Mon, Jan 31, 2005
Launcher And (Briefly) Rocket Show Up On eBay
In the small pond of Soviet weapons
collectors, the big frog has got to be Richard Moore of
Cambridgeshire, England -- because of his big FROG. FROG in
capitals, for "Free Rocket Over Ground," was the NATO codename of
the obsolete Luna-M Russian missile and launcher that got Moore
into the newspapers -- after he briefly listed the weapon on eBay.
Moore calls it "the mother of all toys" -- presumably, for the boy
that outgrew model rockets without quite growing up.
Designed for use in a European war that thankfully never
happened, and often equipped in Soviet service with special-weapons
warheads, the FROG's only combat employment has been in the Middle
East. It was a simpler, less accurate and shorter-ranged weapon
than the more famous SCUD, the ultimately ineffective rocket of the
first Gulf War. The FROG was unguided with a range of some forty
miles and was meant for battlefield employment as long-range
artillery.
The surface-to-surface missile, of course, has been thoroughly
demilitarized -- rendering it perfectly suitable for museums or
collectors, but frustratingly useless to terrorists or other
miscreants. "I guess anything with the word 'missile' in it is
sensitive, but as I keep saying to everyone, the missile in
question couldn't cause any harm and is literally just the shell,"
Moore told a reporter from Reuters.
Because it's deactivated, eBay has no problems with Moore
listing the missile and launcher -- although, the online auction
house expects him to list them separately and pay for two auctions,
not one.
As a result, only the launcher is listed on eBay now... the
massive eight-wheeled Zil-131 truck familiar from many Red Square
festivities. If you buy the launcher, Moore will gladly sell you
the missile too. But having your own May Day parade doesn't come
cheap: bidding on the launcher starts at �18,990.
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