New Russian Weapon Hides In Shipping Container 618
Posted
by
kdawson
from the now-you-see-it dept.
from the now-you-see-it dept.
shmG writes "A Russian company is marketing a devastating new cruise missile system that can be hidden inside a shipping container, giving any merchant vessel the capability to wipe out an aircraft carrier. Potential customers for the formidable 'Club-K' system include Kremlin allies Iran and Venezuela, say defense experts. They worry that countries could pass on the satellite-guided missiles, which are very hard to detect, to terrorist groups. This is a scary new development in the global arms race that allows for the proliferation of cruise missiles to anyone who will pay for them — even terrorists. This could be the next big thing in strategic weapons, as they can appear anywhere there is a container ship. The company even made a commercial and posted it onto the Internet." The article notes that a Russian defense expert said that "as far as he understood, the Club-K was still at the concept stage."
Nice panic attack (Score:5, Interesting)
Mentioning terrorists, Iran and Venezuela. Dude, they missed mentioning children that could buy it over the Internet.
From a pure technical geek point of view, this is a great idea. I am sure that many US weapon makers now will start doing the same thing. Perhaps with a different marketing where they say it is a weapon that can be easily transported to any area where it is needed without the need of specialized transport vehicles, thus reducing the price.
viral? (Score:3, Interesting)
How sure is anyone that this isn't some viral for a computer game?
The graphics are all cg - even the local russians say it's just a concept.
The company doesn't even have press liaison.
I don't believe this is new (Score:2, Interesting)
I seem to recall at least one proposal for the 'arsenal ships' aka ships with lots of missiles towed off the coast, to have been made from converting container ships, after someone looked at the costs and decided purpose built ships were too expensive, before the idea was killed. The idea became to be able to use commercial ships for relatively little cost.
A few reasons it was killed (at least as any kind of surface ship):
Put a WHOLE bunch of really expensive munitions on a slow target. With minimal defenses. Defending them requires purpose built navy ships. Meaning that the savings of proposing that, just evaporated.
Even the inefficiencies of Aircraft carriers, are a lot less than using a cruise missile for each target.
Modern naval ships don't have much in the way of armor, compounding the problem of defense.
By the time you fit it with defense to protect the cargo, you might as well go ahead and build a more conventional warship (with extra VLS)
There is one example where the concept more or less did happen though, in the refitted SSBNs to SSGNs, with lots of Tomahawk missiles. They don't suffer from having to have lots of defense of a surface target, and have advantages in stealth.
Cruise Missiles Aren't That Hard To Build (Score:4, Interesting)
It was done with 1940s technology: the V-1 Buzz Bomb.
Do you know how the V-1 knew it was time to dive down at its target? It had a small propeller at the front, that would spin from the onrushing air. After a certain number of rotations, the engine would be cut off, and it would plummet to the ground to explode.
Nice headline, but not the main issue (Score:3, Interesting)
This has the potential to disrupt trade worldwide. If you can't trust any random container ship anymore (and there are many of those)... then trade will slowly grind to a halt. Remember that a very significant part of all trade is by container.
That's a much bigger problem to the world than the possibility that one boat owned by the USA is sunk.
This means that you can even have a weapon on a ship that is owned by a company from a friendly country (if they aren't careful and don't know the contents of the container).
I will invest in container scanners immediately...
aircraft carriers have been death traps for a whil (Score:1, Interesting)
Aircraft carriers have been floating death traps for a while already, see these links:
In 2004, Paul Van Riper trashes US fleet in a simulation using zergrush tactics (lots of small crappy boats and planes). Navy brass decide that was cheating and refloat their fleet thus ignoring the weaknesses revealed by the war game.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28161-2002Aug16
This link seems to be down, anyone can find the article (don't have time atm)? IIRC Chinese sub in 2006 off the coast of japan surfaces undetected within torpedo range of a US carrier during a war game. "Gotchya!"
http://washingtontimes.com/national/20061113-121539-3317r.htm
More war-game humiliation as another chinese sub in 2007 surfaces within torpedo range of a US carrier within torp range.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id =492804&in_page_id=1811
Chinese subs turn back US fleet for thanksgiving. Good on 'em, it's their water!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21939749/
Re:Taking out capital ships? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Nice panic attack (Score:3, Interesting)
I am sure that many US weapon makers now will start doing the same thing.
