Mystery Cruise Missile Video - Iraqi Freedom

[Observer]

Silvertop
Interesting footage, the Tomahawk is a subsonic cruise missile designed to fly under the speed of sound [762 mph at sea level] for long distances following the terrain at low altitude. I have never heard of them flying in formation. To achieve that they would all need to be launched at the same time and from what?
They would undoubtedly all have different targets so why fly in formation?
This looks more like a formation of military jets and more to the point what platform was the camera on?
Obs

[DeanF]

It could be either.

The route for cruise missiles to get to their destination is pre-programmed in, yes, they might have different targets but the 'safest' route into the target area could very well be the same.

And launch systems do contain multiple missiles, without checking, it's quite likely they could be fired simulatenously. But I very much doubt you'd even want them flying in formation, I don't see any advantage. More likely to be seen, more likely to be hit.

Plus, you've got several missiles flying completely independent of each other, without any knowledge/understanding of any other missiles that might be right next to them in the formation. It's too dangerous.

First generation of cruise missiles used inertial navigation and used terrain mapping to re-calibrate the inertial nav. system. Over time during the flight, inertial nav. becomes in accurate. Newer variants of the tomhawk I believe now use GPS navigation. But to fly in such close formation with each missile not even knowing there's another missile just a few metres away is risky. The route planners would have to pay special attention to ensuring that the routes planned in to each separate missile would been a few meters translated laterally from the others. It's not worth the effort and risk.

Far better, greater chance of success just to launch the missiles with the same route plan but seconds apart - building in some safety margin so that if a later launched missile is flying slightly faster than the earlier one it doesn't catch up on it and cause a collision.

No, I suspect this footage is of a formation of manned fighter aircraft.