Club-K, shipping container cruise missile marketed at MAKS

It used to be just a video; and a rather fearful one at that.

Now, it is a mock-up at the MAKS air show. It is being marketed. And has attracted "considerable interest" from abroad.

UPDATE- Sam has more to say about this.

Facing the truth about what we want the Australian Navy to be

Australia’s Navy might only be good for other-than-war missions. The reason? The threats growing in the Pacific Rim are just way too dangerous for RAN surface ships to survive.

The extreme threat will come from super-sonic capable cruise missiles. And while there may be treaties and some defensive measures aboard ship, I don’t think we can expect legacy surface warship thinking and legacy warship procurement, to provide the defensive value we need.

But what about those super long range surface-to-air missiles on our “Air Warfare Destroyer” and U.S. Navy ships? Answer: radar horizon. The clock of threat discovery starts running at about 24 to 30 miles out. The threat will be just above the waves; super-sonic. The target ship combat information center is now in a relatively slow human decision cycle. And, the victim might not even be at battle stations.

These super-sonic cruise missiles proliferating into the region—Indonesia just got their first batch—can be used against ships and land targets.

These high-speed cruise missiles from other nations will be fired from aircraft, ships, submarines and mobile launchers on land.

Australia has no plan to purchase high-speed cruise missiles so it will not even have the option of parity. Secondly, it has no reasonable air power plan to low the risk against these threats. Finally, Australia’s all-important submarine procurement plan is in a complete shambles.

With that, Australia might only be capable of fielding a navy that can perform low-intensity warfare and peace-keeping missions. Since there are no great strategic thinkers and planners ready to exercise true leadership in this area of interest, accepting reality now may save us a lot of wasted efforts.

One of those wasted efforts is the troubled Air Warfare Destroyer project at $8-plus billion. Or should we still continue with the fantasy? Is that more pleasant?

P-800 Oniks

Brahmos

Klub (terminal-only super-sonic)

South Korea wants a low-observable cruise missile

South Korea is looking for a JASSM like cruise missile. If the JASSM worked as advertised this might be a good idea. Well it might be a good idea regardless.

The JASSM blew out on costs big time in the U.S. It still has to prove some fusing issues and is on a watch list to keep reliability acceptable for the USAF in anything other than highly scripted range events.

Yet even if the probability of kill is lower than needed and you end up with more than the expected number of duds it might not be so bad. Why?

Most of the targets South Korea would want to hit are kind of close. Spend a billion or more on “JASSM-level” missiles (whatever that means) might be a better idea than spending tens of billions on over-priced and over-hyped Just So Flawed fighters or some other option.

Yeah, that might work.