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New Russian Weapon Hides In Shipping Container
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."
This threat must be contained
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.
Is this a response to yesterday's story about the USA's dick-waving about building new missiles that can reach anywhere on Earth...?
No sig today...
Actually when I read this earlier in today's news paper I thought it makes total sense from a military/strategic point of view. And I was actually wondering why no-one else had thought of this before. Or maybe they are just not advertising it openly.
When it comes to transportation and handling of the equipment, a shipping container is great as it is standardised and fits easily on vessels, trains, trucks, and can be handled with standard lifting equipment.
The down side of course is the disappearance of the civil/military divide, which of course has already happened in many conflicts.
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.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
There is a simple resolution to this new weapon: countries known to be in the market for it will have their civilian merchant fleet classified as legitimate military targets.
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.
This comment was written with the intention to opt out of advertising.
Unsophisticated missiles are not THAT hard to get a hold of already, ranging from Palestinian homebrews to enhanced Scuds.
But they don't have a great success rate, especially against military targets, and notably naval ones.
Exocets, on the other hand, do have a good success rate, and can be launched from improvised platforms, as proven by the Argentines during the Falklands conflict.
Whilst a major asset such as carrier is normally well-protected by a screen of other ships, it could be very vulnerable when in confined areas, such as the Straits of Hormuz...
Would the Russian Government be happy to hand-out weapons that could just as easily be used against them? Maybe not.
It's perhaps more likely that the Iranians will develop increasingly sophisticated weapons themselves. They're already quite well advanced...
the Soviets had mobile *ICBMS* for decades, namely the RT-2UTTH Topol M. No fancy container, but really, with an ICBM who gives a shit?
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.
"The idea that you can hide a missile system in a box and drive it around without anyone knowing is pretty new," said Hewson, who is editor of Jane's Air-Launched Weapons.
"Nobody's ever done that before."
Most missiles on ships are.
Sure there are some that aren't but most of those are land based where conditions are a little more friendly.
Sure making it look like a shiping conatiner maybe new, but missiles in boxes is hardly cutting edge stuff.
Technology, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems.
Looks like pretty cool tech. Guessing from the promo video they will make a killing in Second Life. TFA doesn't say how much in Linden Dollars though?
lol at the super lengthy youtube video to go along with it. Also it's just more ways for terrorist type countries/organizations to put civilians in the line of fire.
The Official Site of 1337 Pwnage
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.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
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...
M.A.S.K. (Mobile Armored Strike Kommand)
Thunderhawk - Chevy Camaro G3 and Fighter Jet Plane
Rhindo - Semi Tractor with Missile Launching Capacity
Gator - Jeep CJ7 with included detachable battle-boat
Condor - Motorcycle that can switch to single occupant helicopter weapons platform
Hurricane - A 1957 Chevy which turns into a six-wheeled attack tank
Piranha - Motorcycle with submarine sidecar
Without these weapon systems, we could NEVER have expected container mounted missile systems.
Kenner should sue!
(oh, and live action footage of vehicles transforming into battle mode can be seen via liveleak at http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0dd_1187202294 )
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/
Brought me back to the Battlefield 1942 days.. especially soundtrack
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.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
...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.
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
Sure this one's a missile, but anyone who thought merchant ships weren't a threat needs to read history.
Wait! Whats a sig?
...for Israel, and other small nations fighting several neighbors at once. Israel could fire these from an innocent-looking container carrier near Cyprus, and hit Damascus. I had a look at the video. Well done. Would make perfect sense for small countries to possess.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
The US Army justcancelled a similar project although their version was rather smaller than a shipping container, because in testing it didn't meet some of the requirements (i believe it was the IR seeking mode that was problematic) and because it would have cost ~$200k per missile (it costs ~$500k at the moment).
Apparently the technology was 90% ready ,though.
Not sure I like the idea of this. There are too many crazies with access to the kind of money that makes this viable
Rational thought is the only true freedom
But this one takes about 2 weeks to go around Alaska, stopping by the scenic routes along the way.
