What do you consider a cruise missile? In 1998 an Aerosonde UAV flew 3,000 km across the Atlantic on a preprogrammed flightpath. It took off from Newfoundland and landed in Scotland somewhere. It was a simple device with a 3m wingspan and weighed some 15kg. It used a well tuned model airplane engine. If somebody bad wanted to deliver a small present to another country, it would not be very hard. Back in the '60s or '70s, Jim Bede set an endurance record of 100 hrs in a Schwietzer glider equipped with a small 4 cylinder aircraft engine. He covered almost 18,000 km. The payload (pilot and life support) was over 100 kg. So... reasonable performance glider + readily available engine + Aerosonde guidance = x00 kg payload delivered anywhere. And when you have range like that to work with, an attack may be made from any direction. You can't just stare out to sea, you have to stare over your shoulder, too.

They must be detected before they can be brought down. Remember how long it took to locate the missing airliners on 9/11 and we were looking for them. A cruise missile could be launched from any of thousands of ships always off our coast. If we have problems stopping a drug laden Cessna caravan before it reaches the mainland what are the likelihood of stopping a Tomahawk class cruise misssile head for a coastal city. Most Americans live within 200 miles of the coast.

Detection is the key, of course. That is why American fighters are being equipewd with FLIR systems. True stealth requires that the Infared signature be delt with also. While some Cruise missiles are built with a low RCS, AFAIK there aren't any that are built to divert or redirect the heat from the engines. That means a F-22 at 40,000 feet can spot them hundreds of miles away. After that it's all over. My Uncle was an F-15 pilot during the testing of cruise missiles by the AIr force. His opinion was a target drone is a target drone. Changing the nsme doesn't make it harder to kill. The only real question about cruise missiles and any other sort of UAV is if the pilot that shoots it down gets full credit for a kill? Or will they be treated like grounded aircraft in WW2 and count as a half kill?

You're certainly correct in principle, but I suggest the maximum detection range of current IRST systems of a low altitude subsonic cruise missile in its forward hemisphere is likely on the order of a couple tens of miles at best, probably less. And so far IRSTs haven't been designed to readily search in such a broad sweeping manner. However, I don't know anything about the F-22's IRST in particular, so maybe it does have some significantly improved capability in this area. I know if it does, it would make doggtag a happy camper. Displacedjim

"Even though they were airborne, military jets were unable to get into position where they could have shot down a suspicious plane over Washington last month" [] "The officials said the government has additional layered defense in Washington, such as ground missiles, that could be deployed if jets can't intercept" Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4286824,00.html The CMD solution (with today's fielded equipment) is probably a mix of AC and GBAD.

How far away they can be detected is irrelevant if you can't make an intercept before they impact the target. If nuclear armed they don't even need to reach the intended target, any relatively densely populated area will suffice.