Q&A · 1:10:33-1:11:55

Do guided bombs fit a world with no newer missiles?

The technology-freeze scenario depends on whether guided bombs and early drones remain available.

Question

Would guided bombs count as missiles if missile technology stopped developing in 1945?

Short answer

The response treats unpowered guided bombs as a separate category and notes their pre-1945 existence; one-way attack drones raise a different classification problem.

Notes

A follow-up asks whether guided bombs count as missiles in the proposed technology freeze. The response separates unpowered glide bombs from powered missiles and notes that guided bombs already existed before 1945. That leaves room in the counterfactual for guided bombing from outside a ship's effective gun engagement. One-way attack drones prompt a different classification, with the Shahed treated as a missile for this purpose. Queen Bee target drones illustrate why the scenario also needs to define what happens to prewar unmanned-aircraft technology.