Coincidentally, this comes on the same day that it is reported that the US Army is cancelling its mini cruise missile in a box [wikipedia.org] project:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/27/nlos_ls_chopped/ [theregister.co.uk]
This is nothing. Think of the Syrians. (Score:5, Interesting)
I never, ever read about this in the press, nor do I hear anyone talk about it. But it's not any kind of secret - I found it on some US government disarmament website. My guess is that no one talks about it for fear of making things worse.
While they (mostly) don't admit it, the Israelis are known to have a few hundred nuclear weapons. No doubt they have hydrogen bombs. While they don't openly test, there was what was thought to be a nuclear test in the ocean off of South Africa a while back. Even if they don't test, Israel has no shortage of smart people, or computers capable of accurate numerical modeling.
Do you know the song Ninety Nine Red Balloons? The original German was Neun und Neunzig Luft Balon (SP?). I understand it was inspired by a wayward bundle of helium balloons that was mistaken by the Soviets as a missile launch.
Some people say I'm paranoid. Such people just aren't paying attention.
Re:Makes total sense for certain uses (Score:2, Interesting)
A missile in a shipping container.... (Score:4, Interesting)
...is like a cellphone without a charger. It's pretty much useless by itself. You still need the sensors to locate the carrier, which isn't trivial. Especially since carriers don't tend to let just anybody linger in their vicinity. (And I bet 'satellite guided' means nothing more sinister than GPS. Useful for guidance, useless for targeting.)
Even handwaving those into existence, you still need to deal with the carriers defenses. Even if you manage to get one or two through the defenses (a tall order), they aren't going to destroy the carrier short of carrying nuclear weapons. The best you can hope for is to send it back to the yards for a bit of surgery. Depending on where it hits, you might not even slow down flight operations.
If you watch the video linked in the summary, you'll note they downplay the massive cloud of toxic exhaust that will be produced with each launch - something few merchies will be rigged to handle.
Re:Taking out capital ships? (Score:5, Interesting)
Never mind the offensive capability, this system has to be one of the stupidest ideas I've ever heard. You never, ever, ever camouflage your military systems to look like civilian infrastructure. If you do, you leave your opponent with no choice but to blow up your privately owned merchant marine, your trucks and every cargo container it can see. Part of the reason Germany started using unrestricted submarine warfare was the my countries use of Q-ships. Part of the reason civilian casualties in Gaza are so high is 'police stations' and 'schools' that are anything but.
Is the idea here to sell this product to countries looking to get their civilians killed for propaganda purposes?
This isn't news, its olds... (Score:5, Interesting)
In 1941 a gunship "disguised" as a merchant ship sunk the HMAS Sydney http://www.naa.gov.au/about-us/publications/fact-sheets/fs111.aspx [naa.gov.au]
Sure this one's a missile, but anyone who thought merchant ships weren't a threat needs to read history.
Re:Taking out capital ships? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:aircraft carriers have been death traps for a w (Score:3, Interesting)
Privateers! Letters of Marque and Reprisal! (Score:4, Interesting)
Let's just kill everyone first, then we win (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Taking out capital ships? (Score:3, Interesting)
Interesting. I couldn't find details anywhere of how big a warhead the Club-K can carry, but apparently it can hit Mach 3, which is also one of the things that makes the SS-N-22 so dangerous. Also found a £10,000,000 per container price tag [telegraph.co.uk], which doesn't seem to be mentioned elsewhere.
More importantly, though, what self respecting nation doesn't want to buy missiles that are advertised with the Pirates of the Carribean theme [youtube.com]!
Re:Taking out capital ships? (Score:1, Interesting)
Capital ships will simply have to maintain bigger distances. From the shore and from merchant ships. Depending on the warning time they get upon launch of these things. Potentially they will be forced to fire at commercial traffic. They won't be in real trouble.
A bigger problem is that due to the necessity of customs checking being on the shore, every American harbor has now become a launch site for Iranian missiles. God forbid that these missiles might be capable of carrying nuclear warheads (and might simply be targeted at the harbor they're launched in). A nuke straight into manhattan has just become a whole lot easier.
