Ballistic Vs Cruise Missile

The ballistic vs cruise missile comparison tells you there are four fundamental differences between them; their power plant, trajectory, speed, and launching platforms. However, they have two things in common; they can share the same warhead, which can be conventional (anti-bunker or incendiary) or nuclear warhead, and the fact that they are both precise smart weapons, being guided by difference systems, such as inertial and GPS (GLONASS). Remember that the first two missiles in history were short-range ballistic missiles, which were developed and fired in anger by Germany during World War II; the V1 and the V2 flying bomb.

Ballistic vs Cruise Missile

The ballistic missile is always supersonic, or hypersonic. It is powered by one or more rocket engines. If it is equipped with three rocket engines, we say it is a three-stage rocket, or missile. To propel forward, a rocket uses Isaac Newton's principle of 'action and reaction'. The development of rocket engines made it possible for the Soviets to put their first satellite into orbit, the Sputnik, in 1954, while the Americans were able to put the first man on the moon. Thus, a ballistic missile has a different trajectory, or travel path, than the cruise one. Once it has lifted off, it travels upward into the stratosphere or the mesosphere, which is the boundary of outer space and the Earth. From there, the reentry vehicle containing the nuclear warheads begins to fall at great speed down to Earth, making a lob or high-arc pattern, as they descend in the direction of their targets, one warhead for each one of them.

Most cruise missiles, one the other hand, uses one turbine motor, or a ramjet, as a power plant. Most of them travels at sub-sonic speeds, specially those propelled by a turbine (turbojet engine). However, there are those which travels at either supersonic or hypersonc speeds, being powered by a ramjet, instead of a turbine. Its launching platform is usually an aircraft, but it can be adapted to be launched from a submarine or surface warship. In contrast with the ballistic missile, it drops sharply down towards the surface of the Earth once it has been launched from the combat aircraft. Then it spreads out its short-span wings and starts flying towards its designated target at sub-sonic speed, between 800 and 950 km/h. Its travel path has a low altitude trajectory, as the missile flies low over the ground, between 30 and 100 meters of altitude  In the western world, the most famous cruise missiles are the Tomahawk and the Storm Shadow, which are parts of the arsenal of the USA and NATO countries respectively.

Bellow, an American LGM-25C Titan II ballistic missile during lift-off from a silo.