Defence Intelligence of Ukraine (DIU) has reported that a naval drone has killed five elite Russian divers in the bay of Novorossiysk as they tried to raise it for examination.
naval ordinance are a military’s most sacred secrets. from a military prerspective the consequences of a drone like this falling into enemy hands likely necessitates the “fail to the safe position” of “if we can’t reach a drone, better to scuttle it than risk it falling into enemy hands”
Plus an explosion near where you know it was is better than an explosion where you don’t know. Thousands of naval mines ended up on beaches far flung where they were laid and moreover sometimes decades after the war.
I guess it would be pretty straightforward to to put a detonation timer kill switch on loss of contact. Say something like 30-60 minutes after loss of contact the drone blows up.
As well as the military secrecy aspect, they don’t want these drones washing up on the shore where some civilians could accidentally set them off.
naval ordinance are a military’s most sacred secrets. from a military prerspective the consequences of a drone like this falling into enemy hands likely necessitates the “fail to the safe position” of “if we can’t reach a drone, better to scuttle it than risk it falling into enemy hands”
Plus an explosion near where you know it was is better than an explosion where you don’t know. Thousands of naval mines ended up on beaches far flung where they were laid and moreover sometimes decades after the war.
I guess it would be pretty straightforward to to put a detonation timer kill switch on loss of contact. Say something like 30-60 minutes after loss of contact the drone blows up.
As well as the military secrecy aspect, they don’t want these drones washing up on the shore where some civilians could accidentally set them off.
Wouldn’t want to be QA on that project.