#naval drones

Ukrainian sea drones are becoming faster, more accurate, and more powerful. With a range of over 1,000 km, they must keep commanders of Putin's Black Sea from getting much sleep.

Ukrainian naval drones Sea Baby have been modernized and can now carry almost a ton of explosives to hit a target over 1,000 kilometers away, Artem Dekhtiarenko, the spokesperson of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), said on April 14. "This means that the SBU can reach a target almost anywhere in the Black Sea," added Dekhtiarenko. In recent months, Ukraine has intensified its attacks on occupied Crimea, targeting Russian military assets in and around the Black Sea with domestically-produced sea drones and long-range missiles. Russia has illegally occupied the peninsula since 2014. As of early February 2024, 33% of the Russian Black Sea fleet's warships had been disabled by Ukraine, the Strategic Communications Center of Ukraine's Armed Forces recently reported. The SBU currently uses two types of sea drones — Sea Baby and Mamai, Dekhtiarenko said on national television.

"These are already new generations of drones, on the improvement of which the team of SBU specialists worked and continues to work together with other members of the Security and Defense Forces."

Ukraine continues to develop and upgrade its sea drone forces. When Russian missile launching vessels are forced to cower in distant ports, they are unable to launch attacks on Ukrainian maternity hospitals and schools.

Ukraine's ability to rule the waves of the Black Sea, despite having no real navy, is another example of its determination to fight off Russian invaders.

The only way to end the war is to make Ukraine safe from Russian aggression. Putin is already in violation of several treaties and other international agreements regarding Ukrainian sovereignty. Only a fool or MAGA supporter (basically the same thing) would expect Putin to respect any new agreement. Appeasement of Hitler did not stop World War II – it accelerated it.

If you're in the US, look up your member of the House of Representatives and demand that Russophile Speaker "MAGA Mike" Johnson quit blocking US aid to Ukraine which has already passed the Senate. And I'm talking to you – not the neighbor with the broken porch light.

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Drones to the Forefront of Naval Warfare

The US Navy and Marine Corps are making a serious effort to more heavily incorporate drones into their operations. The developing abilities of competitors such as China and Russia are driving the US to increase its Naval capability distributed over a wider area. Autonomous systems provide

DARPA to Deploy Anti-Submarine Drone Ships in Portland Starting This Spring

Darpa Deputy Director Steve Walker announced that the agency and its contractor Leidos would launch the first full prototype of an autonomous ship designed to hunt submarines and trail them for weeks at a time. 

Eventually, autonomous vessels could be deployed to track the latest generation of quiet diesel-electric submarines over distances of thousands of miles, providing targeting information to US Navy submarines, ships, and patrol planes—or simply harassing the subs with relentless active tracking to deter them from carrying out their mission. 

The technology could also be used for unmanned ships used to search for underwater mines and carry out resupply missions or act as a communications relay. And these ships all would operate at a fraction of the cost of conventional manned ships—costing $15,000 to $20,000 per day to operate instead of the $700,000 per day it costs to deploy a destroyer for the same job.

The prototype, named Sea Hunter, was built under DARPA's Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV) program, a project jointly funded by the Navy's Office of Naval Research and Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command. 

Measuring 132 feet long and displacing about 140 tons—roughly the size of a large fishing boat and a third the length of the Navy's LCS ships—the Sea Hunter will be christened in Portland, Oregon this April and begin testing in the Columbia River before undertaking long-range testing in the Pacific over the next 18 months.

(via DARPA robotic sub-hunting ship will set sail this spring | Ars Technica)