruise missile.
*****
KWK_8-9-25
ADVENT OF THE CRUISE MISSILE
From an idea of an “aerial torpedo” shown in a 1909 film to the modern-day cruise missiles
Compiled by Gp Capt Kumar Kirinde
____________________________________________________________________________
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruise_missile and Google Images
___ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Introduction
The idea of an “aerial torpedo” was shown in the 1909 British silent 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.
Beginning of the same year,Germany had also flown trials with a remote-controlled Torpedo Glider built by Siemens-Schuckert.
In 1917, the United States Army aircraft board asked Charles Kettering to design an unmanned “flying machine” Kettering’s design, formally was called the Kettering Aerial Torpedo but later known as the Kettering Bug.
In the Interwar Period, Britain’s Royal Aircraft Establishment developed the RAE Larynx (Long Range Gun with Lynx Engine), 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.
Nazi Germany, in 1943, during World War II, 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.
In 1944, Germany deployed the V-1, often called a flying bomb which is considered to be the first operational cruise missile.
All these designs are considederd as forerunners of the modern-day cruise missiles.
The Airship Destroyer, the British silent film
The idea of an “aerial torpedo” was shown in this 1909 film in which flying torpedoes controlled wirelessly are used to bring down airships bombing London.This fim
Hewitt-Sperry Automatic Airplane
The Hewitt-Sperry Automatic Airplane was a project undertaken during World War I to develop a flying bomb, or pilotless aircraft capable of carrying explosives to its target. It was funded by the US Navy and created by Elmer Sperry. This automatic airplane one of the first successful precursors of the cruise missile.
Before World War I, the possibility of using radio to control aircraft intrigued many inventors. One of these, Elmer Sperry, succeeded in arousing the US Navy’s interest. Sperry had been perfecting gyroscopes for naval use since 1896 and established the Sperry Gyroscope Company in 1910. In 1911, airplanes had only been flying for eight years, and yet Sperry became intrigued with the concept of applying radio control to them. He realized that for radio control to be effective, automatic stabilization would be essential, so he decided to adapt his naval gyro-stabilizers (which he had developed for destroyers).
Elmer Sperry
In 1913, the Navy provided a flying boat to test and evaluate the gyro-based autopilot. Sperry’s son Lawrence served as an engineer during the test phase. In 1914, Lawrence Sperry was in Europe and observed the developing techniques of aerial warfare, including the use of aircraft. In 1915, the New-York Tribune broke the news of the project.In 1916, the two Sperrys joined Peter Hewitt, an early inventor of radio-related devices, to develop an explosive-laden pilotless airplane.
The first test flights of an autopilot-equipped aircraft was in September, 1917, and took place with a human pilot on board to fly the takeoff. By November, the system successfully flew the aircraft to its intended target at a 30-mile (48 km) range, where the distance-measuring gear would drop a bag of sand. Accuracy was within two miles (3.2 km) of target.
Hewitt-Sperry Automatic Airplane
Having observed the test flights, Rear Admiral Ralph Earle, the Chief of Bureau of Ordnance (BUORD) of the US Navy proposed a program to eliminate the German U-boat threat, one element of which was to use flying bombs, launched from Navy ships, to attack the German submarine bases. Ultimately this plan was rejected. Not only was Earle’s recommendation rejected, but the Navy declared that though development of the system was to continue, no production resources were to be diverted to it, and it was not to go into production.
Siemens torpedo glider
The Siemens torpedo glider (often referred to as an aerial torpedo) was an early precursor to the modern glide bomb developed in World War I but never used in combat. It featured a naval torpedo attached to an airframe which was to be remotely wire-guided.
In October 1914, Dr. Wilhelm von Siemens proposed what became known as the Siemens torpedo glider, a wire-guided flying missile that would have comprised a naval torpedo with an attached airframe. It was not intended that it be flown into a target; rather, at a suitable altitude and position, a signal would have been transmitted which would cause the airframe components to detach from the torpedo which would then enter the water and continue towards its target.
