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Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Well, Moscow Likes My Idea

I proposed modularized auxiliary cruisers about three years ago (more fully fleshed out here) using shipping containers as the basis for weapons and systems modules to be mounted on container ships.

Moscow seems to like the idea:

A Russian firm is marketing a version of the Klub cruise missile that can be carried in a 40 foot shipping container. The launcher and the missile have to slide out of the container before firing, thus limiting where it can be placed on a ship, particularly your typical container ship. But you could get two or three of these shipping container Klubs on most cargo ships, turning the vessel into warship.

Not a great warship, of course. But not every mission needs to be carried out by the best ships we can send.