What are the different categories of missiles and bombs and when do you use them?

Question

I see words like “surface to air” and “hellfire” and “cruise missile” and “smart bombs”.

What are the different categories here, what do they do, when do you want to use them?

In: 4

Answer 1

“Surface to air” is any missile that is shot from the ground to the air, usually to shoot down a plane/helicopter. “Air to air” is a missile shot from one plane/helicopter at another. “Air to ground” is a missile shot from a plane/helicopter at a target on the ground.

A hellfire is a specific kind of “air to ground” missile originally designed to be used to take out enemy tanks, but different variants of it exist now so it isn’t solely anti-tank.

A cruise missile is a missile that instead of just getting launched through the air super fast by a rocket, it actually flies like a plane and can be much more accurate due to that extra control.

Purported footage of a Kalibr cruise missile flying toward a target in Ukraine
byu/675longtail inCombatFootage

There’s a video example of one flying overhead.

And then “smart bomb” is more of a marketing/PR term. There isn’t an exact definition of what makes something a “smart bomb”, but in general a “smart bomb” is something that you can still control/guide as it’s falling.

Unlike a bomb that you just drop out of a plane and hope it hits what you’re aiming at, smart bombs can do things like be laser guided or gps guided to where they hit their specific intended target (most of the time).