Quite independently of whether that weapon is vaporware or not, the fact remains that advances in military hardware will end up percolating to the general public, if said public has enough money. What some years away were classified chips nowadays are available off-the-shelf. Guidance software, once leaked, is easy to copy. A disgruntled scientist is all that is needed to transfer loads of tech. Everybody keeps getting better at making things that fly. Look at the advance of the Chinese weaponry in the last years. They simply throw enough money at it, and they got mostly all the tech they needed. In some years, everybody and its dog will have enough firepower to down an aircraft carrier. I've seen posts saying that they should be able to block most missiles. Well, that's all right, except when you are faced with a hundred of them at the same time.
In a similar note, I'm not altogether sure that the recent move to the "non-nuclear ICBM" is a smart one. People are scared of using nuclear weapons, which is a sound attitude. That leads to treaties of non proliferation and generic agreement on not allowing the aforesaid proliferation. But that doesn't apply to other explosives, even if you are equally dead by a bullet than by a H-bomb. So what is now a cutting-edge technology (nnICBMs), will in ten years perhaps be available to mostly anybody in the world, and there is no non-proliferation treaty to pursue anybody for it.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
If I was the US Navy, I'd let my opponents think they were better than they are too. Though since the US hasn't fought any meaningful naval engagements lately, it's difficult to tell.
[FUCK BETA]
a mist of VX at a moderate altitude over an Israeli city might as well be.
I'd say it'd be even worse than a nuclear bomb. Weaponized VX can, if the wind direction is right, can theoretically "cleanse" a small country of any advanced life forms without those pesky side effects such as irradiation preventing a later conquest. Sure, nukes are great bunker busters and their symbolic effect is not to be understated - but if you want to go for true mass destruction, nerve gas is much more effective.
A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
It's in the US Constitution and everything: the US Congress has the authority to order civilian merchant ships to do battle.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
If you are an American and this scares you, then good. War can't be one-sided forever.
The choice of music is hilarious!
"Born Free" during the opening beach scene.
"Pirates of the Caribbean" during the missile launch.
And even "Command and Conquer"'s victory music at the very end of the clip.
At least we know the RIAA/MPAA can send take down notices to get this "arms deal commercial" removed =P
Anyone else thinking of World in Conflict after reading the summary?..
Seriously, the arms race combined with galloping technology progress is just the same as a death wish for everyone. There is no chance in hell of controlling it. Increasing miniaturization, lowering costs, easier manufacturing, simpler distribution. Soon, smaller and smaller fiefs of power with more and more intrigues among them, in addition to nations. Corporations, traffickers, pirates, guerrillas, terrorists, private security companies, crazies, military and politicians, anyone hungry for muscle power. I forgot to mention increasing power and capabilities, escalating the complexity of logistics and possibilities for smaller, easier to plan, quicker and deadlier attacks. The advancement of knowledge and progress required communication, trade, and trust. A high tech arms race, such as is now starting, will kill it. China, Japan, Europe, South America, everyone is building up weapons. If we want to continue evolving, and living, we better start talking negotiations. Contrary to wacky political manipulating statements, stockpiling weapons won't work forever, because history evolves, nothing stays the way it is, the future is not predictable, especially today.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
You are right, capitalism in weapon production impose strong market regulation! Anyway, when you read on NYT, why are only Russian's weapons called "deadly"? Is the new missiles that can reach anywhere on Earth built in US a "great achievement"?
Standard public brainwashing, all sides always do this. The other side builds death and destruction, your side builds peace maintenance, courage and strength. And stops evil. Bla bla bla to make young soldiers want to kill and die. And, gotta make the public hate and fear the other side so they keep collaborating to war, otherwise they won't be into it.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Their time has passed; the only reason why we don't know it yet is because we haven't had the war that will settle the matter. If WWII didn't occur we'd still be under the misapprehension that the battleship is the queen of the seas. You don't tend to see the abandonment of a series of tactics and technology that have been successful in the past until they have led to utter ruin in a modern war. It took the tank to finally settle the question of cavalry's supremacy and it still took two world wars to drive that point home. The Italians made mounted charges against the Soviets. Whoops. According to the records, the stories of Polish mounted charges against the Wermacht were propaganda.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
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.
The carrier battle group is obsolete, the Navy just doesn't wan't to admit it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY6nm-6eCzM
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/weaps/mk-15.htm
Yea stick that in yer turban and smoke it!
