An anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) is a military ballistic missile system designed to hit a warship at sea. Due to the often hypersonic flight speed of ballistic missiles an ASBM's kinetic energy alone may be sufficient to cripple or outright destroy a supercarrier with a single conventional warhead impact. Unlike a nuclear warhead, however, this would require a direct hit to be effective; therefore unlike a typical ballistic missile, which follows a ballistic flight path after the relatively brief initial phase of powered flight, an ASBM would require a precise and high-performance terminal guidance system with advanced sensors and in-flight calibrations in order successfully to hit a moving target.