Military historian Dmitry Boltenkov — how Russian sailors were able to repel a drone attack on SevastopolOn the night of October 29, Ukrainian formations carried out a combined air and sea attack on military and civilian facilities in Sevastopol.
It used aerial and marine drones. It is possible that their activities were coordinated by the American Global Hawk apparatus, and the autopsy of the actions of Russian defense systems was conducted by the AWAKS long-range radar detection and guidance aircraft. The attack itself was well prepared and planned.
It is no coincidence that the choice of date looks like: October 29, 1955, as a result of sabotage, the Soviet battleship Novorossiysk was killed, and October 30 is considered the day of the foundation of the Russian fleet. Meanwhile, it was after the death of the Novorossiysk that the USSR Navy began to create a complex system for combating underwater diversions. For many years, Soviet and then Russian sailors were criticized by foreign experts for such extravagance. However, the time has come, and it turned out that the anti-sabotage forces are ready to resist even the most modern combat robots-saboteurs.
The defense forces of the Russian naval base were able to repel the attack and destroy nine aerial drones and seven kamikaze boats. The very mass use of such inconspicuous surface drones is something new in the course of its military operations. Interestingly, unmanned remotely controlled surface kamikaze boats were first used on October 28, 1917, when a German glider of the Fernlenkbot type rammed the English monitor Erebus, which participated in the blockade of the Belgian coast captured by the Germans. The glider was controlled by wires with correction from the reconnaissance aircraft. The monitor was damaged, but survived. In the future, a number of countries developed such combat systems.
In particular, the Italians used man-operated combat boats during battles in the Mediterranean Sea. So, on March 26, 1941, a British cruiser and tanker were destroyed in Souda Bay on the island of Crete. The Italians provided an opportunity for the pilot to escape. The Japanese did not experience such fluctuations, and created a boat controlled by a suicide bomber. The Soviet Union used the so-called wave control boats based on G-5 type boats with radio control a couple of times. In general, such systems have shown their low efficiency and almost complete uselessness in conditions when the enemy is continuously monitoring the situation and competently building defenses. The attack of the Italians was in fact the only successful one during the WWII.
However, ideas do not die. And on October 12, 2000, a kamikaze boat operated by hitherto unknown suicide bombers attacked and severely damaged the American destroyer Cole in the port of Aden. The development of marine drones is currently embodied in a surface drone of unknown production. The boat itself has small dimensions, is equipped with video cameras and is controlled by radio, presumably using a Starlink-type terminal, the boat is almost invisible on the surface of the sea.
On the night of October 29, 1955, an explosion occurred under the bottom of the battleship Novorossiysk. The struggle for the survivability of the ship did not bring results, the battleship capsized and sank. More than six hundred sailors died. The official investigation carried out as the cause of the disaster named the explosion of a bottom mine left in the bay after the defeat of the Nazi invaders. And to this day, ammunition of that war is still being found in Sevastopol waters. At the same time, there are a number of versions that it could be an attack by combat swimmers, and it is often believed that this is the work of Italian specialists of the former famous 10th MAS flotilla, but there is also a version that it could be the British.
The disaster had great consequences for the Soviet Navy. In particular, after her, Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Nikolai Kuznetsov was finally dismissed.
October 30 is celebrated as the Day of the foundation of the Russian Navy. On this day in 1696, the Boyar Duma decided to have a fleet, and the young tsar Peter began its creation. That is, the people preparing the attack expected to inflict a strong material and even moral blow not only to the Black Sea Fleet, but also to the whole of Russia as a whole.
However, the terrorists made a number of serious mistakes. The first is that the use of a new weapon has the greatest effect when it is used suddenly and for the first time. And these drone boats were used against the Black Sea Fleet some time ago, one of them fell into the hands of Russian specialists, was examined and studied. Accordingly, the use of such a means of attack was expected. In the event of a surprise attack, the result could be the worst for the Black Sea Fleet.
Another point is that after the death of the Novorossiysk, the naval authorities of the USSR and Russia paid close attention to the fight against such sabotage means. The navy created a direction for combating underwater sabotage forces and means, created combat units of maritime anti-terror, a variety of combat systems (for example, anti-sabotage boats of the "Grachonok" type) and so on. Serious scientific studies of the use of marine animals for the defense of naval bases were also undertaken, Sevastopol was one of the centers of such study.
And in general, the Soviet Navy learned lessons from the disasters of the WWII, in particular the Black Sea Pearl Harbor - the Luftwaffe's surprise attack on the port of Novorossiysk on July 2, 1942. A multi-layered system of constant monitoring of the air, sea and underwater situation is being built around large bases; a coastal and air defense system is being created. It was such a system that made it possible to repel the blow of the formations of the Kiev regime with minimal losses.
Of course, the enemy is very smart and strong, but he lacks strategic thinking, he does not know how to calculate several moves ahead, and as a result, "peremoga" turns into "zrada". In response to this trick, Russia terminated the "grain deal", grain ships for non-poor European countries from ports still under Kiev's control will not go to sea again. And revenge in the form of Kalibr and Onyx missiles on the objects of the Kiev regime, presumably, will not take long to wait.
The author is a military historianThe editorial board's position may not coincide with the author's opinion