Selling WMD systems to the highest bidder? A-OK! Reporting on government-backed cronyism and brown-shirted neo-nazis? Sleep with the fishes.
Metal Gear, anyone?
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
you could fit several in a container, and container ships could carry thousands.
Also. Why even bother hitting a carrier when you can bypass the military at will and have weaponry delivered to his door? Hell, if i was developing a tech like this, it would only go on sale once I already had big enough nukes sitting at all of the strategic targets.
3 minute warning? What is the ping time to China?
Deleted
Only the US can Sell weapons to other countries!
but does not work http://defensetech.org/2010/04/23/army-cancels-nlos-ls-missile-system/#axzz0mIo1WjE3 as expected.
Indirectly. Everything treated with the device looks like it has been blended.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
That was my first thought when I read the title... Rambo In A Box. With breather holes and an old liter Coke bottle to piss in, of course.
maybe to sell it some mid level bureaucrat but the target truly threatened is any major port. Think about it, get your rockets delivered to enemies home turf and activate them when wanted. Practically no warning as downtown is just a few miles away. It opens a whole slew of targets all within reach.
After all, who is going to watch for the enemy to launch cruises missiles from within your own borders?
Russia needs money and they need street cred. They will shoot themselves in the foot if needed
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
A few good points have been made (but need a few editions), and some dumb points have been made. Let's run through them:
1. The SS-N-22 is a hush-hush subject because it basically reduces our carriers to floating targets
Not the case. Details about the SS-N-22 (commonly called the Sunburn) are unclassified. Every ship in the US navy has tactics to defeat it, though obviously some classes of ships are better at it than others. Actually, the missile in the video behaves nothing like a Sunburn; it appears to have satellite guidance, Over the Horizon (OTH) targeting capability, and a terminal sprint vehicle. Thus, it's closer to an advanced Sizzler missile (SS-N-27) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS-N-27 than a Sunburn.
2. Somebody mentioned Exocet missiles and their relative effectiveness. Exocet missiles, to the US navy, are kids' stuff. My ship (an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer) is basically armed to the teeth and can shoot one own without so much as a second thought, but even ships built with self-defense as a third priority are in no real danger. Exocet was a threat when they made the movie Top Gun, but not today.
3. Someone mentioned targeting requirements. This is a good point. If a ship expects to use this in an anti-ship role, it will either have onboard radars for detection and missile control (US is the only navy that has a radar which does both), or receive targeting information from another ship/sub/satellite. In any of these cases, the targeted ship can detect the radar, and any missile control radar it detects is considered a hostile act under international law and triggers the captain's right of self defense (read: he can shoot at you if you point missile control radar at his ship). Also, any merchant ship leaving port with a bunch of innocent container boxes PLUS high-powered missile control radar is, to say the least, suspicious.
4. Several people mentioned the Phalanx Close In Weapon System (CIWS, pronounced See-Whiz). This is the last resort for most classes of ships. It can only shoot out a few miles, but it's very effective when it does fire. If this system is firing, by the way, then the missile has somehow made it past your three to four other layers of defense, not even counting soft kill options like jamming whatever active radar or semi-active/passive sensor is guiding the missile.
5. A few people mentioned the ethical issue of arming merchant ships. This is always considered in warplans, from low to very high scale. Bottom line is that it's a dumb idea that will get you one free shot and then cost you your whole merchant fleet.
6. Ignoring all of that, no matter how effective any weapon system is, at least in a shipboard environment, you only get one free shot. After that free shot it becomes a hot war scenario and every ship captain will change from "ask first, ask again, check three times and only fire when fired upon" to "ask once and if you think he's hostile, shoot." It can even go further to "Check to see if your'e sure he's a friend, and if you can't tell, shoot." At that point the name of the game is ship detection, not missile technology.
This weapon system doesn't revolutionize warfare at all. Business as usual.
Am I the only one who thinks the headline ought to read “Can Be Hidden”?
ZOMG passive tense, somebody gag me quick...
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
are alternately quaking in their boots or filling out order forms.
