Cruise Missiles versus Ballistic Missiles

Abstract

The main surprise, and disappointment, for many people in tb choice of a successor to Polaris was that it is to be another ballistic missile rather than a cruise missile. The cruise missile is a pilotless aircraft with continuous propulsion, the descendant of the V-1 ‘buzz’ bomb. Of Hitler’s two ‘revenge’ weapons, the comparatively unsophisticated V-1 was less expensive and therefor more efficient than the complicated V-2 ballistic missile. The V-2 could penetrate defences much more easily, but each missile was enormously expensive. Nevertheless, it was the progeny of the V-2 that came to occupy the central place in the arsenals of the super-powers after the war.