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Lun Ekranoplan: a soviet era super ship/plane!

For conventional navy ships, the Lun is a nasty adversary. It’s able to creep up undetected and deliver a savage pounding.

Its low altitude keeps it below radar and its six supersonic P-270 Moskit anti-ship missiles can reach Mach 3 — more than triple the speed of the subsonic Harpoon missile that is a standard armament for the U.S. Navy. Coming in at such high velocity, the Moskit is within range of a ship’s artillery for less than 30 seconds before impact. In comparison, the Harpoon gives defenders two minutes or more.

The Lun also had a maximum range of over 1,200 miles, and could sustain its 15-person crew for five days without resupply. While never tested, the plane was theoretically capable of carrying up to 900 soldiers.

The Lun’s current location is a dock in Kaspiysk, in the Russian-controlled republic of Dagestan. It’s a potentially volatile resting place: An Islamic insurgency in Dagestan has been compared a small version of the war that ripped apart neighboring Chechnya.

 

Source: http://www.wired.com/rawfile/2011/06/ekranoplan/?pid=885&viewall=true

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