Yup, it would make more sense to have a cruise missile that drops into the water at approach and hits the target from beneath ("breaks the spine"). That way it could have a large range (less friction in the air) and could also be safe from Phalanx systems.

Then again I doubt that any object going faster than 500 km/h would survive a contact with the water surface, but I am no expert in this.

Well, russian subs do that too, so it is nothing special, my friend has actually listened one russian sub via hydrofone network.
It's actually very usual for nations to test each other's defensive capabilities.
And it does'not usually cause much of international incident.

Only when you don't get caught.

There was a Russian sub that was tangled up in fishing nets off VA a while back...they surfaced to clear themselves and we got purty pictures to prove it. It's certainly embarassing.

By international incident, I don't mean shooting war. But the President might get a call from Country X's premier/president/dictator asking what the hell we're doing there.
Like the EP-3 incident.

Of course an undeclared military vessel in another nation´s sovereign waters (the 12 sm zone) is an international incident and leads at least to a formal protest. And that applies to all unapproved border penetrations by any military vehicle. In Oct. 2002 for example there was an incident where a wrongly designated USAF KC-10 entered Austrian airspace. Because of irregularities in the registration two interceptors took off for visual clarification.

The to-be-identified aircraft veered off course as the Interceptors approached, but was inevitably caught by them. And look what they found:



This caused an extraordinary austrian security council meeting as well as a formal complaint. And remember, this was only a transitional flight. How do you expect a country to react if it catches a spying vessel? Even more if that one is from a "friendly" nation?

[edit on 12/1/2006 by Lonestar24]

What has the picture got to do with the incident ? It shows 2 F-117's not Austrian interceptors.

The KC-10 was refueling the F-117's apparently.
Meaning not only KC-10 but the F-117's were in Austrian airspace.

The man is a member of the austrian Parliament and the picture was shot FROM the interceptors, thats why they are not in the picture

And the connection to the incident is that this is proof that the USAF not only penetrated austrian airspace with a faulty written request (stating it was a cargo DC10) but also in company of two undeclared UFOs.