A Russian company is selling shipping containers packed with cruise missiles

Logan Nye
Apr 2, 2018 9:37 AM PDT
1 minute read
Navy photo

SUMMARY

Concern Morinformsytem-AGAT, a Russian defense company, has a cruise missile launcher with the external appearance of civilian shipping containers.

Concern Morinformsytem-AGAT, a Russian defense company, has a cruise missile launcher with the external appearance of civilian shipping containers.


Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Vitaly V. Kuzmin

The Club-K was originally exposed to the West in 2010 when Jane's Defense Weekly editor Robert Hewson disclosed it. A promotional video shows it quickly transforming from its camouflaged state to its strike configuration before destroying a naval fleet, an armored force, and an air base. It destroys a helicopter carrier at the 7:00 mark, something Hewson believes it could easily do.

"It's a carrier-killer," he told Reuters journalist Michael Stott. "If you are hit by one or two of them, the kinetic impact is vast ... it's horrendous."

The system can fight with just two of the containers: One for targeting and one to actually launch the missiles. An add-on container can launch a UAV for better targeting and to allow for a battle damage assessment. Additional launchers can be linked to the targeting container, allowing for more missiles on target.

Though Concern Morinformsytem-AGAT doesn't advertise the Club-K on its website, the system has been spotted multiple times. The photo at the top of the page was taken in 2011 at an arms show and Wendell Minnick of Defense News saw the Club-K in 2014 at an arms show in Malaysia. Multiple versions of the system are labeled as being for export though no confirmed sales have taken place.

NOW: That one time in 1995 when Russia almost nuked the United States

OR: That one time the US Army stole a Russian helicopter for the CIA

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