“The USVs appear to be of the same design as the mystery drone boat found near Sevastopol in September.
The mysterious unmanned surface vessel that washed ashore in Crimea in early September. At the time, The War Zone’s analysis stated the very low-profile jet-ski engine-powered unmanned boat was a weaponized ‘suicide drone’ setup for impact detonation.”
Comment: Kinda reminds of the attack of CSS Hunley on USS Housatonic at Charlston, SC.
Ukraine Unleashes Mass Kamikaze Drone Boat Attack on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet Headquarters (msn.com)
https://twitter.com/christopherjm/status/1586392473127059459?s=21
I think unmanned vehicles are going to become more ubiquitous and powerful. How do they change current warfare? Will they be able to displace other mobile platforms?
The other day,right,I ordered a latte at work and a drone dropped it off for an extra 50c.Skinny milk with half a sugar.
The Wunderwaffen War..Known as the Armageddon Scenario…Rise of AI..Robotics..
And Those Who Ignore…The Power of God….So It is Written..So it Wil Be..
JT
Looks a whole lot more peaceful than an American parking lot these days.
Video Shows Gunfight in Portsmouth;
https://youtu.be/5y_hMK1en5M
F&L – That video is from 2021. They already caught the shooters.
F&L
This was years ago, they have probably transitioned to drone warfare by now.
Btw, that berserker in a red shirt displayed some pretty impressive gun handling skills.
borko,
Yep. I remember when the joke was that the NYPD could conquer Iraq all by itself.
A man tried to fill up his tank with gas.
https://youtu.be/mmergG4syvk
Jet-ski engines! They can’t have much range. It’s 188 miles from Odesa to Sevastopol. It’s a bit closer from Snake Island, maybe 130 miles. Those Jet-Ski engines might be able to cover that much distance at low cruising speed and saving a burst of speed for once they entered the harbor. But they are surface craft and would be vulnerable to observation by VMF ships and aircraft or even VVS air. So where did the Ukrainians launch them from? Maybe an oil platform closer to Crimea? I’m suspecting that SOF was involved and somehow smuggled them to an uninhabited part of the Crimean coast not far from Sevastopol.
One has to admire the innovativeness of the Ukrainian military. The Russian military on the other hand has shown no such innovations. How innovative is the US military to improvise on the battlefield?
How about refueling the swarm at sea within their range capability of Sebastopol?
Released from a submarine or two?
Leith,
The average jetski has a range of around 100 miles. They use 3-4 gallons of fuel at cruise speed and, if ridden fast and hard, can use 10-25 gallons an hour. I would think that jetski drone could be designed and built with enough fuel to cruise from Odesa to Sevastopol and still blast at full speed for an attack run.
No, not Odesa and, no, not Snake Island.
The drone boats were operated from Ochakiv, which means a distance of around 180 miles.
Of course, nothing stops them from being towed behind some “innocent” fishing boat and being released closer to Sevastopol, but the operation itself originated from Ochakiv.
And, no, none of them entered the harbor. They could only attack Russian warships that were outside the submarine nets that block access to the harbor.
WPO –
As far as being launched from Ochakiv: perhaps. Although the Kinburn Peninsula and Spit is occupied by Russian troops. They would be fools not to have observation of the goings on at Ochakiv. They have proved foolish in many cases though, why would this be different.
The attacks or some of them did appear to be within the harbor at Sevastopol Naval Base. Why would submarine nets stop these USVs, they ride on the surface not underneath the surface. There does not seem to be any type of boom or surface barrier at the harbor entrance. A Russian naval OSINT guy, @Capt_Navy, who served in Sevastopol years ago and knows it well believes from the video that the attacks took place within the harbor: https://twitter.com/Capt_Navy/status/1586386691559813121
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1586751838438785026?s=21
The Russian army in Kherson appears to be in command & control fog. One the one hand they need to stall the Ukrainian army offensive while also figuring out a fallback option as their frontline comes under increasing pressure.
To all advocates for giving Ukraine the extensive support the U.S. has given it:
You obviously either are ignorant of, or indifferent to,
where that may lead.
