In the Second World War, small manned craft were used to attack ships in harbour, most notably in 1941 Italian frogmen using human torpedoes succeed in severely damaging HMS Valiant and HMS Queen Elizabeth in Alexandria. In the days of sail, fire ships were filled with gunpowder or just set on fire and left to drift into enemy vessels. The Sevastopol attack is not a new paradigm in naval warfare as some claim, but rather a modern development of a tactic that dates back centuries. The video also shows the USV narrowly missing a small civilian fishing boat and a panicked fisherman diving overboard. Footage shows there were several large explosions and the Russian Defence Ministry later said the attack involved “nine unmanned aerial vehicles and seven autonomous maritime drones”. Other footage shows the Russians succeed in destroying at least one USVs and around the same time there was a coordinated air attack on the city with UAVs. A third unidentified vessel, possibly a merchant ship was attacked while alongside in the harbour. The Russians subsequently confirmed the Ivan Golubets did sustain minor damage but did not admit any other vessels had been struck. The second vessel was a Natya-class minesweeper, the RFS Ivan Golubets which appears to have been stuck on the stern. A later piece of footage from an infrared camera shows another USV getting very close to the frigate. Footage from the camera on the USVs shows at least one attack took place in the early morning daylight, a Mi-8 (NATO reporting name – Hip) helicopter and possibly the frigate used heavy machine guns in an attempt to prevent the attack. The frigate was attacked while underway and manoeuvring in the waters just outside the naval base. (Her sister ship RFS Admiral Essen is also part of the BSF but Russian media have mentioned the Makarov). The most significant target was an Admiral Grigorovich-class frigate, almost certainly the RFS Admiral Makarov, now flagship of the Black Sea Fleet, following the sinking of the RFS Moskva. At first light on the morning of the 29th, USVs attacked at least 3 ships close to, and within the naval base. Over a week after the action, the full facts of what happened in Sevastopol are still not fully known but thanks to footage released by Ukrainian sources it has been possible for open-source intelligence analysts to be certain of some aspects of the attack. Here we examine what is known about the events, the implications for the war in Ukraine and more widely for other navies. On 29th October an attack was mounted on Russian Black Sea Fleet units using uncrewed boats and aircraft.
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