I'd mostly be afraid that it's going to become common knowledge that defending a capital ship is a hell of a lot easier than defending a city from attacks launched from a few dozen to a few hundred kilometers. If this weapon gets on anything except absolutely tiny scale muslims will have cut sea-based trading (cutting America off from 40% of it's oil, and Europe from close to 80-90%).
In the extreme the question (to Americans, and Europeans) forcibly becomes : which do you choose
1) a medieval economy, with de-facto lawlessness (due to the unavailability of many resources for police)
2) a totalitarian, but modern, economy, where one cannot move anything bigger than a suitcase around without police checking it regularly.
There is no doubt in my mind that most people, and 100% of politicians (after all, option 1 would destroy nearly all of their power), will choose option 2.
Re:Containment (Score:2, Interesting)
Yeah, you can try to stop one Russian company from selling these weapons
Why should they not sell them?
I find it kinda hilarious with the "omg, this new weapon, it can be used for bad purposes!", no shit ..
Kinda the risk with all of them so one either have to decide if one want them at all or not. And I guess in reality maybe one really need them (though I would be somewhat ok with dropping them in a country or multiple ones as an experiment to see what would happen.)
Personally I dislike that people in my country (Sweden) are so against weapons trade at large since we seem to develop a lot ourselves (or well, nowadays with BAE systems I assume) since we don't want to depend on others and support local industry but why not take full advantage and sell it to as many as possible for lower cost and more profit? Yeah, war is bad, but why not take economic advantage / only take economic disadvantage from it? If we can produce it and someone want to buy it do it :D
Whose Arms Race ? (Score:3, Interesting)
When ever a new type of weapon is developed outside USA it's "a scary new development in the global arms race" but really WHO is the biggest weapon developer with a huge margin ?
You've seen it in the news: when a US company is developing, let's say, a new material, the first possible solution is for military. Like there wasn't any other problems than security in our world.
USA has a supremacy in military power. Today's security related threads USA is facing can not be solved with developing new weapons.
Re:Taking out capital ships? (Score:3, Interesting)
Non-nuclear subs are the quiter ones BTW, just the range and submerged speed limitations don't make them used that often in open ocean.
Though...yeah, and that's not the only example. US essentially borrowed a Norwegian, afai remember, sub some time ago for testing. And a heavily modified Kilo from my place "sunk" two US nuclear subs during one NATO training maneuvers.
Re:Taking out capital ships? (Score:4, Interesting)
The whole point is that the missiles are can be loaded on to and launched from any commercial ship that can carry a shipping container
I think the bit you're missing is that you can't just simply schedule these to be loaded onto a bunch of container ships at random and then push a button in Tehran and have them automatically take out a carrier. First, it'd have to be loaded with the cooperation of the ship's operator in order to assure that it was on top. No matter how fancy the design, I seriously doubt it could launch with two layers of other containers on top of it. Targeting and firing would require some sort of last-minute interaction, because until someone sees it, I guarantee they don't know where a carrier is going to be. What this means is that any such container ship would have to be Iranian flagged (to use my hypothetical) and would have to military operated. Furthermore, these are so expensive that no one could afford to load them and actually ship them anywhere and have them be essentially out of service while the ship is unloaded in a foreign port. This means that any container ship armed with the Club-K would effectively have to be loaded with decoy containers and kept within the operational area. At that point, it's just a badly designed missile cruiser. No, the whole fantasy of a secret missile launcher has too many holes.
Re:Taking out capital ships? (Score:4, Interesting)
Hate to float a turd but...
Another related turd is that merchant ships have been used to transfer weapons in recent memory. Israel detained the Karine A [wikipedia.org] in 2002 and at least one other ship recently.
Re:Taking out capital ships? (Score:3, Interesting)
I really hope a single cruise missile can't take out an aircraft carrier, if they can, then you have far bigger problems that missiles in merchant ships. They or their escorts should have the defenses to evade or destroy most missile types.
