Guided missile

A guided missile is a self-powered weapon, in the family of precision-guided munitions (PGM) that can alter its flight or ballistic characteristics in order to correct aiming errors and hit a target. Guided missiles are assumed to be independently powered during at least part of its flight, differentiated from guided bombs and artillery-launched guided shells.

Guidance

Missiles, in general, follow one of two guidance paradigms:

• Go onto location in space (GOLIS), where guidance directs the weapon to a specific set of geographical coordinates and whatever is located at those coordinates;
• Go onto target (GOT), in which the weapon recognizes a specific target, which may be moving, and adjusts its course based on sensor input or human commands, in order to hit that target.

A given missile may be command-guided, with it completely under the control of a human operator. It may be partially autonomous, where, for example, the person launches it points it at the target until onboard sensors can take control. It may be "fire and forget" or fully autonomous, such that it needs no human control once it has been give target information.

Classification by launcher and target location

There are several ways to classify guided missiles. One of the most basic covers the launching platform and the target location, "location" here being agnostic to GOLIS or GOT. Each one of these types has further subdivisions, such as range, mobility, guidance, payload, etc.

Launching platform	Target location	Missile type	Example
Surface	Surface	surface-to-surface missile (SSM)	U.S. Minuteman ICBM, German V-2 MRBM
Surface	Air	surface-to-air missile (SAM)	Soviet/Russian S-75 Dvina (NATO designation SA-2 and reporting name GUIDELINE), MIM-104 Patriot
Surface	Underwater	air-to-underwater missile (AUM)	Russian RPK-2 Viyuga (NATO designation SS-N-15 and reporting name STARFISH, U.S. RUM-139 Vertical Launch ASROC
Surface	Space [Note 1]	anti-ballistic missile (ABM), anti-satellite missile	U.S. RIM-161 Standard SM-3, Israeli Arrow
Air	Air	air-to-air missile (AAM)	U.S. AIM-9 Sidewinder, Russian Vympel R-27, (NATO designation AA-10 and reporting name ALAMO
Air	Surface	air-to-surface missile (ASM)	U.K. Brimstone, U.S. AGM-88 HARM
Underwater	Surface	underwater-to-surface missile (USM)	U.S. and U.K. Trident II (D5) UGM-133A, French M45
Underwater	Underwater	underwater-to-underwater missile (UUM)	U.S. UUM-44 SUBROC, Russian RPK-2 Viyuga (NATO designation SS-N-15 and reporting name STARFISH

• Note 1: anti-ballistic missiles may actually intercept in space, in the upper atmosphere, or lower atmosphere. For this chart, the types are all considered surface-to-space.