The US has launched 50 Tomahawk missiles against Syria, according to reports. It has been learned that the air strikes were launched from US Navy destroyers. It is evident that the Donald Trump administration has chosen its best possible weapon from its arsenal to hit back at Syria’s Bashar al-Assad regime following deadly gas attack in the war torn country. US, which has one of the most technologically advanced military, has chosen Tomahawk missile. What is so special about. We take a look at this cruise missile.

1. It was during the Cold War US Navy used to possess two of the world’s best anti-ship missiles — the Harpoon and the Tomahawk. With these two weapons, the US Navy was prepared to engage Soviet warships if the Cold War had ever turned hot.

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2. The enormous Tomahawk — 20 feet long and weighing 3,000 pounds — can be fired from a ship or submarine. It can fly 600 miles before entering a circular search pattern, scanning for and then diving into its target.

3. But after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the US fleet shifted its attention to land. It launched missile and air raids on Iraq, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq again, Libya and Syria, among others.

4. Confident that at-sea combat was history, the Navy decommissioned all its Tomahawk anti-ship missiles and removed Harpoons from many ships and planes.

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5. But, the Pentagon’s 2017 budget proposal includes USD 30 million for the first 10 copies of this long-range missile.

6. The Navy also began experimenting with a new anti-ship version of the latest iteration of the Tomahawk, which is still the sailing branch’s primary weapon for attacking stationary land targets. In a January 2015 test off the California coastline, Navy and Raytheon engineers added a more sensitive tracker/seeker — one capable of following/honing in on a moving target — to a Tomahawk and launched it at a ship.

7. The test was an explosive success. Work, the deputy Defense secretary, called it a “game-changer.” “It’s a 1,000-mile anti-ship cruise missile,” he said in February 2015. “It can be used by practically our entire surface and submarine fleet.” The 2017 budget proposal buys another 100 Tomahawks for $187 million. Work said the Navy would modify all Tomahawks in its arsenal — hundreds or even thousands of missiles — with the new anti-ship seeker.

(With inputs from Reuters)