Dr. Wilhelm von Siemens
Flight testing was performed from January 1915 onwards, using airships as carriers. Different types of biplane and monoplane airframes were tested, to which a torpedo was fitted, before a biplane layout was adopted due to its greater carrying ability. The last test flight was performed on August 2, 1918.
Siemens torpedo glider
It was planned to use the Siemens torpedo glider as a carrier craft, but the Armistice which brought the World War I to an end stopped the project.
Kettering Aerial Torpedo (Kettering Bug)
In November 1917, about six months after the US declared war on Germany, the United States Army aircraft board asked Charles Kettering, American inventor, engineer, and businessman to design an unmanned “flying machine” which could hit a target at a range of 40 miles (64 km).
Charles Kettering
Kettering’s design, formally called the Kettering Aerial Torpedo but later known as the Kettering Bug, was built by the Dayton-Wright Airplane Company. Orville Wright acted as an aeronautical consultant on the project, while Elmer Ambrose Sperry designed the control and guidance system. A piloted development aircraft was built as the Dayton-Wright Bug.
Kettering Bug
The Bug was launched using a dolly-and-track system, similar to the method used by the Wright Brothers when they made their first powered flights in 1903. Once launched, a small onboard gyroscope guided the aircraft to its destination. The control system used a pneumatic/vacuum system, an electric system and an aneroid barometer/altimeter.
To ensure the Bug hit its target, a mechanical system was devised that would track the aircraft’s distance flown. Before takeoff, technicians determined the distance to be traveled relative to the air, taking into account wind speed and direction along the flight path. This was used to calculate the total number of engine revolutions needed for the Bug to reach its destination. When a total revolution counter reached this value a cam dropped down which shut off the engine and retracted the bolts attaching the wings, which fell off. The Bug began a ballistic trajectory into the target; the impact detonated the payload of 180 pounds (82 kg) of explosives.
Despite some successes during initial testing, the “Bug” was never used in combat. Officials worried about their reliability when carrying explosives over Allied troops. The aircraft and its technology remained a secret until World War II.
RAE Larynx
The Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) Larynx (from “Long Range Gun with Lynx engine”) was an early British pilotless aircraft, to be used as a guided anti-ship weapon. It was an early cruise missile guided by an autopilot.
In 1925, the RAE was ordered to build a prototype anti-shipping wireless control missile that could fly at 190 mph (310 km/h) with 100 lb (45 kg) of explosives, soon increased to 200 lb (91 kg), for 200 to 300 mi (320 to 480 km).
Just before testing began the Admiralty dropped a requirement for radio control in favour of an autopilot and a device powered by the engine to measure distance flown. Wireless control needed the operator be see the Larynx but the navy wanted a flying bomb that was not reliant on another aircraft carrying the operator, since a ‘shepherding’ aircraft would not always be available. The cost of this was a dramatic loss of the accuracy needed to hit a ship, especially at 300 mi (480 km).
The aircraft that emerged was the Larynx, a small monoplane, with autopilot, and powered by a 200 hp (150 kW) Armstrong Siddeley Lynx IV engine, that gave it a maximum speed of 200 mph (320 km/h), faster than contemporary fighter aircraft. The aircraft had the that had been developed by Professor Archibald Low during the First World War.
The RAE was very busy in the late 1920s, designing autopilots for manned bombers, lacked the means for research into more accurate guidance devices for pilotless aircraft and work on the Larynx was reduced to a long-term project; experiments were stopped in 1936.
GIRD-06 cruise missile project
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. GIRD the abbreviation for Gruppa izucheniya reaktivnogo dvizheniya (Group for the Study of Reactive Motion). The 06/III (RP-216) and 06/IV (RP-212) prototyes contained gyroscopic guidance systems. The vehicle was designed to boost to 28 km (17 mi) altitude and glide a distance of 280 km (170 mi), but test flights in 1934 and 1936 only reached an altitude of 500 metres (1,600 ft).
Members of the Group for the Study of Reactive Motion in 1931. The head of the group Sergei Korolev is seated in the middle.
