The bomb in the box
© RIA Novosti. Howard Gethin
Posted on 08/17/2011 11:18:37 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Russian company unveils 'bomb in a box' cruise missile system
A Russian company has unveiled a unique "Pandora's Box'"cruise missile system which is deployed and can be fired from a standard 40-foot shipping container, from ships, rail cars or even off the back of a truck.
Morinformsystem-Agat JSC is marketing the system as a take-anywhere weapon able to destroy ships and attack land targets with the Novator Klub-K 3M-54TE missile, one of the deadliest cruise missiles in existence.
"We call it Pandora's box," said a company representative at MAKS air show, where the weapon made its first appearance.
The Club K missile system, containing four rounds, is self-contained in the sea container along with two crew members in a sealed cabin with their communications and targeting systems.
The weapon is fed information from satellites, then raised to a vertical position from the container by hydraulic rams, and fired. It is then guided inertially to the approximate target area, up to 270 kilometers away, where it finds the target using radar.
The missile then accelerates to around 700 meters per second to hit the target with its penetrator high-explosive warhead.
The maker will not discuss potential customers but says the system has attracted "considerable interest" from abroad.
The bomb in the box
© RIA Novosti. Howard Gethin
Well, that is reassuring...
Iran is probably the 1st customer in line - a few small nukes mounted on the missles to be loaded onto a container ship for high-altitude air burst.
Can you say EMP?
This is not new, IIRC.
Need to know more, but this may be the new AK-47 of the modern age.
Doing for missiles what the AK did for machine guns.
Frighting development if they start to license others to produce this or people start making copies.
The flip side is that any country known or suspected to possess such missile containers will see all its commercial ships becoming naval targets at the start of hostilities.
Boogieman, boogieman, just about any of the current system could be adapted to do the same thing.
A terorist country’s best friend.
I would be even more concerned if they made a cheaper version with only one missile launcher in it
Cruise missiles don’t have to cost $20m.
The do it yourself homemade cruise missile for under $5000.
http://www.interestingprojects.com/cruisemissile/
Sounds like a new novel. ... But since it was here first, I guess it wouldn’t be a novel novel...
That looks like the containers that are towed by my office every day!
a 6 digit price tag isn’t anything for drug gangs and terrorist organizations pulling in billions of dollars a year.
They can afford thousands of these if there is a willing seller.
This has been in the works for a while. It comes with a “fire control” container to target and launch the missiles.
Its a good way to convert a container ship into an arsenal ship!
I'm guessing China could tool up and be in full production in 6 months.
Not too much info in the article but it did say it was vertical-launch, using hydraulic rams to stand it up in the container.
I guess that means the lid has to have hinges on it, so the top can swing open ... not too standard for a standard shipping container. Fairly distinctive and recognizable, in fact - even from space. That non-standard container would have to be on the top of the stack on a ship, and exposed from above on a transport truck.
This is all guesswork on my part, I admit, but it shouldn't be too hard to keep track of these things.
The Chinese have been operating the anti-ship variant of the Klub for a few years now, so they probably know hot to go about copying it.
That is exactly what I was thinking, or for that matter North Korea.
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