Russia creates marine drone similar to Ukrainian SeaBaby

The Russian company KMZ has introduced the Dandelion (Oduvanchik) attack marine drone, similar to the Ukrainian uncrewed surface vessel (USV).

Source: Militarnyi

Details: The Russian Kingisepp Machine-Building Plant KMZ (St Petersburg), specialising in producing boats for Russian law enforcement agencies and marine drones, introduced the Dandelion high-speed uncrewed carrier boat.

The Russian Ministry of Defence ordered 10 drones for testing. 

It is reported that the tests should take place directly in the combat zone against Ukraine.

The Russian Dandelion is structurally very similar to the Ukrainian models.

The Russian drone still has several key differences. For example, there are no visible communication antennas on the drone’s body or optical surveillance or target guidance devices.

The lack of a camera will probably prevent the drone from being used against manoeuvrable surface targets.

It can be assumed that its purpose will be to attack static objects, such as bridges and ports.

KMZ officials say the drone can carry a warhead or other payload weighing up to 600 kilograms. For comparison, the SeaBaby drone that hit the Crimean Bridge in July 2023 had 850 kg of explosives on board.

The Russian drone can cover a distance of 200 kilometres at speeds of up to 80 km per hour. It is noted that this is enough to launch strikes on Odesa in the event of a launch from Crimea. In addition, it is possible that they can be launched from ships at sea.

At the same time, it is not clear how it will be controlled without satellite communications because the corresponding antennas were not seen on board.

It can be assumed that the Russians used an inertial system with correction for GPS signals, as in the Shahed-136 drones. In addition, the possibility of using communication repeater drones cannot be excluded.

For reference: The uncrewed surface vessels that successfully attacked the Crimean Bridge, as well as the Russian landing ship Olenegorskiy Gornyak and the SIG chemical tanker, are the in-house technical development of the Security Service of Ukraine. They were named SeaBaby.

Background: 

• Sources in the secret services told Ukrainska Pravda that the Russian invaders are trying to reverse-engineer the SeaBaby USV in order to use it against Ukraine.
• According to the sources, the Russians managed to put together a "relatively functional" model of the Ukrainian SeaBaby from the remains of several USVs found at attack sites.

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