The BGM-109 'Tomahawk' is the longest range cruise missile currently employed by any country on earth, and the most accurate. Developed by the Americans as a non-ballistic way of delivering both conventional and nuclear ordnance, the Tomahawk is capable of levelling a small city from a remote distance of 1500 miles.
Technical Data:
WARHEAD - 1000 lbs. - Either 1000 lbs. conventional explosive / fragmentary warhead or W80 250-kiloton nuclear
RANGE - 1,553 Miles
WING SPAN - 100 Inches
LENGTH - 219 Inches
WEIGHT - 4,190 lbs.
ENGINE - Solid propellant booster /
turbojet cruise, one Williams F107-400 rated at 600 lbs. thrust
GUIDANCE -
TERCOM,
GPS,
DSMAC and
infra-red
SPEED - 550 mph
COST - $1.4m to $2m dependent upon warhead used
Since its development in 1972 there have been four distinct types of Tomahawk cruise missiles. Two versions, the U.S.A.F. ground launched version and the Navy BGM-109A have been removed from the U.S. inventory - or have had the W-80 thermonuclear warhead removed and replaced with a conventional high explosive.
Although most publications list the Tomahawk accuracy at within 30 feet the real truth lies in the computer guidance system. Tomahawk is designed to fly through a one meter square window on earth at a predesignated time. The Tomahawk's direct hit record is approximately 85% over its use in the Gulf War, and further firings since then. Tomahawk uses a combination of GPS (Global Positioning Satellite), TERCOM - a special terrain way-point radar map, and two types of terminal guidance systems to place the warhead with pinpoint accuracy, DSMAC and an infra-red mapper. DSMAC is a high resolution satellite radar image of the target area which the Tomahawk follows to within feet of the intended target. An additional Infra-red scene mapper is also employed for a dual spectrum picture fed to the targeting computer.
The two conventional warheads used in the August 20, 1998 attacks on the Sudan and Afghanistan were the conventional 1,000 pound high explosive and the 1,000 pound cluster bomblet warhead which showers a target with a rain of softball-sized submunitions. The heavy warheads were used mainly against the factory in Sudan and caves or hardened bunkers in Afghanistan. The bomblet versions were deployed directly against "soft" targets such as people, trucks, buildings and lightly-armoured vehicles.
One version of the Tomahawk used in the Gulf War deployed small spools of carbon-fibre thread over Iraqi power plants and electric grids. The fiber spools unwound and fell over the live wires. The resulting shorts blew most of the Iraqi electric power grid for the remainder of the war. Iraqi efforts to clear the spools and restart the electric plants were foiled by desert winds which blew more spools back into the live wires.