“If I were going to shoot such a missile I would fit it into a shipping container with an opening top for the missile erector/launcher. This would be much cheaper to build and easier to conceal.”
I have to agree with you on the container-based missile, LP. It would better fit Occam’s Razor.
However, I also wouldn’t discount the C_A with their trillion dollar piggy banks scattered around the world, purchasing and upgrading a foreign-built diesel-electric sub, or subs, and staffing it/them with ex- USSR or Pakistani submariners - or a fleet of them. Heck, boats could have been purchased from Allies as a head-fake. Make us think it’s just the Brits or the French in the area.
Diesel-electrics are almost as quiet as a nuc sub when on batteries, and who knows what kind of battery technology is out there that we don’t know about - yet. They also had WWII boats adapted for deck-mounted missile launches. Shouldn’t be hard, with all the stolen plans floating around out there, to come up with an underwater launch version.
The thing that makes me lean away from the sub, is the SOSUS bouys scattered around the oceans. Because of them, the Navy knows pretty much where every sub in the world - that has any screw-signature - is.
Apologies for the sub slide - again.
The Red October had a nearly silent propulsion system. Just sayin’.
Regarding missile launches, there is satellite technology that detects and tracks all rocket plumes and accelerating projectiles. Trump’s IC has the evidence (they MUST have it) - it is simply not being shared or DECLAS’d. “We have it all” indeed!
++++!