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this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2024
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Ukraine
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The logistics of attacking targets in the Sea of Azov, while Ukraine has no border under control with that sea, is crazy.
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.
The article says that at least some were transiting the Kerch Strait.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Baby
That's enough to make it from territory not occupied by Russia into the Sea of Azov.
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.
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/
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:
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.