> Are any cruise missiles launched and then flown around until you notice something of interest to sink?
Sort of, there are loitering munitions which essentially hang out until they find a target and then engage it. The IAI Harpy from the late 80s is a pretty good example. It's an anti-radiation missile, meaning it locks on to enemy radar signals and uses that to home in and destroy them, degrading enemy air defenses. Usually an aircraft would have to detect an enemy radar signal and then fire the missile. With the Harpy, you simply fire it and it hangs around, potentially for 2 hours, waiting until it detects an radar signal, at which point it engages.
The tomahawk missile in theory could be capable of loitering behavior. It already has a 2-way datalink, allowing it to send information back to a controller and the controller to send commands to the missile. It even has a camera and can transmit images back to the controller, which I believe is used for bomb damage assessment. All you would need to do is add some sort of seeker device to the missile and some software modifications.
Sort of, there are loitering munitions which essentially hang out until they find a target and then engage it. The IAI Harpy from the late 80s is a pretty good example. It's an anti-radiation missile, meaning it locks on to enemy radar signals and uses that to home in and destroy them, degrading enemy air defenses. Usually an aircraft would have to detect an enemy radar signal and then fire the missile. With the Harpy, you simply fire it and it hangs around, potentially for 2 hours, waiting until it detects an radar signal, at which point it engages.
The tomahawk missile in theory could be capable of loitering behavior. It already has a 2-way datalink, allowing it to send information back to a controller and the controller to send commands to the missile. It even has a camera and can transmit images back to the controller, which I believe is used for bomb damage assessment. All you would need to do is add some sort of seeker device to the missile and some software modifications.