Ukraine's Best Drones Have Ship-Blasting Warheads
Shaped charges can punch right through multiple decks
This story was commissioned by Euromaidan Press. Since Substack pays only around a fifth of my bills, I have no choice but to take on a lot of freelance work. I still want my Substack audience to know where to read those freelance stories, however. Hence this excerpt.
On June 3, at least one attack drone from the Ukrainian Unmanned Systems Forces flew more than 1,100 km to strike a Russian navy missile corvette drydocked in Kronstadt, in the Baltic Sea just offshore from St. Petersburg. It was the first hit on Russia’s Baltic Fleet of the wider war.
The Fire Point FP-1 drone hit the corvette Boikiy. Overhead satellite imagery confirmed the strike, and a video from the adjacent pier made clear how bad the damage is. The 105-m corvette, one of the Baltic Fleet’s frontline warships, “burned for hours,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reporter Mark Krutov noted.
The FP-1’s design explains the heavy damage. “It seems that drone was carrying quite a substantial payload,” Krutov mused.
It’s true. Ukrainian drone-maker Fire Point has been tweaking the propeller-driven FP-1 to increase its explosive firepower, finally addressing a longstanding problem with Ukraine’s deep strike drones. Fire Point claimed it produces 300 of the $50,000 FP-1s and similar FP-2s every day.
Read the rest at Euromaidan Press.