For war, this is why a medical vehicle cannot be armed, it makes them a target, or more of one. From their advert I assume the idea is for an inferior force to have some sort of recourse versus a superior one. Well guess what this superior force has this thing called intelligence. They know you have shipping containers loaded with cruise missiles. They have one problem how can they tell a shipping container loaded with benign goods from one loaded with your lethal missiles? They can't. The solution is simple shipping containers now become priority targets, all of them. What the heck I am at war with you so either I blow up goods and hurt your economy or I blow up military assets sounds like win-win. On the other hand a terrorist would probably think these are a great idea. Nobody is truly at war with them and intelligence against such groups is spotty it is probably a coin flip to get one of these containers through so simply send two or more of them and one should get through.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
I'm pretty sure the music is from Pirates of the Caribbean (hint, hint...)
This is really old news. Just start checking back issues of Popular Science/Mechanics. I am sure it was there in the 70s or 80s with the advent of container shipping.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Yeah, yeah, terrorists! Be afraid! Terrorist! Think of the children! And the terrorist, the evil terrorist, everywhere. Did we mention terrorists?
Think about it. Is this a terror weapon? Can't you think of at least half a dozen more interesting terror things to put into a shipping container? I know I can.
So that's the strawman. What's it really about? The US control of the sea and air, I think. The russians were driven out of Afghanistan in good parts by the Stinger missile.
Iran can be accessed by sea through the Strait of Hormuz. You can't maintain a 50 miles no-other-vessels zone around your aircraft carrier there. But then, Iran already has Sunburn missiles and could sink a US carrier anytime it wants. Why would it want another option? Because the Sunburns are nukes, and with the escalated conflict around Iran's nuclear program, using them would likely mean a US first strike.
Lots and lots of other countries would just love to give the US a shot across the bow. I think there'll be tons of buyers for this thing. The american ability to project its forces rests largely on the carrier groups. Anything that can take out a carrier is a great thing to have if you believe you could be next in the War On Anyone We Don't Like (aka Terrorists).
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
> 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.
Any merchant vessel, or just any merchant vessel whose operators can afford to keep cruise missiles around? How much do they project it will cost them per unit to mass produce these babies?
(Also, an aircraft carrier is a fairly unlikely target for a typical merchant, all else being equal. There's no money in taking out an aircraft carrier, and plenty of risk. Not to say there couldn't be privateers, but it seems unlikely to be the dominant use to which such a weapon would be put.)
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Why do I doubt that this russian company paid for the rights to use all the music starting with "Born Free" and ending with "Pirates of the Caribbean"? We can just put RIAA on them -- next thing you know these guys will be bankrupt and out of business.
My only fear is that RIAA might end up owning cruise missiles.
A missile tracking in on an aircraft carrier will meet defensive systems instantly. The military is constantly on guard for such attacks. The greater hazard would be to commercial aircraft or buildings or even ships such as oil tankers.
It would be sort of nice if your own defense department created a grade B missile that was very cheap to make and use. After all a gifted fellow has hand built this type of missile very cheaply and that is what we really need. Unless a missile is carrying a nuclear device or something far more destructive than conventional explosives the band for the buck when delivered does not justify using the device.
Is that Arma 2?
How many more years will slashdot have an off-by-one error on your Score in your profile?
Personally, I will need at least 4 of these for hunting and personal defense.
Apparently you're uniformed, anti-US, or outright stupid. As you're a European I'll vote "anti-US".
Don't confuse the land-based ABM debacles with the SM-3 and the like.
Israel doesn't need to test them. Most everyone belives they have them and that is good enough.
>Apparently you're uniformed, anti-US, or outright stupid. As you're a European I'll vote "anti-US".
Nope. While I find the US political activity (= warfare) idiotic, I consider the EU politicians to be just as moronic, so I'm not anti-US per se. After all, I did live there for a couple of years, and the people themselves are usually rather friendly.
Seeing that I have excellent genes (50% of my extended family are doctors, the others scientists, with merely one manager) and a high-level job, I dare to believe that my intelligence is at least average - certainly not "outright stupid" ;)
Uninformed, however, is always a possibility.
I see your only argument here is against me saying that anti-missile tests usually failed. You claim that this is not the case with SM-3s, which have a hit-probability of around 80%. Now this 80% is the best test record from the marine - which is known for faking quite a few tests, and simplifying a lot of other tests.
I'd think that a no-warnings test would have a hit percentage of around 50% - pretty darn good for taking down a missile, but certainly not enough (even 80% would be too low). Missiles are rather cheap, compared to aircraft carriers...
