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Surface-to-surface missile

Missile type

Summary

Missile type

A surface-to-surface missile (SSM) is a missile designed to be launched from the ground or the sea and strike targets on land or at sea. They may be fired from hand-held or vehicle mounted devices, from fixed installations, or from a ship. They are often powered by a rocket engine or sometimes fired by an explosive charge, since the launching platform is typically stationary or moving slowly. They usually have fins and/or wings for lift and stability, although hyper-velocity or short-ranged missiles may use body lift or fly a ballistic trajectory. The first operational surface-to-surface missile was the V-1 flying bomb, which was powered by a pulsejet engine.

Contemporary surface-to-surface missiles are usually guided. An unguided surface-to-surface missile is usually referred to as a rocket (for example, an RPG-7 or M72 LAW is an anti-tank rocket), whereas a BGM-71 TOW or AT-2 Swatter is an anti-tank guided missile.

Examples of surface-to-surface missile include the MGM-140 ATACMS and the Scud family of missiles.

Examples

  • ALAS
  • BGM-109 Tomahawk
  • Bina
  • Hermes
  • Hyunmoo-3
  • KARA Atmaca
  • Kh-35
  • Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW)
  • Luz
  • Martlet
  • MGM-166 LOSAT
  • MGM-140 ATACMS
  • Nimrod
  • Otomat
  • PARS 3 LR
  • Polyphem
  • P-800 Oniks
  • RBS-15
  • Ure
  • 3M-54 Kalibr
  • 9K720 Iskander

Types

There are a wide variety of surface-to-surface missiles. They can be categorized by their intended usage, intended target (such as anti-ship), flight profile, and launch platform. These categorizations often overlap. These types of missiles may be launched from fixed silos, road-mobile vehicle, railcar, or naval launch platforms.

Cruise missiles travel at lower speeds and trajectories (often a few meters above ground), always within the atmosphere, and their motor burns during the entire flight. Ballistic missiles travel at higher speeds and trajectories with a short powered flight (boost phase) followed by a period of typically unpowered flight often exiting the atmosphere (midcourse phase), followed by a high speed unpowered terminal re-entry. They are typically classified by range band, from shortest to longest:

  • Short-range ballistic missile (SRBM): Range less than 1,000 km.
  • Medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM): Range between 1,000 km and 3,000 km.
  • Intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM): Range between 3,000 km and 5,500 km.
  • Intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM): Range greater than 5,500 km.

References

References

  1. Wragg, David W.. (1973). "A Dictionary of Aviation". Osprey.
  2. Osborn, Kris. (6 September 2016). "US Army's New Ground-Launched Missile: Raining Down Death from 500 Kilometers Away".
  3. "SS-1 "Scud"".
  4. (13 October 2021). "The Army Plans to Fire Its Version of the Navy's SM-6 Missile from This Launcher".
  5. "Roketsan - KARA ATMACA Surface-To-Surface Cruise Missile".
  6. "Worldwide Ballistic Missile Inventories {{!}} Arms Control Association".
  7. (23 November 2022). "Defense Primer: Ballistic Missile Defense". [[Congressional Research Service]].
Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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