Ukraine Invasion - Please do not post videos showing attacks/similar
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Soldato
Soldato
To answer this specific part of your question - These "boat-drones" are said to carry around 450kg of military grade explosive but how much of that weight is actual explosive and how much is the weight of any external casing around the explosive is unknown. The boat-drone itself is very "flimsy" (fibreglass etc) so wouldn't really add much to the shrapnel effect when the explosives detonate which leaves these two ideas -
A - If it is all just high explosive i.e. literally blocks of explosive joined together, then the damage would be an initial, large bent inward hole on the hull, but then more temporary "shock/compression wave" damage to the rest of the ship, knocking out electrical systems and pumps, bending pipework etc alongside more permanent damage like buckling the hull plating and internal walls, jamming doors etc. This would be generally called a "blast" weapon as there is very little shrapnel.
B - If however there is an external casing around the explosive i.e. they'd used a 1000lb aircraft bomb type device, then the explosive amount (for the weight given) would be less but this would create a huge amount of shrapnel which would pierce deep into the ship. So the initial hole would be smaller and the initial shock damage would be less but the shrapnel would cause far more permanent internal damage to the ship and make repairs far harder as things like wires, pipes, conduits could be cut and need replacing/bypassing. This would generally be called a "general purpose" weapon using a mix of blast and shrapnel.
C - Taking that "aircraft bomb" idea a step further, if the total explosives was correctly stated at 450kg AND there was an external casing (like a 2000lb aircraft bomb would have) then your getting the best of both worlds, lots of explosive mass for huge blast damage but also lots of extra shrapnel causing even more permanent damage and holes.
Again, without knowing the exact mix the Ukrainians are using to create these weapons its just guesswork but there could even be the possibility of throwing in some thermite/incendiary into the mix to help create additional fires onboard post explosion although from the footage of these exploding so far I haven't seen much incendiary effects so who knows!
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I expect they are extremely difficult to hit at all or there would be sinking ships all over the place. They probably have limited time and choice and hit the nearest important bit of the ship they can before the drone gets destroyed
Soldato
The claims I saw said they were using a basic charge shaping approach so the one that went under the bridge faced the charge upwards and the boat attacking ones point it forwards.
The First one had a more basic mechanism of basically a trigger on the very front of the "nose" but again thats been refined since.
Soldato
Oil tankers arnt armoured ,
www.mirror.co.uk
That sank after grazing another ship. So yes 450kg of explosives will sink one. Why? In 1982 the General Belgrano was sunk by 2, WW2 vintage mark 8** torpedos designed in 1944 with 340kg of torpex. no they are not shaped charges and yes they are contact detonated (not underneath as modern torpedos)
Ship carrying 400 tonnes of oil crashes off Gibraltar coast and starts to sink
An container ship carrying more than 400 tonnes of oil has crashed into another vessel leaving the Port of Gibraltar and is sinking with the fear that it will spill its load causing an environmental disaster
www.mirror.co.uk
That sank after grazing another ship. So yes 450kg of explosives will sink one. Why? In 1982 the General Belgrano was sunk by 2, WW2 vintage mark 8** torpedos designed in 1944 with 340kg of torpex. no they are not shaped charges and yes they are contact detonated (not underneath as modern torpedos)
Soldato
Found it
Caporegime
hey google, go blow up russian shipping.
Soldato
Soldato
Tough ****! They know what they're doing. It's their choice to be there.
Soldato
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Wanger reportedly operating in Niger now
Whilst I support Ukraines use of these in the Black Sea, the US and UK navy must be absolutely spinning themselves over the future of naval warfare. How do you protect an aircraft carrier from something as small as these things?
Ukraine might be the first with these drones, but they wont be the last.
Caporegime
I presume a similar way to protecting against things like surface skimming missiles.
I.e. with a proper system and not some Russian made up BS which sounds superior to Western tech but in reality doesn't exist.
Soldato
Don
I would suspect the US probably already has defenses against these sort of things after having a destroyer severely damaged in the gulf by a speedboat loaded with explosives, though this occurred in port, so realistically there's not much you can do against a terrorist attack. On the open sea though I think they are likely to have much better systems for identifying targets and then destroying them compared to the Russians.
USS Cole bombing - Wikipedia
Soldato
Destroying it should be simple. Detecting it is the hard part. Better to watch the Russians fail now. I expect the defense industry to go on overdrive over the next decade as a result of the findings from this conflict.
Soldato
It is Drakes fire ships brought up to date.
Thats my thoughts too. These craft are so small, the navy can't just blow anything up in the water with a similar small footprint (imagine the 100s of false positives something like that would create)
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