A cruise missile is an unmanned self-propelled guided vehicle that sustains flight through aerodynamic lift for most of its flight path and whose primary mission is to place an ordnance or special payload on a target. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large warhead over long distances with high precision. Modern cruise missiles are capable of traveling at high subsonic, supersonic, or hypersonic speeds, are self-navigating, and are able to fly on a non-ballistic, extremely low-altitude trajectory.
A BGM-109 Tomahawk flying in November 2002
A Fieseler Fi-103, the German V-1 flying bomb
BrahMos shown at IMDS 2007.
India's Nirbhay missiles mounted on a truck-based launcher
Ballistics is the field of mechanics concerned with the launching, flight behaviour and impact effects of projectiles, especially ranged weapon munitions such as bullets, unguided bombs, rockets or the like; the science or art of designing and accelerating projectiles so as to achieve a desired performance.
Gaetano Marzagaglia, Del calcolo balistico, 1748
Baseball throws can exceed 100 mph
Catapult 1 Mercato San Severino
USS Iowa (BB-61) fires a full broadside, 1984.