If I misunderstood you, I do apologize. Your message seems a little, hm, off-the-cuff, and I am more used to argue with people giving me useful data.
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
I'm reasonably sure you could fit a viable nuclear bomb in one, or a group of lesbian terrorist dwarves with stinger missiles, ready to down patriarchical planes for peace. So explain to me again how this is news?
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
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.
The Vela Incident on the Prince Edward Islands (the other ones) probably was a misfunction in a satellite that looked for nuclear tests, because a lot of people spent a lot of time looking for fallout or radioactivity and didn't find much. But if it was an actual test, it's more likely it was a South African device rather than one of Israel's. Israel appears to have had access to US weapon design information, so they can probably do a good job without needing tests -- and really, all they need is to appear to have nukes.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
You just made me think of something. While jamming of various kinds is effective, as GPS-guided weapons proliferate, then GPS jamming becomes critical. It wouldn't be too hard to jam GPS within at least a 30km radius, and jamming GPS over 200km would be challenging but possible.
And we could devise jammers that allow *us* to continue to use GPS, but deny useful GPS to enemy weapons for at least a little while.
You do need to accomodate the problem of an incoming missle having gotten good coordinates, a good GPS lock, and established a confident course to target. Carriers don't maneuver fast enough to foil that, and it would not be impossible to correct for course and speed. If the incoming missle is nuclear armed, well, the CEP need only be 2km? Sounds doable. So you need to jam GPS very early, maybe even before launch.
The answers here include denying the enemy accurate (within 8km at least) position data for the asset, be it a carrier or a task group, possibly altering GPS data to divert the missile, or defending against it with the more conventional shoot-down options.
Or maybe denying it terminal data, so hopefully it missed and flys by. Wow. GPS pull-off. That's interesting ECM. I got to patent that. What a cool way to drive geocachers crazy.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
The thing that bothers me here is that if one anti-ship missile gets through, it can sink a carrier with a moderately lucky hit. These defense systems depend on no missiles getting through.
I agree that the current covert missile system mentioned in the article isn't significant. A carrier group won't allow a merchant ship to get close enough to a carrier for such a missile to matter and the carrier can maneuver around any suspicious ships. And how is the merchant ship going to find out where the carrier is? The only real vulnerability is in mobility restricted waters, like harbors. There, you have cheaper ways to sneak up anti-ship missiles (eg, hide an Exocet in the trunk of a car).
What I think will be carrier-killers (I'd actually say carrier group-killers) are drone swarms. I doubt a carrier group with near future technology could fend off a coordinated swarm of thousands of drones, each equipped with fire power sufficient to take out a ship or two.
I'm also thinking of that nasty little book in the 80s (I do apologize for not remembering the title right now) which took a long, hard look at the US and USSR weapon efficiency; the last combined NATO maneuver in the north sea showed all (all!) carriers being (simulated to be) sunk on the very first day.
Well, you're talking about a war between equals in that case. The US carriers would obviously be vulnerable to the USSR back in the 80s, just like every other US or USSR capability of the day. All you're suggesting is that it is uncertain who would win WWIII, and I think most US military planners would agree with that. The only matchup that really comes close to US-vs-USSR today would be US-vs-the-world, and why would anybody want to even try that?
An aircraft carrier these days is a major waste of space, and primarily used for top-class idio^H^H^H^Hpeople to brag^H^H^H^Hprotect our freedom.
Carriers get lots of use today. Clearly you don't agree with how they're used, and many would agree with you. However, from a military perspective they clearly do get things done. Even if the only thing they were good at was bombing 3rd world nations without the consent of adjacent countries, that would be a capability that has some value.
Ah, I see. Of course, you certainly need super-special radar to detect a target, right? Normal shipping radar is certainly not sufficient, right? And we cannot possibly hook up a new system to an existing radar - would be too cheap to build...
Ordinary shipping radar is fine for locating a ship, if you can get in range (carrier groups of course wouldn't let you do that). In reality you'd need airborne or submarine radar to actually get close enough to spot a capital ship that is screened. Both of those would be considered threatening. You also need communications between the detection platform and the launch platform. Fire control radar isn't needed for a GPS-guided missile, although a working GPS system is (which of course the US and allies would disable in an actual shooting war). Inertial guidance actually works pretty well if you know the relative position of the launch platform and the target (which actually isn't easy to do without GPS if the target is located by a different platform).