Actually, exact opposite. Both NATO and Russian sides have pretty near perfect countermeasures for opponent's strengths. The much, MUCH nastier anti-ship missile which is installed on Russian missile cruisers and attack submarines that routinely tail US aircraft carrier task forces is this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-700_Granit [wikipedia.org]
NATO gave it a very appropriate name: Shipwreck. Because that's what it does. I recall one of the military buff forums state that folks at NATO estimated the normal 4-missile swarm was expected to disable aircraft carrier and kill at least one of the aegis cruisers with something around 90% likelihood, while disabling the carrier only carried a 95%+ likelihood for a standard task force with three aegis cruisers and air patrols, while a swarm of 8 would literally devastate the task force entirely.. It's essentially unstoppable by any current defense weapon short of having anti-missile ship sitting on top of the sub and killing the missiles as they surface.
One has to understand, no one really wants to KILL a modern aircraft carrier in a first strike. You want to disable it, making sure that nothing can take off or land. For this, one modern cruise missile is more then enough (iirc less then 10% tilt means that nothing lands or takes off from the modern carrier). After this, the main threat for airborne/submarine force are aegis ships for air threats and anti-sub warfare ships for submarines. Those are the things you go for next, rather then finishing the aircraft carrier off. In this regard you are correct, there are few options if you want to kill a ship size of an aircraft carrier outright, and most of them are nuclear. Notably, above missiles can fit a 500kt nuclear warhead for such a task, as did many other cold-war era anti-ship missile weaponry.
Notably, this goes vice versa for NATO forces and Russian military. The main reason NATO utterly obliterated Iraq both times is because NATO forces are specifically designed to counter Russian-style "heavy armor assault" through far more advanced attack craft and helicopters which literally ate tanks alive once air superiority was achieved with tremendous efficiency. It is simply much easier to target the weakest link in the enemy doctrine then to defend it from such attack. Essentially NATO and Russian weapon systems are designed from get-go to be fairly exact and accurate counters for each other. This is something neither side likes to advertise much either - military hardware is expensive and no one likes to publicize that the other side has effective counters for it.
The most important question is - which missile is INSIDE that container. Most of the top-of-the-line anti-ship cruise missiles are not exported from Russia due to legal restrictions and military secrecy which would reduce the efficiency of the system significantly.
Re:Taking out capital ships? (Score:2, Interesting)
probably just propaganda and a lame excuse of Israel for attacking civilian targets.
Journalist on site in Lebanon confirmed that sites claimed by the Israelis as military where indeed civilian targets.
That is also the reason why they where so ineffective they where not hitting the real targets and had to stop the war without obtaining any of there objectives.
Re:Taking out capital ships? (Score:3, Interesting)
We're assuming you could put a container ship in close proximity to the aircraft carrier (let's say less than 10 km) - very possible while steaming in crowded waters (Persian Gulf, Panama Canal, even home ports). Maybe even faking a fire on the launching ship, to hide the thermal plume of the launching. This space would be enough to accelerate the missiles to cruise speed then send the final stage at 3 Mach. Total response time would be less than a minute (maybe 30 seconds), with the missiles in range of the gattlings for about one second.
That makes the Phalanx systems each able to intercept one missile (we're assuming missiles on somewhat converging trajectories), and there aren't many Phalanxes. I'd say a 12-missiles attack have a fair chance to burrow one missile in the carrier (the carrier containing a nuclear reactor, aviation fuel for all its planes and plenty of ordnance). Not to mention that we might be talking about an attack from many more missiles.
Re:Taking out capital ships? (Score:3, Interesting)
However, the threat scenario with Club-K missiles (according to TFA) is not a "shooting war between first world powers". The concern is that if a terrorist organization were to get these missiles, they could sneak up on a warship that doesn't know it's at war. Your step 1 is already solved if you have a ship within visual range.
Not sure what you do about step 3, though. Also not sure why it's more likely that terrorists get these than any other Russian weapon.
Re:Containment (Score:3, Interesting)
Meh war is war eh? Whats with all the "we must sugar coat war". It is what it is. Sorry about that, but its called "reality".
