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Surface-to-surface missile
Missile designed to be launched from ground or sea and attack targets on land or sea

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, it 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.

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Examples

Types

There are a wide variety of surface-to-surface missiles, and they can be categorized by their intended usage, intended target (such as anti-ship), flight profile, and launch platform, with these categorizations often overlapping. They 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:

References

  1. Wragg, David W. (1973). A Dictionary of Aviation (first ed.). Osprey. p. 254. ISBN 9780850451634. 9780850451634 ↩

  2. Osborn, Kris (6 September 2016). "US Army's New Ground-Launched Missile: Raining Down Death from 500 Kilometers Away". Nationalinterest.org. Retrieved 30 August 2017. http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/us-armys-new-ground-launched-missile-raining-down-death-500-17606 ↩

  3. "SS-1 "Scud"". Missile Threat. Retrieved 2025-01-26. https://missilethreat.csis.org/missile/scud/ ↩

  4. "The Army Plans to Fire Its Version of the Navy's SM-6 Missile from This Launcher". 13 October 2021. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/42712/the-army-plans-to-fire-its-version-of-the-navys-sm-6-missile-from-this-launcher#:~:text=As%20for%20what%20the%20Typhon,weapons%20for%20its%20MRC%20battery.&text=The%20Tomahawk%20is%20primarily%20a,also%20have%20an%20antiship%20capability. ↩

  5. "Roketsan - KARA ATMACA Surface-To-Surface Cruise Missile". https://www.roketsan.com.tr/en/products/kara-atmaca-surface-surface-cruise-missile ↩

  6. "Worldwide Ballistic Missile Inventories | Arms Control Association". www.armscontrol.org. Archived from the original on 2024-12-25. Retrieved 2025-01-26. http://web.archive.org/web/20241225162236/https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/worldwide-ballistic-missile-inventories ↩

  7. "Defense Primer: Ballistic Missile Defense" (PDF). Congressional Research Service. 23 November 2022. Retrieved 26 November 2022. https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23317724/defense-primer-ballistic-missile-defense-nov-23-2022.pdf ↩

  8. "Worldwide Ballistic Missile Inventories | Arms Control Association". www.armscontrol.org. Archived from the original on 2024-12-25. Retrieved 2025-01-26. http://web.archive.org/web/20241225162236/https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/worldwide-ballistic-missile-inventories ↩

  9. "Worldwide Ballistic Missile Inventories | Arms Control Association". www.armscontrol.org. Archived from the original on 2024-12-25. Retrieved 2025-01-26. http://web.archive.org/web/20241225162236/https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/worldwide-ballistic-missile-inventories ↩

  10. "Worldwide Ballistic Missile Inventories | Arms Control Association". www.armscontrol.org. Archived from the original on 2024-12-25. Retrieved 2025-01-26. http://web.archive.org/web/20241225162236/https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/worldwide-ballistic-missile-inventories ↩