Possible ways include (semi)submersibles sneaking in, air-dropped boats, or sneaking a boat to the shore through unfriendly territory. The first seems the most likely to me.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I hope Taiwan secretly builds a metric fuckton of drones right now, including sea drones. Deny China any sort of entry of landing forces onto the island if they dare to launch an invasion, which I fear is something they plan on doing soon, especially if Trump wins the next election.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I feel China has learned they need to build a few million dones before they try that. Taiwan should be teaching every school kid to fly drones as part of the high school curriculum.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The first option would be a funny reversal of how submarines first behaved back in WW1, where they had to travel on the surface for long-range movement and only dove underwater for the actual attack.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago

At the beginning of the war they would surface, ask the victim ship to surrender, if they didnt, the sub would start firing their deck gun. It was only after the merchant ships got some weapons of their ownthat they started to do submersed attacks.

(IIRC)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The article says that at least some were transiting the Kerch Strait.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Baby

Operational range: at least 1000 kilometres[2]

That's enough to make it from territory not occupied by Russia into the Sea of Azov.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

This also seems a convenient bit of propaganda, of course they would say that to scare the Russians.

If it's true, it's a really cool feat of engineering though! Can't wait for the fog of war to lift and see what cool civilian applications all this drone tech will have.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Well, the article said that some were transiting the Kerch Strait, and that's from Russia, which destroyed some.

If Ukraine can get some in there, my guess is that it's plausible that they put all of them in that way. Less risky if they can do it from a range standpoint, as long as they then have the range left to go where they want in the Sea of Azov.

Does that mean that they have a 1000 km range? I dunno. I mean, Ukraine can launch the things from other places on the Black Sea, maybe.

My understanding is that the propulsion works like a jet-ski.

https://luxuryviewer.com/which-jet-ski-has-the-longest-range/

Jet skis aren’t typically measured by their range capabilities, as it’s a massively hypothetical area. However, the Sea-Doo SPARK 60 HP reportedly takes the crown. Its tiny engine is extremely fuel-efficient, and estimates suggest it could cover 166 miles with a single tank of gas.

https://sea-doo.brp.com/content/dam/global/en/sea-doo/my24/documents/specs-sheets/na/en/SEA-MY24-REC-SPA-SPEC-ENNA-Page-PDFx.pdf

That's on 7.9 gallons of fuel, and that's 267 km.

The Sea Baby is hauling an 850 kg warhead, but it's also not hauling a person, which mitigates some of that.

I don't see size data for it, and most shots don't have stuff for scale, but here's one with a human and a Magura 5 (not a Sea Baby).

https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/230729120919-01-ukraine-sea-drones.jpg?c=16x9&q=w_800,c_fill

That thing is a lot bigger than a jet-ski. I'd guess that it's at least 10 feet long. Like, I don't think that you'd have trouble fitting 32 gallons of fuel in there. CNN cites that model as having an 800 km range.

And the Magura 5 is considerably smaller:

Unlike the Sea Baby used by the SBU, which carries a heavier explosive payload and is primarily used to strike stationary targets such as ships docked in port, the MAGURA V5 is designed for striking warships at sea due to its smaller size and better manoeuvrability.[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAGURA_V5

According to the WP data, the Magura 5 can do 800 km and weighs something like what the Sea Baby warhead weighs.

So I don't think that it's implausible that the Sea Baby could do over 1000 km.