Frankly, my view on war is that we shouldn't fight it. Its bad, its disgusting. There hasn't been a war since WWII that I really am happy that my country (the US) has been engaged in. This is to the point that I don't even like to refer to "our troops". They aren't my troops. I don't support this shit except in the ways that I am forced to under threat of legal action (that is to say, I pay my protection money to the warmongers).
Now... all that said, you might think that I am against these sorts of weapons or armament in general. Far from it. When it does come time that war is needed, as a last resort, then I see no reason to hold back. Merchant ships should arm themselves as, war should be kept in such reserve as we should not engage in it until we are at such a point that even blasting enemy supporting merchant ships out of the water is considered justified.
Until we are ready to attack the hearts of the people supporting "the enemy" with all the ferocity of General Sherman, then we shouldn't send a single bomb.
Plus, if merchant ships could defend themselves, they would be safer. Just think what one of these containers could do to a group of Somali pirates! Forget that ridiculous long range sound attack that has already failed and gotten people killed, its high time that merchant ships stop being simple targets.
As usual "the police" (in this case governments with their navys) don't have the resources to make a difference, so the merchants should be taking these matters into their own hands. I say....arm them to the teeth!.
-Steve
Re:Carriers are dead in the water (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not convinced that the day of the carrier has passed.
What has replaced them?
A carrier gives you the opportunity to have air superiority over a given location. So does an airfield. Both can be destroyed. So, are you essentially arguing that air power is obsolete, except maybe for aircraft with short-field capability that can run on moving improvised bases?
Carriers give major powers an ability to wage conventional war, and this is a capability that is in high demand. Without them, what are your options? ICBMs?
For the most part most theoretical attacks against carrier battle groups tend to be manipulations of the conventions of the seas, like arming merchant ships. That just makes it sound like what is really obsolete is the concept of freedom of navigation on the high seas. Perhaps the next logical step is to just have nations set up inspection stations outside every port and make ships check in before being able to go out to sea?
Vaporware for the Military (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm sure it's a nice conversation starter for the military types around here, but note that even this nearly information free news article is vague on the status of this "in the concept stage" weapon system. Sure, they're marketing it, but that's how corporations raise money and make themselves look worth investing in, or attract attention to their other products, or just try to stave off the bank closing them down.
Essentially this article looks like some marketer dreamed up a cool-sounding product, convinced management to make a sales video, and used it to generate some interest in his/her company. Then a clueless reporter grabbed it, looked up potential effects of "cruise missiles", combined it with an out of context quote from someone at Jane's for expert effect, and spewed it out onto the net with a healthy dose of fear mongering about how it could be sold to terrorists.
Let's review...There's no evidence that such a weapon exists other than marketing drivel. There's no evidence that the company claiming to produce it has the capability to do so. If they do produce it, odds are good it won't meet the "looks good on paper but hard to actually do" marketing goals and be a viable threat to anyone. Once it exists, the Russians are not likely to allow it to be sold any more than most other non US countries with Naval forces.
So, this article should only generate interest if you A) Accept the premise that a relatively unknown company in Russia can suddenly produce an advanced weapon system like this B) Accept that once produced, the weapon will somehow be more of a threat than existing weapon systems, many of which are probably more advanced and C) Are ignorant enough to think that because the Russian government is not made of Americans that they'll sell weapons which could potentially threaten them to terrorist groups just so they can make the small amount of cash that would provide (a few million dollars... most terrorists aren't rich, although OBL is) and in exchange for which they earn the enmity and political consequences of supplying terrorists.
It's specifically targeted at sloppy thinking westerners who have a stereotypical view of other world countries. How plausible would the article be if it talked about a smaller American company in eg. California producing the same product? You'd automatically think that terrorists wouldn't get it because the US Military would buy it, or the US Government would prevent export of it, or you'd choose not to believe the hype about it.. after all, with billions of dollars more in funding larger companies haven't produced a missile system superior to existing Exocet and Harpoon series weapons. Yet if the mythical company is placed in Russia, suddenly people swallow this completely... because everyone knows Russians are genius weapon designers who are all desperately poor and willing to sell their products to everyone regardless of who they threaten, with the support and assistance of the corrupt Russian government, right?
This is NOT NEWS. It's barely even marketing material.
But enjoy the testosterone pumped discussion of weapons and ships.