New photographs of China's experimental sea-skimming aircraft known as the "Bohai Sea Monster" have emerged online, and this time they reveal something that earlier images did not: four external weapons pylons mounted under the wings, strongly suggesting the craft is

The United States has its own WIG development underway. Boston-based startup REGENT Craft is developing two seaglider platforms that exploit the same ground-effect physics as the Bohai Sea Monster. The Squire is an autonomous, uncrewed seaglider designed for cargo and logistics, while the Viceroy is a larger crewed passenger variant capable of carrying up to 12 passengers at speeds approaching 300 kilometers per hour just above the water surface. Both craft are designed to operate entirely in the ground effect zone, taking off and landing on water.

Did anyone truly expect the Ekranoplan to make a comeback as an extremely important player in the balance of geopolitical military power? (If we would have bothered to watch seabirds closer, this shouldn’t have been a surprise I suppose.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-effect_vehicle

The Lun-class ekranoplan seems to be less a weird potential tangent in military history and more a preview of the future ahead of its time.