In terms of firepower, our naval drones are on par with the best MANPADS and naval mines, but there is room for improvement
Photos of the large landing ship of the Russian Navy Olenegorskiy Gornyak, which was severely damaged during a successful kamikaze boat attack on the Rashist naval base in Novorossiysk on August 4, 2023, and is now dry-docked to assess the damage, have been made public.
One of the photos shows that this racist VDK has a hole in its port side measuring approximately 4×3 meters, partially below the waterline. And based on this, the Olenegorskiy Gornyak literally miraculously did not sink after the cruiser Moskva, and only because of the desperate struggle for survival waged by the sailors of the occupation fleet.
The size of the hole also clearly demonstrates that Ukraine’s naval drones have not only high flexibility of use, but also high firepower, on par with the best anti-ship missiles and naval mines.
However, we can assume here that the amount of damage and the size of the hole when any enemy ship is attacked by a kamikaze boat may depend not only on the size of the warhead, but also on the parameters of the hull and the speed at which the marine drone could move to the target.
This may have the potential to further improve the kamikaze boats at the disposal of the Ukrainian Defense Forces, with the aim of maximizing the destruction of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
Moreover, there is footage in the public domain with other visual material for comparison – an image with the nature of the hole on the Sig tanker, which was successfully attacked by our marine drone on August 5, 2023, near the Kerch Strait. The size of the hole can be estimated at 2×1 meters, and it also goes partly below the waterline, partly above the waterline.
