page_title: Loitering munition
section_title: First development and terminology
hierarchical_section_title: Loitering munition / History / First development and terminology
caption_attribution_description: Northrop AGM-136A Tacit Rainbow on display in the Cold War Gallery at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio.
context_page_description: A loitering munition is a weapon system category in which the munition loiters around the target area for some time, searches for targets, and attacks once a target is located. Loitering munitions enable faster reaction times against concealed or hidden targets that emerge for short periods without placing high-value platforms close to the target area, and also allow more selective targeting as the actual attack mission can be aborted.
  Loitering munitions fit in the niche between cruise missiles and unmanned combat aerial vehicles sharing characteristics with both. They differ from cruise missiles in that they are designed to loiter for a relatively long time around the target area, and from UCAVs in that a loitering munition is intended to be expended in an attack and has a built-in warhead.
  Loitering weapons first emerged in the 1980s for use in the Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses role against surface-to-air missiles, and were deployed for the SEAD role in a number of military forces in the 1990s.
context_section_description: Initially, loitering munitions were not referred to as such but rather as suicide UAVs or loitering missiles. Different sources point at different projects as originating the weapon category. The early 1980s initial Israeli Delilah variants or the failed US AGM-136 Tacit Rainbow program are mentioned by some sources. Alternatively, the late 1980s IAI Harpy which was widely exported is considered by some as the first loitering munition system.
  
  Early projects did not use the "loitering munition" nomenclature which emerged at a much later date, and used existing terminology at the time. For instance the AGM-136 Tacit Rainbow was described as follows in a 1988 Air Force Magazine article: 
  the Tacit Rainbow unmanned jet aircraft being developed by Northrop to loiter on high and then swoop down on enemy radars could be called a UAV, a cruise missile, or even a standoff weapon. But it is most definitely not an RPV.
  — Canan, James W. "Unmanned Aerial Vehicles." Air Force Magazine (1988), page 87
caption: Northrop AGM-136 Tacit Rainbow on display at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio.
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