As an example, consider
https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/10/russia-threatens-a-retaliatory-strike-against-us-commercial-satellites/
The article quotes people who suggest there are simply too many SpaceX satellites for an effective attack against them to be feasible.
But can Russia use lasers to cost-effectively disable them?
The point to me is that
past and present U.S. efforts are leading to
potentially uncontrollable levels of escalation.
And that is a very, very unwise and irresponsible thing.
Ukraine just isn’t worth it.
Keith Harbaugh,
Such a craven and selfish attitude. The simplest deescalation is for Putin to withdraw his army from Ukrainian territory.
In return for what? NATO absorbing Ukraine and placing “no warning” decapitation first-strike missiles a “Cuba away” from Russia?
“Craven and selfish” are terms of psychological manipulation and attempted thought-domination, not terms of dispassionate analysis. Are there any failures of analysis and forethought in what Keith Harbaugh wrote?
Russia not only invaded Ukraine, but are engaged in a Kremlin sanctioned campaign of murder, rape, kidnapping and pillage. They deserve absolutely nothin in return. In the spirit of deescalation desired by Keith Harbaugh, I suggest we refrain from demanding or actively pursuing a complete collapse of the current regime in the Kremlin. That doesn’t mean lifting sanctions. If Russia wants no part of the decadent West, we’ll oblige them with not having anything to do with them.
I don’t fault Keith’s concern over the possibility of escalation leading to a war in space or even a nuclear war. I do fault his attitude that Ukraine just isn’t worth it. His lack of concern for continued murder, rape, kidnapping and pillage at the hands of Russians. That attitude is craven and selfish. Note that I very deliberately referred to Keith’s attitude as craven and selfish and not Keith himself. Outside of this attitude, Keith is surely a fine man.
In a conflict between Russian airospace forces and Elon Musk I’d bet on the wonder boy.
His team (augmented by the US gov/mil resources) would probably be able to adapt and come up with countermeasures 10x faster than the Russians.
Keith Harbaugh
You don’t need to target satellites individually and shoot them down or lase them, there is another way to destroy a whole constellation, at least one using circular Earth orbits. If this war starts to go kinetic in space it may well end in a non-terrestrial version of MAD – the Kessler Syndrome. Anatoly Karlin (a well known Russian nationalist) for instance has been advocating for Russia to deliberately ‘kesslerize’ the orbits of spy or other satellites assisting the Ukrainian war effort. The Starlink constellation is in circular LEO (phase 1 is at 550km) so if this is the way it’s going to go I’d guess Starlink might be a target before military satellites – presuming you can target one without impacting the other. This possibility might partly explain Musk’s unusually outspoken stance on peace talks.
Of course successfully ‘kesslerizing’ an orbit destroys anything in that orbit, but the impact of destroying all spy satellites, for example, would disproportionately benefit Russia in the war given that the US & NATO have many times the number Russia has. The GPS & other related systems are probably much safer from this kind of attack, as those satellites inhabit MEO – at altitudes of the order of 20,000km rather than the few hundred km for LEO satellites. As the difficulty of ‘kesslerization’ increases with the at least the 2rd power of altitude (i.e. with the area/volume of destructive material required) it would be many orders of magnitude harder to use this method to take out the GPS system, for example.
Is it feasible? Who knows, I’d have thought a specialized satellite weapon exploding millions of ball bearings at the right altitude might do the job. Is it a sane thing to do? Well that’s a whole different question, but it sure ain’t as insane as the terrestrial version of MAD.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome
Ukraine just isn’t worth it. I have two questions. Taking a page from Clinton, what does “it” mean. Also, to whom is Ukraine not worth “it”. Would Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Sweden, Poland, and Lithuania also not be worth “it”. If Ukraine is not worth “it” can anyone believe that Moldavia (I can’t help but laugh out loud … Moldavia) would be worth “it”. Is “it” peace in our time. I read that line somewhere. Who must give up their independence in order to secure “peace in our time”.
The Stockholm Syndrome is a foot here. It teases at us to accept/rationalize Russian conquest of Ukraine. Here’s a thought. Ukraine’s sovereignty can only affect Russia if Russia insists it is still an empire. If not, than there is nothing to prevent Putin from calling off his war. Go home Vlady. Vlady go home.
