Oh good:
China is building a long-range cruise missile fired from a shipping container that could turn Beijing's large fleet of freighters into potential warships and commercial ports into future missile bases.
The new missile is in flight testing and is a land-attack variant of an advanced anti-ship missile called the YJ-18C, according to American defense officials.
The missile will be deployed in launchers that appear from the outside to be standard international shipping containers used throughout the world for moving millions of tons of goods, often on the deck of large freighters.
The YJ-18C is China's version of the Club-K cruise missile built by Russia that also uses a launcher disguised as a shipping container. Israel also is working on a container-launched missile called the Lora.
I know I've noted the Russian and Israeli weapons. For about a dozen years I've wanted our Navy to do something like this. I put up a post based on an article I submitted to Proceedings arguing for the Navy to do this.
I was aware of the historic use of auxiliary cruisers and at some point it occurred to me that the new LCS concept of having weapons and systems in removable shipping containers so the LCS could be repurposed in their capabilities could apply to container ships. And I knew that the British in the Falklands War had used a container ship to carry and launch Harriers and helicopters (as a transport and not a mini-carrier), showing that VTOL planes could take off from such a conversion.
Eventually Military Review published my concept ("The AFRICOM Queen") a few years ago when I adapted it to power projection platforms for use around the Africa littorals by AFRICOM. I included the ability to drop off contingents with their container-housed equipment around the continent as the ship carried out its missions.
And now China is moving toward the capability. Will the Navy (or Army) exploit this capability?
And will China gain--perhaps enabled by their Huawei 5G global communications technology (and that's apart from its potential to compromise our systems)--the ability to carry out a global Pearl Harbor the way I worried Russia might get with this same capability?
