A missile boat or missile cutter is a small warship armed with anti-ship missiles. Being a small craft, missile boats are popular with nations interested in forming an inexpensive navy. They are similar in idea to the torpedo boats of World War II; in fact, the first missile boats were modified torpedo boats replacing two or more torpedo tubes with missile tubes. The doctrine behind the use of missile boats is based on the principle of mobility over defence and firepower. The advent of proper guided missile and electronic counter measure technologies gave birth to the idea that, because a guided missile (such as a guided artillery shell) is far more accurate than an unguided missile (such as an unguided artillery shell), warships should now be designed to outmaneuver their enemies and get to a better position first. Moreover, increasing the potency of naval artillery requires employing larger projectiles, which necessitates larger (and thus heavier) naval guns and consequently, larger platforms to carry these guns and absorb their recoil. This trend culminated in the giant battleships of WWII. The ability to deploy anti-ship guided self-propelled warheads from small, maneuverable platforms partially negates the advantages that were provided by larger ships in the era before the advent of guided self-propelled warheads. A small missile boat, when equipped with sophisticated guided anti-ship missiles can pose a negligible to moderate threat to even the largest of capital ships, and do so at much greater ranges than is possible with torpedoes.

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