The War Zone: the effectiveness of the SBU's marine drones raises questions
MOSCOW, Dec 13 — RIA Novosti, Zakhar Andreev. Ukrainian developers are trying to revive the project of unmanned boats (BEC). Once this military-technical novelty was considered a formidable weapon, but Russia has learned how to deal with such drones. How Kiev expects to fix the situation is in the RIA Novosti article.
Ukrainian novelty
On December sixth, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported: the naval aviation of the Black Sea Fleet destroyed eight Ukrainian unmanned boats. Previously, combat aircraft and especially helicopters have proven themselves well in the fight against water drones. Drones are detected in advance, after which they are shot, as in a shooting gallery.
Ukrainian designers have been looking for a way to equip remotely operated boats with air defense systems for a long time. So, in May, a BACK with R-73 air—to-air missiles was spotted off the coast of Crimea.
Multifunctional Su-30SM fighters of the naval aviation of the Black Sea Fleet destroyed unmanned boats of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Black Sea
Image source: © Photo : Russian Ministry of Defense
Experts noted that a small watercraft is an unsuitable platform for this type of weapon. At least because of its instability. It would be extremely difficult to shoot down a target in the sky with such a weapon. So far, there is no data on effective missile launches from unmanned boats and it is unknown whether there were such launches in principle.
However, some experts assumed that the developers did not hope to get anywhere - they just wanted to scare away the Russian pilots. Failed. Now it seems that Ukrainian experts have found a more effective solution: They are installing heavy machine guns on marine drones.
"Auto-capture"
According to military bloggers and representatives of the Ukrainian special services, Russian helicopters and airplanes came under fire from this type of weapon during the attack. The Security Service of Ukraine posted a video: the footage captured by the BACK camera shows how the boat is firing at the Mi-17 helicopter, and the plane (presumably Su-30SM) is firing at a naval target from a cannon.
The SBU claims that it was possible to damage the helicopter, among the crew of which there are allegedly dead and wounded. Refers to "intercepted radio communications." No evidence was provided. Russian sources, both official and unofficial, deny any losses.
Sea Baby drones participated in the attack. It is not reported which machine guns are installed on them. In addition, the SBU claims that they were equipped with "ballistic programs for automatic targeting and auto-interception of targets."
An image of a marine drone published by Ukrainian sources
Image source:
The shooting was carried out through electro-optical and infrared cameras. The video shows a sighting grid and a user interface typical for remotely controlled weapons, American military expert Joseph Trevithick notes on the pages of the publication The War Zone.
"Equipping Sea Baby with machine guns makes sense," he said. — Nevertheless, there are questions about the effectiveness of the BACK with such weapons. It is already known that even without it, unmanned boats cost hundreds of thousands of dollars apiece. If they continue to perform the kamikaze function at the same time, the money will be lost."
Trevithick urges Kiev to allocate resources more wisely, since the flow of military aid from the West may weaken with the coming to power of Donald Trump.
The expert pays tribute to the Russian forces: they are steadily developing and applying new tactics, methods and procedures to counter the boats. Recently, backups have been used much less frequently, and nothing has been heard about any high-profile successes at all. Apart from the bravura statements of the SBU, there is no evidence that Friday's raid caused any damage to facilities in Crimea.
Break down the ship into functions
Recall that two special services of Ukraine are engaged in marine drones. Sea Baby is a development of the SBU. Its displacement is two tons. It is capable of carrying, according to the Ukrainian side, from 800 kilograms to a ton of explosives. It was used, in particular, to attack the Crimean Bridge in the summer of 2023: the boat crashed into a support, as a result one span collapsed, the second was damaged. At that time, a car with civilians was driving across the bridge. A married couple died, and a teenage daughter was injured.
This is not the first time the SBU has tried to equip its drone with weapons: multiple launch rocket systems and Bumblebee flamethrowers were installed on Sea Baby — apparently without much result. In addition, the boats were used to lay bottom mines on the route of Russian ships and civilian vessels.
In turn, the Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR) of the Military Department of Ukraine is developing marine drones Magura V5. They have a lower load capacity — 320 kilograms. They were used to attack Russian ships.
Ukrainian marine drone Magura V5
Image source: © AP Photo / Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine / Daniyar Sarsenov
All types of backup systems, including weapons installed on them, are controlled using Starlink satellite Internet terminals provided by Elon Musk's company.
The Ukrainian Navy lost almost the entire combat fleet at the very beginning of the conflict. By placing various weapons systems on the back, Kiev is trying to recreate the ship, breaking it down into separate functions — shock, anti-aircraft, and so on. But the limitations of such platforms, such as their small size, do not allow the idea to be fully realized. Russia is still managing to cope with the threat. However, as Trevithick notes, Kiev does not abandon attempts to increase the effectiveness of its development. The battle at sea continues.