Mistel composite aircraft
Mistel (German, ‘mistletoe’, a parasitic plant) was the larger, unmanned component of a composite aircraft configuration developed in Germany in 1943 during World War II. The composite comprised a small piloted control aircraft mounted above a large explosives-carrying drone, the Mistel, and as a whole was referred to as the Huckepack (‘Piggyback’).
The most successful of these used a modified Junkers Ju 88 bomber as the Mistel, with the entire nose-located crew compartment replaced by a specially designed nose filled with a large load of explosives, formed into a shaped charge. The upper component was a fighter aircraft, joined to the Mistel by struts. The combination would be flown to its target by a pilot in the fighter; then the unmanned bomber was released to hit its target and explode, leaving the fighter free to return to base. The first such composite aircraft flew in July 1943 and was promising enough to begin a programme by Luftwaffe test unit KG 200, code-named “Beethoven”, eventually entering operational service.
Ju 88H and Fw 190 combined to form a model 3B Mistel
A captured example of a Mistel trainer with United States Army personnel examining the aircraft
V-1
In 1944, during World War II, Germany deployed the V-1, often called a flying bomb which is considered to be the first operational cruise missile. It 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 (the general area of a city), while the range of 250 km (160 mi) was significantly lower than that of a bomber carrying the same payload. The main advantages were speed (although not sufficient to outperform contemporary propeller-driven interceptors) and expendability.
V-1 (V is denote Vengeance Weapon)
Bomber-launched variants of the V-1 saw limited operational service near the end of the war.
Model of an Arado Ar 234 carrying a V-1 at the Technikmuseum Speyer, Germany
Near the end of the war, the pioneering V-1’s design was reverse-engineered by the Americans as the Republic-Ford JB-2 cruise missile.
JB-2 being air launched for flight test by a Boeing B-17 during testing of the weapon (L) and in flight after the air launch, 1944
Republic-Ford JB-2 at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. 2018
Advent of modern-day cruise missiles
During the Cold War (1947-1991), both the United States and the Soviet Union experimented further with the concept of deploying cruise missiles from land, submarines, and aircraft. The United States Air Force’s first operational surface-to-surface missile that was developed in 1949 was the winged, mobile, nuclear-capable MGM-1 Matador, similar in concept to the German V-1.
Following this, between 1957 and 1961, the United States followed an ambitious and well-funded program to develop a nuclear-powered cruise missile. It was the supersonic low altitude missile (SLAM) project which was later abandoned in favor of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) development.
While ballistic missiles were the preferred weapons for land targets, heavy nuclear and conventional weapon tipped cruise missiles were seen by the Soviet Union 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 (ALCM) configuration. 10Kh was the designation for the initial series of Soviet Union pulse jet engine powered air-launched cruise missiles, reverse engineered from the German V-1, flying bomb.
10Kh
The first production 10Kh was ready on 5 February 1945. As no launching ramps had been constructed, the first test was an air launch from a Petlyakov Pe-8 heavy bomber on 20 March 1945.
Conclusion
Modern-day 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 (for instance, air- and submarine-launched versions). Guidance systems of these missiles vary with some missiles 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. Following are modern-day cruise missiles categorized by speed and range.
Hypersonic – a hypersonic cruise missile travels at least five times the speed of sound (Mach 5).
3M22 Zircon, a Russian scramjet-powered, nuclear-capable hypersonic cruise missile
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.
BrahMos ramjet-powered supersonic cruise missile, a joint venture production between the Indian Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the Russian Federation’s Rocket Design Bureau, NPO Mashinostroyeniya
Long-range subsonic – these missiles have a range of over 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) and fly at about 800 kilometres per hour (500 mph).
AGM-86 ALCM, an American subsonic air-launched cruise missile
Medium-range subsonic – these subsonic missiles have ranges between 300km and 1000km.
Atmaca, a Turkish an all-weather, long range, precision strike, anti-ship, surface-to-surface and submarine-launched subsonic cruise missile
Short-range subsonic – these are subsonic missiles have a range of up to 300 km (190 mi)
The YJ-62 , a Chinese subsonic short-range land-attack and anti-ship cruise missile.
*****
KWK_8-9-25