Which already is more or less how civilians are treated by the US Army in Iraq and Afghanistan.
That's pretty-much how civilians have been treated by every army in every war in history. That's why the term "martial law" doesn't generally engender warm fuzzy feelings. To the army there is your squad, your chain of command, and everybody else...
I'm not the biggest fan of every US policy in the last decade, but if you're concerned about dead civilians then that's something you think about BEFORE you go to war. The US army by any standard is at least as caring about non-combatants as any I'm aware of in history.
A broken link and a link to a planted news story for politics (a diesel submarine sneaking up on a carrier group?)
Your last link is commented "Chinese subs turn back US fleet". Yes, if by "subs", you mean "Chicom bureaucrats". They were going to dock and refuel in Hong Kong for Thanksgiving, and were refused entry as part of the ongoing "we can push you around too you know" temper tantrums thrown by the Chinese government.
yeah, those aircraft carriers are death traps.
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.
Not quite, but close. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99_Luftballons
One of Nena's band members saw balloons floating away at a Rolling Stones concert in the Allied sector of Berlin and thought about what would happen if/when they crossed into the airspace over the Soviet sector.
The commercial at 3:00 : Am I the only one who thought of Red Alert 2? Sadly, the answer is probably yes.
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.
Nice video. Especially liked the Pirates of the Carribbean music they chose, very appropriate.
Nice concept, too. Aside from the obvious fear-mongering about how terrorists could acquire these, how about such a thing blurring the line between military targets and civilian targets? By design, these can hide amongst otherwise innocuous-looking non-combatives -- if your leadership doesn't really care much for putting non-combatants at risk -- and the general public wouldn't even know they were standing right next to a mobile missile-launching platform. Could be nasty.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Asymmetrical warfare is tough, and when you have a country like China churning out C-802's, you can have some very unpleasant situations. Apparently it's been operational for over 20 years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-802
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
Does anyone else see the problem of hiding these weapons amongst civilians? This will just get more non-combatants killed, and likely over nothing.
If there were any sort of longshoreman or shipping union with any sense of self preservation, they would refuse to handle this cargo.
And you are assuming they did not intend to get caught. In a western prison they get regular meals...
Those countries have as little interest in crazy people bombing their ships & co, as we have.
But that does’t make good propaganda, does it?
Why does this “article” make one feel the urge to exclaim “Sieg Heil America!“? ;)
I wonder how this article would have read, if it were written by a peace-loving Iraqi, about a US weapon system...
Can we just stop the “us vs. them” mentality? That’s so 60s. And we know what that resulted in... Hippies! ;)
If you want an “us vs. them“, then how about a “us (the people) vs. them (the crazy evil people, whether they are official [“governments”] or unofficial [“terrorists”] small groups)”!
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
The fact that F-111s were used against Libya doesn't mean naval aircraft would have proven ineffective. What it does prove is F-111s carry a lot more bombs a much longer distance than carrier aircraft, which isn't exactly earth-shattering.
Because all R&D and military planning stopped in the 80's.
You, and TFA, were specifically talking about CVNs and their surrounding battle group, not all ships. A fishing vessel indeed has no chance, but that's not what you were just talking about.
Intercepting an ICBM (~Mach 20) is a tad more difficult than intercepting even the fastest anti-ship missile (~Mach 4). There's all sorts of tests where that was done successfully, but since that's not as embarrassing as you'd like.
Not if you want to kill a carrier. The range on normal shipping radar isn't terribly long, since you only need it for navigation. You are not going to get your disguised cargo vessel that close to a carrier.
I find it far more shocking that this is something new! I thought of this several years ago and I figured this kind of hardware was already relatively widespread. Isn't 'hiding in plain sight' a proven military strategy? And if this is truly the first instance of a rig like this then our military engineers need to play with Transformers© toys a little more often.
I really hope a single cruise missile can't take out an aircraft carrier...
This has been possible for ages since there have been nuclear cruise missiles. I believe there are some conventional missiles that can do the job as well.
