The Perseus missile will be the most sophisticated weapon in its class travelling at Mach 3 or 2,000 miles an hour, three times the speed of existing weapons.
In midflight it can deploy a further two baby missiles that can help it straddle a ship with devastating firepower or seek out extra targets or confuse surface-to-air missile batteries.
One engineer on the project unveiled at the Paris Air Show, said: "This is the stealth bomber of missiles and can penetrate enemy defences like nothing else."
The £800,000 Perseus, designed to replace the existing Exocet and Storm Shadow weapons, will be invisible to radars until the very last few seconds before the two ton weapon impacts.
Lionel Mazenq, spokesman for defence company MBDA who are developing the missile to be ready by 2030, said it was designed to attack the most advanced warships and land targets.
He said: "The Perseus will be the most advanced missile system known to man.
"It is so intelligent it can hit two or three spots at the same time at an incredible level of accuracy.
"It is propelled by a Ramjet motor and can overcome the most advanced enemy missile defences.
"The missile has a radar seeker and laser radar - capable of mapping the ground at such resolution it can recognise one building from another - and will automatically divert if it is heading towards a residential zone where lives could be lost.
"It is also terrain-hugging. It can skim along the sea at just a couple of metres above the waves.”
Perseus, named after the Greek mythological figure, can be launched from warships or fast jets and will be pitched to several armed forces including Britain’s military.
It is being developed by the part-British owned MBDA defence company which supplies two-thirds of missiles dropped by the RAF in Libya and Afghanistan including the dual mode Brimstone anti-tank device
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