Posted on 06/15/2025 7:17:24 PM PDT by delta7
containerized launcher designed to fire the same suite of artillery rockets and ballistic missiles as the M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) and M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) has appeared at the U.S. Army’s Fort Bragg in North Carolina. The ability to launch ballistic missiles, in particular, from what is outwardly indistinguishable from any other shipping container, presents a flexible strike capability that is harder for opponents to spot. Ukraine’s recent Operation Spiderweb covert drone attacks highlighted to a dizzying degree the value of even lower-end concealed fires capabilities.
Trump also observed paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division jump from a U.S. Air Force C-17 cargo plane and a mock special operations assault involving Green Berets and the elite 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR). A transporter erector launcher for the Soviet-designed Scud ballistic missile, or a full-scale mockup of one, is also notably present in the footage of the special operations demonstration. Bragg is the Army’s main special operations hub, as well as home to the 82nd Airborne Division, among other units.
The launcher inside the container is visible off to the side in a video, seen below, from President Donald Trump’s visit to Fort Bragg today, which was posted online by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino. Trump was given demonstrations of various Army capabilities at the base’s Holland Drop Zone, including the launch of artillery rockets. A separate launcher, the type of which is not immediately clear, was used to fire those rounds. ……..
hiding missiles in shipping containers has been around for at least the last 15 years. A country in Florida was selling them to Russians back then.
This isn’t new, it’s more like us catching up with other weapons systems already on the market. The Russians have been exporting the Club-K Containerized Missile System since about 2018.
The Chinese have also got one, but I forgot what the designation is. We have gotten several in the last couple years - the LockMart Mk70 launcher system, which can throw SM-6 and Tomahawk, was under Navy testing last year:
The Danes are offering a smaller system on the world arms market to anyone with money:
https://shdefence.com/project/missile-containerized-system/
The Florida firm’s offering didn’t have the ability to fire cap ship missiles, the Russian indigenous one does.
We frowned upon hiding weapons in commercial boxes. It took us a while to realize that we were going to be the only one's not playing that game, and hiding was going to be more important than we thought. So, to quote The Cranberries, Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We? Seeing the advancement in drone warfare, it's becoming even more critical.
It also turned out to be one of the only ways to give the LCS a real punch - amusingly.
It's not just hiding a weapon, it's the ability to launch that weapon as well. It makes every container ship a legitimate target as a warship.
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If true, yet another reason to walk away from Ukraine.
If this is from fringe Left elements, then, suggest that little globo-homo remove those sht heads.
If your good at intelligence you'll keep an eye on the top containers, hopefully our intelligence is doing that kind of thing.
I'd expect the strategy would be to pitch the top one overboard and launch from the second one.
You are correct but 3275 years late. The Trojan Horse was long ago according to legend that I doubt. However, the concept is valid today. A civilian containership could be an offensive arsenal in the extreme.
Same here, as I was with the 82nd from 1983-1986, and nearly lost my life in Panama under Reagan, but I’m a better man for it. The US Army certainly achieved (in me) what my parents couldn’t accomplish.
My parents are deceased, but I really miss the US Army, as it’s a “special family”, but whether you’re in uniform or a spouse/sibling/son or daughter of, we should be resisting at the local level. My only point is that we cannot be merely neutral observers/commentators.
The insurgents had this when I was in Iraq. But it was a bit more primitive as it would destroy the truck when fired.
My mom’s acquaintance is Ukrainian, now a US citizen. She went to visit her family in Ukraine last summer. She said that when she mentioned Trump, her family became extremely angry bordering on violence. She said she feared for her life. That’s how much Ukrainians hate him.
The destruction layer of Troy VIIa shows signs that it was destroyed through enemy attack - so it may not be a legend per se. *Something* let the enemy destroy the place around 1180BC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_Troy#Troy_VIIa
Modern archeology seems to be increasingly finding that there often was some sort of basis in fact for a shocking number of legends.
Additionally, merchant ships began being a legitimate target of war long ago - starting with the WW1 merchant cruisers and Q-ships, and following up with the WW2 German Hilfeskreuzers - and the return of the Q-ships in that same conflict.
Re: Monitoring the top containers - they thought of that, there have been some prototypes bearing anti-ship weapons in direct-fire mode that can fire them out the *side* of the container.
In the end, it will take ELINT to detect when something like a containerized missile system is in the area - you’ll need to look for EM/RF emissions from control links, radar sweeps that come out of nowhere, conventional thermal imaging to spot ‘hot’ containers or containers that have different heating than others on the same deck and maybe some of the newer imaging technology that can see through walls could be made to serve.
I could see one of those taking out the White House or a Superbowl game. Or maybe a nuke plant?
Nuke plant would likely be just a mission kill and not a containment breach unless the weapon was nuke tipped. But if you put a nuke on it, why bother hitting a nuke plant?
The White House does have some limited AA systems on/around it. Taking out soft targets was always an option... but there’s a scarier possibility than that. These are shipping containers. Having one launch from a ship is bad, but you can usually track that back to where it came from thanks to modern orbital surveillance and even civilian tracking. What happens if one gets into the ground systems in North America and foreign agents launch missiles on US targets from inside the US, Canada or Mexico from a truck carrying the container?
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