Missiles and Rockets of Many Makers: From the Honest John to the Astra

The Honest John was the first nuclear-capable surface-to-surface rocket in the United States arsenal. It was first tested on 29 June 1951, battalions were deployed in Europe in early 1954, and it could instead carry an ordinary high-explosive warhead weighing 1,500 pounds.

A direct descendant of the German V-2, the Redstone was the first large American ballistic missile. It served with the US Army in West Germany from June 1958 to June 1964 and carried the first American missile-borne live nuclear warhead in the 1958 Hardtack Teak test, before the solid-fueled Pershing replaced it.

The Jupiter was the first nuclear-armed medium-range ballistic missile fielded by the US Air Force, burning RP-1 and liquid oxygen and carrying a 1.44 megaton W49 warhead. It was declared operational on 15 January 1958 and withdrawn by April 1963 under an understanding with the Soviet Union reached after the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Entering service in 1958, the Nike Hercules reached about ninety miles, roughly three times the range of the Nike Ajax, and could carry a conventional or a W31 nuclear warhead. More than 130 American bases hosted batteries at the peak, and it was never fired in an actual conflict.

Designed by the Raduga bureau in the 1950s and known to NATO as the Styx, the P-15 was an anti-ship missile that China acquired in 1958 and built in several versions. Thousands were made and mounted on ships from missile boats to destroyers, on coastal batteries and on bomber aircraft.

Rafael of Israel built the Python family of infrared-homing air-to-air missiles from the Shafrir series, which began development in 1959 and became operational in 1963. The Python name was adopted for export starting with the Python-3 in 1978, and later versions can lock on after launch and attack from any angle.

The Otomat is an anti-ship and coastal defence missile made first by Oto Melara with Matra and now by MBDA. It entered service with the Italian Navy in January 1976, and its later versions include the MILAS anti-submarine missile and the Mk 2E with a land-attack role.

South Korea fielded the first Hyunmoo from 1987. That short-range ballistic missile, with a range of about 180 kilometers, descended from the American Nike Hercules and was retired in 2018, while later generations grew into cruise missiles of 500 to 1,500 kilometers and a heavy bunker-busting Hyunmoo-5.

India named the Agni after one of the five classical elements. Agni-I was developed under the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme and tested in 1989, after which the Agni effort was split off as a special programme with its own dedicated funding.

Aster is a Franco-Italian family of vertically launched surface-to-air and anti-ballistic missiles, built through the Eurosam consortium and in service since 2001. The shorter Aster 15 works under thirty kilometers and the Aster 30 under one hundred twenty, and the system intercepted a supersonic sea-skimming target in 2012.

The Oniks, sold abroad as the Yakhont, is a ramjet-powered supersonic anti-ship missile that entered production in 1987 and service in 2002. The Russian version reaches about Mach 2.9 and 600 kilometers, while the export Yakhont is held to 120 to 300 kilometers.

Britain developed the Brimstone with millimeter wave radar homing so that it could strike moving armor on its own, and it has been in service since 2005. Its 6.3 kilogram tandem warhead is meant to defeat reactive armor, a dual-mode version adds laser guidance, and Germany ordered 3,266 missiles in 2024.

Developed from 1988 by the KBM bureau in Kolomna to replace the Tochka, the Iskander entered service in 2006 with a range of roughly 400 to 500 kilometers. Its warhead options include cluster, fuel-air and thermonuclear, and it has been fielded in Georgia in 2008, Syria, Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020 and Ukraine from 2022.

India inducted the Astra beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile in 2019, with fiber-optic gyro guidance and active radar homing out to about 110 kilometers head-on. The Mk-3, known as Gandiva, adds ramjet propulsion for a reach of up to 340 kilometers.