Cruise missile four-pack on sale now

The Novator Design Bureau was was established in 1947 to design large-caliber anti-aircraft artillery systems for the Soviet Union.  Today they are actively marketing standard ISO container-based cruise missiles.  From the Telegraph (UK):

Defence experts say the system is designed to be concealed as a standard 40ft shipping container that cannot be identified until it is activated.

Priced at an estimated £10 million, each container is fitted with four cruise anti-ship or land attack missiles. The system represents an affordable "strategic level weapon".

Some experts believe that if Iraq had the Club-K system in 2003 it would have made it impossible for America to invade with any container ship in the Gulf a potential threat.

Club-K is being marketed at the Defence Services Asia exhibition in Malaysia this week.

Novator, the manufacturer, is an advanced missile specialist that would not have marketed the system without Moscow's approval. It has released an emotive marketing film complete with dramatic background music.

This containerized four tube weapons launcher was described in a disturbing blog post at the U.S. Naval Institute website last month which begins with a hypothetical and horrific account of cruise missile strikes on two Nimitz-class carriers at Naval Station Norfolk:

Fiction you say? Perhaps — for now. However, given long-running trends and recent events, the threat to deployed forces, afloat and ashore, has continued to grow in size and capabilities. And now, the nightmare of many a defense analyst is coming to the light of day — the ability to conduct an attack on the homeland in a manner that is directly unattributable to one or more nations . . . for you see, the Russian arms manufacturer, Novator, through a front company, is offering the Club-K system, a four-tube launcher, plus all support facilities, inside a standard ISO shipping container: [snip]

And customers? Yes — they’ve got a client list. Such is the post-Cold War world and the state of cruise missile proliferation that an ostensibly ‘private’ company can offer for sale the latest cruise missile packaged in a manner that enables state and non-state actors to carry out surreptitious campaigns that subvert the norms of international behavior and the laws of war.

Here's the slick video to market the weapon to our enemies.




The sacred and urgent mission of protecting our homeland has just become exponentially more difficult.