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Missiles from WikiPedia:

A guided missile is a self-propelled projectile used as a weapon. Missiles are typically propelled by rockets or jet engines. Missiles generally have one or more explosive warheads, although other weapon types may also be used.

The word missile comes from the Latin verb mittere, meaning "to send".

In common military parlance, the word missile describes a powered, guided munition, whilst the word "rocket" describes a powered, unguided munition. Unpowered, guided munitions are known as guided bombs. A common further sub-division is to consider ballistic missile to mean a munition that follows a ballistic trajectory and cruise missile to describe a munition that generates lift.

The first missiles to be used operationally were a series of German missiles of WW2. Most famous of these are the V1 and V2, both of which used a simple mechanical autopilot to keep the missile flying along a pre-chosen route. Less well known were a series of anti-shipping and anti-aircraft missiles, typically based on a simple radio control system directed by the operator. However, these early systems had a high failure rate so they were very unreliable.

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