“what does “it” mean.
Also, to whom is Ukraine not worth “it”.”
Bill, might I suggest you read this:
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-thanks-bidens-religious-war-in-ukraine-us-run-out-diesel-fuel
Carlson recites a list of problems, like
Meanwhile, in America, we are drawing down our Strategic Petroleum Reserve at a rapid rate,
to partially make up for the global loss of Russian hydrocarbon exports,
in turn caused by the sanctions against Russia.
Please note that we cannot draw down the SPR indefinitely.
What happens when it bottoms out?
What happens if a real emergency should befall America?
And again, this drawdown was ultimately caused by the desire to punish Russia.
There are a host of other negative effects on the American economy, such as the threat to the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency.
Those advocating for fighting Russia generally pointedly ignore those costs.
OTOH, they make “slippery slope” arguments of dubious (IMO) validity,
often accompanied with an implicit comparison of Putin to Hitler.
As to the validity of Russia’s concerns vis à vis Ukraine,
if you click on my name above you will get a short web page with links to several articles that address those,
written by Americans (Mike Whitney and Ted Galen Carpenter).
I hope this clarifies “who” is affected by “it”.
You could have made a similar argument for not fighting the British in 1776.
Thank you for your reply. It does say who is affected. But you d/n mention Ukrainians. Aren’t they affected? You also never mentioned what the”it” is. Russia’s neighbors know what the “it” is! Just say it out loud, you don’t think Ukrainian independence is worth trouble for other countries. I’ll get to the point. Would you fight for your own sovereignty? Would you want/accept help from other nations who respect the sovereignty of nation states? Or, do you prefer a world where the big guy always wins? There are things for which men fight.
KH –
10K deaths to freezing smells like garbage to me. Who predicted that: Putin’s propagandists or maybe a new Lord HawHaw? Brits know the value of layering and a wool sweater. And the ones who do get hypothermia in Britain will likely be the alcohol abusers caught in a storm after a pub crawl. More of Putin’s cannon fodder in Ukraine are going to die of hypothermia this winter than will die in Britain.
Leith
TC has gone the full Lord Haw-Haw. Focusing on the costs of this conflict detract from the only important issue; the righteousness of the cause. If TC restricted himself to putting forward the Russian POV re NATO expansion etc and suggestions that a peaceful resolution should be found, I could have some sympathy for him, but he has become a propagandist.
Leith asked:
“Who predicted that: Putin’s propagandists or maybe a new Lord HawHaw?”
At
https://abc17news.com/news/2022/08/30/starve-or-freeze-to-death-millions-of-elderly-brits-fear-a-grim-choice-this-winter-as-costs-spiral/
we find the following:
At the same web page, we also find:
Dismissing people as
“Putin’s propagandists or maybe a new Lord HawHaw?”
is simply a cheap trick to avoid addressing, one way or the other, what they are saying.
I realize those Ukrainian USVs could have extra fuel tanks. Or they could also be refueled at sea. But it would be hard to keep seven of them from being observed over those distances. Especially if they had underway fuel replenishment. Of course the entire trip could have been done on a moonless night or under cloud cover. But wakes are still giveaways to air patrols.
The Russians are claiming they were launched from a grain carrier ship that was within the UN Grain Corridor. They say they got that info from a navigation receiver on one of the USVs that ran aground. Doubtful, IMO they invented that as an excuse to drop out of the grain deal.
By the way, Ukraine, Turkey and the UN have agreed to keep shipping grain from Ukrainian ports. They will sail on Monday.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-30/ukrainian-food-shipments-to-keep-moving-in-challenge-to-moscow?cmpid%3D=socialflow-twitter-economics
The ball is in Putin’s court now.
Leith
Wouldn’t be surprised if they used the captured sea drone to attack one of the ships and blame it on Ukraine.
Yeah! Sure!
Russians are THAT stupid an evil. 😀
Reportedly 6 ships with grain left Ukraine on Monday.
Lloyds of London is cancelling coverage, though.