Posted on 04/30/2015 1:47:27 PM PDT by Army Air Corps
Hanoi is the first Southeast Asian nation arming its submarines with land attack cruise missiles.
Vietnam is in the process of acquiring 50 anti-ship and land attack 3M-14E Klub supersonic cruise missiles for its burgeoning fleet of SSK Kilo-class diesel-electric submarines, Der Spiegel Online reports.
According to the article, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) recently updated data on its website, based on information obtained from the United Nations’ register of conventional arms, indicating that Russia has already delivered 28 missiles over the last two years to Hanoi, although the precise number remains unknown.
The Klub is a Russian-made conventional supersonic cruise missile, “designed to destroy targets protected by sophisticated active air defenses and countermeasures,” deagel.com explains. It is an export variant of Russia’s “carrier killer” 3M-54 (NATO designation: SS-N-27A “Sizzler”) and capable of long-range precision strikes.
While it is unknown whether the anti-ship variant of the weapon sold to Vietnam is the 3M-54E Klub-S (range 220km) or 3M-54E1 (range 300km) – both of which can be launched from submarines – the land-attack variant is almost certainly the 3M-14E (range 300km), capable of carrying a 450kg warhead.
(Excerpt) Read more at thediplomat.com ...
Why would Viet Nam attack China?
“Why would Viet Nam attack China?”
The missiles are likely a deterrent given that China has a nasty habit of attacking Viet Nam every few years.
There are reasons. Check your FR mail.
Would they reach Australia or Japan?
Over disputed territory ...
Bingo. That, and the PRC’s expanding territorial claims in the region.
They don’t actually like each other. Commies are not one big happy family.
Their bad blood goes back a looooong time.
We should be helping Vietnam, India, Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines ... for whatever they need to go AGAINST CHINA!
Pei Ping (in a tangential way)
One more lie. What difference does it make?
Yeah, the various chunks of the orient all have a lot of hate for the other chunks. And then they all say America is really racist.
The Sino-Soviet split illustrates that lie.
China must be feeling a little chapped with Russia but what can they say?
They get around that the same way Christian sects have gotten around it: declaration of heresy. All the other commies are real commies, they’re getting it all wrong. That’s why most of the political analysts thought it was a lot more likely for the USSR and China to get into a shooting war than either with us.
I think "counter-attack" is the appropriate word. A more interesting question is "Why would the Russians sell those missiles to Vietnam?"
Also, unless the missiles are nuclear tipped (shudder), they won't make much difference.
In the late 1960s, there were Soviet and PRC forces in North Viet Nam by the tens of thousands and all seemed rosy until the PRC declared the USSR to be “revisionists”. At that time, the North was in the Soviet camp. Whaddya gonna do?
Viet Nam has tended to have closer relationship with the Russians going back to Ho Chi Minh and his time spent in the USSR.
That’s true... but arming against the Chinese is an interesting move.
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