They or their escorts should have the defenses to evade or destroy most missile types.
Carrier battle groups as I understand it have lots of missile defense systems. There are questions regarding their ongoing viability but such debates (sensibly) exist for many weapons systems. Unless some major military power gets into a shooting war with another major military power (US, Russia, China, India, France, Britain, etc) we are unlikely to find out the answer to how vulnerable carriers are to cruise missiles.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/27/nlos_ls_chopped/
This is a modified version of the Iskander launcher. It's normally mounted on a military truck chassis, but the container version works the same way. No big deal there. Mounting the thing on a civilian truck chassis makes sense; you can shoot and scoot, and be somewhere else when the counterfire arrives. THe rail and ship versions aren't as useful.
The cruise missile is the important part. This launcher is set up for an unusually small-diameter missile. It's not clear if that missile is in production, or if it has enough range to be useful. There was supposedly a presentation about that missile at DIMDEX-2010, an arms show in Doha last month. But it's not clear what it's capabilities are.
Cruise missiles, after all, have been around since the V-1 "buzz bomb" of WWII. It's surprising that they haven't been used more.
You might make a nasty hole IF! It got through the screen of point defence ships that normally surround a CVA and the last ditch phalanx systems. However, Carriers are big beasts and its very unlikely that a single cruise missile would take out a carrier and one would hope that the lessons from the Falkland’s had been learnt and that non flammable wiring is used.
They don’t say how you would acquire the target do it in visual range and you have presumably now given both misiles and your position away and will be getting a return visit from any number of nasty munitions.
Attempting to do a BVR engagement what do you use to acquire the target and feed the solution to the ship that’s carrying the cruise misiles? Painting a Carrier with radar is going to set all sorts of alarm bells ringing and will get you a HARM Missile.
Also The Russians don’t sell all the good toys to their “friends” Sadam only got Customer T72’s
Metal Gear Solid
like how is this news? containers are capable of transporting physical hardware, including military hardware.
how would have thought of that?
I guess this is a very junior officer, and that more senior ones know very much better.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
The answer to this will simply be a tactic used in the first and second world war: Unrestricted submarine warfare. If you are a "commercial" ship in an open conflict zone, you will end up sunk before you can become a threat.
I put on my robe and wizard hat..
>Of course, it does give us some protection should we decide to use nukes first
And that is exactly the objection the USSR had (and now the Russians have) against missile-defense systems. It would take a hellaciously-expensive system to take out all of the Russian stockpile if it were launched at one time, but after a US first-strike, there would be a lot fewer missiles left, and it'd be relatively easy to pick off the retaliatory strike.
Once the US has built a system that protects it from retaliation, it becomes much easier for someone in Washington to contemplate using nukes on the Russians.
Such a rocket is sort of a robot. I can envision a robot-fish, which reaches a shore and explodes right on the city beach.
Using robots as a weapon should be banned or limited by agreements.
And even that's not perfectly effective, what with several other countries developing their own GPS systems:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GLONASS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beidou_navigation_system
There are other ways to deal with that, but all those tactics are classified.
This is all unclassified information. It shouldn't bother you, unless you think google sinks ships.
Which it doesn't.
5. A few people mentioned the ethical issue of arming merchant ships. This is always considered in warplans, from low to very high scale. Bottom line is that it's a dumb idea that will get you one free shot and then cost you your whole merchant fleet.
That only applies if your enemy is not going to target your merchant fleet, which it often will. As other posters have mentioned, the British did this all the time in WWI and WWII. They were called Q ships and were fairly effective against the German Uboats
While the US and Soviet-Russia agreed not to develop ASBMs (remember MAD?), the Chinese "communist" regime has been at for over a decade and recently they've been confident enough in their long-range supersonic "carrier-killer" that it's been showcased in the regime's jingoistic TV programming as destroying an Aegis-equipped enemy.
Wired has a feature on this game-changing Chinese ASBM titled China Testing Ballistic Missile 'Carrier-Killer'. There's a link to a delightful youtube cartoon featuring these new Chinese ASBMs wiping out unsuspecting big-noses' aircraft carrier...
To those claiming that the CCP regime doesn't harbour imperialistic ambitions, just ask Tibetans, Uighurs, Mongols, the Zhuang, the countless already-assimilated peoples and pretty much all neighbours of this current "greater China" who've made acquintance with advancing PLA troops...
