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IIRC many cruise missiles do a similar thing, except with radar and topographical maps instead of cameras and photos. Obviously the cruise missiles cost a hair more as well.



First generation Tomahawk did this (TERCOM) but later blocks acquired image matching guidance which is presumably today very advanced (I heard about it first around 1988).


The YouTube channel TheOperationRoom has a very well animated play by play (almost to the minute) of the air and ground war in gulf war 1 in Iraq/kuwait. In one of the videos he mentions tomahawks having to take a long route into Baghdad because it was the only one with enough terrain for the missile to follow to the target. This was 1991 so maybe older inventory.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLErys4h2oiuyKCuzZhpHhCeRw...


Tomahawk missile routes early on took quite a bit of planning because of this. They could only follow terrain that they’d recognized. It had other capabilities (mostly inertial at the time), but the “clever” stuff came from following well map routes.

Back in the day, TI had version of their Explorer Lisp machine contained on a single 256 pin chip. These were being considered for the next generation guidance packages on the tomahawk.


The missile knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't.




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