Ukrainian forces say they are now using Sea Baby drone boats armed with heavy machine guns. The Security Service of Ukraine says the machine gun-toting uncrewed watercraft engaged Russian Flanker-series fighters, Mi-8/Mi-17 Hip helicopters, and Raptor patrol boats during a recent attack on targets on the occupied Crimean Peninsula around the Kerch Bridge.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SSU, also known by its Ukrainian abbreviation SBU) released a video earlier today, seen below, that it said showed views through the targeting systems on the machine gun-equipped Sea Baby uncrewed surface vessels (USVs) during the attack on the Kerch Bay area on the night of December 5-6. Kamikaze drones were also reportedly involved in the attack, the results of which are not immediately clear. The SSU/SBU has been using Sea Baby USVs for more than a year now and the family has grown to include baseline kamikaze types and other versions with mounted rocket launchers.
“Intercepted Russian radio communication indicates that there are killed and wounded on board the helicopters. The helicopters themselves were significantly damaged and now require major repairs,” according to a machine translation of the caption accompanying the SSU/SBU video on YouTube. “Also, SBU drones hit a barge carrying military equipment and equipment for the repair of the Crimean Bridge, which the occupiers are still unsuccessfully trying to restore after previous bombings by the Ukrainian special services.”
The War Zone has not been able to immediately verify these claims independently. The video does show Mi-8/Mi-17-series helicopters (as seen at the top of this story) and patrol boats being fired on. A Flanker-type fighter is also seen at one point appearing to conduct a strafing run, but the footage does not clearly show the jet being engaged in return. The exact model of Flanker is unclear, but it appears most likely to be an Su-30SM variant from what can be seen, including its forward canards. Russian Su-30SMs regularly operate over and around the Black Sea including in sorties against Ukrainian maritime forces.
When it comes to the actual weapon systems on the Sea Babies, they are “equipped with large-caliber machine guns” of unspecified types and “with ballistic programs for automatic guidance and auto-capture of targets,” according to the SSU/SBU video caption. “These water drones were manufactured as a result of joint fundraising with UNITED24, monobank, Oleg Gorokhovsky, Sergey Sternenko, and Igor Lachen in February of this year.”
The video shows views through electro-optical and infrared cameras, along with a targeting reticle and general user interface in line with that seen on remote weapon stations designed for use on ground vehicles and ships. No external views showing the weapon system installed on the drone boats, which could offer more insight into its capabilities, have emerged so far.
Whether the gun-armed Sea Babies are also equipped to act as kamikaze drone boats or are intended to be recovered and reused is unknown.
As already noted, this is not the first time that Sea Babies have emerged with additional external armament in addition to their internal explosive payloads. The SSU/SBU has employed versions armed with infantry-type shoulder-fired rocket launchers (reportedly RPV-16s loaded with rockets with thermobaric warheads) and 122mm Grad artillery rockets in the past.
Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence Directorate (also known by the Ukrainian abbreviation GUR) has also employed Magura V USVs, which are broadly similar in form and function to the Sea Baby, armed with R-73 air-to-air missiles modified for use as surface-to-air weapons.
The appearance of the machine gun-equipped Sea Babies makes sense. Ukrainian USVs have proven to be a scourage to Russian naval operations in and around the Black Sea. They also present real threats to vessels in port, as well as bridges and other coastal infrastructure.
At the same time, Russia’s forces have been steadily developing and employing new tactics, techniques, and procedures for countering these drone boats from the air and the sea, as is clear from the SSU/SBU’s newly released video. The Russian military has also been implementing a still-growing array of defense measures against drone attacks from the sea and the air, as well as other threats, around the Kerch Bridge and other high-value targets in Crimea and elsewhere in the region. Reports of major Ukrainian USV attacks have notably slowed in recent months. As noted earlier, it remains unclear what damage the Ukrainian attack last week caused to Russian targets in the Kerch area.
The emergence of the R-73-armed Magura Vs earlier this year already reflected increased aerial threats to Ukraine’s USV operations. As The War Zone has highlighted in the past, the rocket-armed Sea Babies would also provide an additional way to still be able to prosecute attacks, at least on some level, in the face of expanding Russian defenses.
Still, there are questions about the effectiveness of the new gun-toting Sea Babies and the general utility of employing the USVs armed in this way. The drone boats are already understood to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars apiece before the addition of the new weapon systems, which would be lost by design if they are still intended to end their missions in a kamikaze attack. Ukrainian decision-making regarding the allocation of its resources now comes amid renewed concerns about the future flow of military aid from the West, especially the United States.
If nothing else, the new Sea Baby developments highlight the continued speed of iteration when it comes to uncrewed systems across domains being employed by both sides of ongoing the conflict in Ukraine. Whether gun armament ultimately proves worthwhile, Ukrainian forces are clearly continuing to explore ways to challenge Russian countermeasures to their USV operations.
Contact the author: joe@twz.com