Our Far-Eastern Representative reports that Russia's national weapons export firm (Rosoboroneksport) just announced that it has concluded a pact with China to sell two more SOVREMENAT Class missile destroyers to China. Two of these destroyers have been in the Chinese Navy since 2000.
The price of these two new destroyers is reported to be about one billion US dollars. They will be delivered to China by the end of 2005. This class of destroyers mounts the SSM 'MOSKIT' missile that flies at speeds of Mach 3 and no one, not even the US Navy, knows how to cope with it. The US Navy tried to build a similar missfle to be used as a decoy to practice ship defense against this Russian missile, but the USN version failed. Then the US Navy tried to import 100 of these missiles from Russia, but was refused. These new Chinese destroyers will be a force that cannot be matched by any other navy in the Far East.
This kind of news is always on our website. Check it out.
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© Copyright 2002 by Harry Cooper, Sharkhunters International, Inc.
This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles articles are available at http://www.magweb.com
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