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
My methods would also jam them effectively.
With a little engineering, a pull-off for other systems would not be too hard to implement. The specs have to be somewhat public to manufacture receivers, so there are no secrets. And with competing GPS, we can just shut them down in theater and use our own.
Now how to prevent jamming by others. Ah. My methods are not terribly sophisticated. Remember, commercial GPS doesn't even like to be indoors. It doesn't take much to defeat it.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Comparing nerve weapons and nuclear weapons is apples and oranges for specificity. Nerve weapons target the population specifically, nuclear weapons are really big bombs, mostly good for decimation, but not killing the population, sure they do it well enough, but the majority of the damage is structural, and the radiation is mostly an unwanted side effect, not a directly desired effect except to make a statement.
With VX you can walk in and plant your flag in the middle of a still functional manufacturing district or city, with nuclear weapons, sure you burned the hell out of the populace that survived, but the power is in the big ruin you've just turned the local 5-50 mile radius into and you just cant wait to see their reactions when their city is a crater.
a handful of selfish greedy people are no match for millions of selfish, greedy people -u4ya
I'd be entertained to find out if waterproof versions of this container with a variable buoyancy air bladder could be dumped out at sea, then as soon as the enemy boats get close, BAM, pop up and fire. Sort of like a new kind of mine, only it carries cruise missiles.
Well, let's discuss.
The carriers had aircraft which were used exclusively to protect - the carriers. And bombing was done by aircraft which flew straight from the the US via the UK.
This doesn't make sense. Carriers showed up, launched all their aircraft to protect themselves, then let long range bombers do all the work? Why even send the carriers? You should read into the Libya conflict some more. Carriers accompllished a lot that long range bombers could not, the easiest example being that carriers are moving airstrips that can move around airspace restrictions.
the anti-missile tests went smashingly well, right? Right?
What tests are you talking about? Cite your source so I know what you mean.
we cannot possibly hook up a new system to an existing radar
Sure you can. Lots of weapon systems do this. Their cheap to build, easy to use, and simple to install. They're also trivial in terms of defending against them. People don't use commercial navigation radar for fire control because it's not designed for that. A Wikipedia-level understanding of PRF, beamwidth, and net cycle time should show you why radars are either cheap OR good for fire control, not both.
our rules are idiots and morons, this has happened in practically every war since Egypt was founded...
That's the nature of war. As I said, it's taken into account in warplans. Military planners are very careful to learn from history. Usually.
Which already is more or less how civilians are treated by the US Army in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Whether you know it or not, this is a separate issue, and probably a troll/anti-US shot. I'll leave it alone.
You sir, are both.
War is an extension of politics, no-one would even dare using gas these days as everyone would turn on them. Not like Saddam, if the Syrians used gas everyone would invade and no one would say a word. The Russians and the Americans would both run in hammer and tongs without a second thought. The Chinese would stay completely silent and Europe would even join in. Using gas against another country is suicide.
Secondly gas degrades. The active components of some chemical weapons can degrade in less then a few weeks. Most last a few months to a few years. Sarin has a shelf life of 18 months if there are no impurities in the manufacturing process. Not to mention that they are incredibly hard to manufacture and quality varies wildly.
This is to say, if they have chemical weapons at all. They might say they do to stave off invasion, especially after Saddam said the opposite (and was right, no unlisted chemical weapons were found) and was invaded.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
hi I am a south african - these nuclear test off south africa... how far back. I could see something like this missing the evening news. the official stance is that we have dis armed all nuclear weapons. (which is only relevant in comparison to how long it takes to replaces them...) thanks man
"You are still innocent until proven guilty. What's changed is what they do to innocent people." by notnAP (846325)
give them a few years, they will ;-P
besides, the way the chinese focus on hacking google, it seems the chinese think google sinks something!
but even without that red herring, there's all you navy thinkers should be thinking about, china:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/world/asia/24navy.html
american navy, prepare: zheng he has come to sink you
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zheng_He
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
http://steeljawscribe.com/2010/03/24/the-problem-with-proliferation-cruise-missile-edition
Best Regards,
Durval Menezes.
I have never met a computer that didn't like me.