Image of the suspected Ukrainian USV circulating on Russian social media. Image via Naval News

Real Clear Defense suggests that the damage to the Kerch bridge connecting Crimea to Russia may have been done by an Unmanned Surface Vessel (USV) like the one reportedly found aground earlier.

They go on to talk about explosive laden surface vessels of all sizes, both as potential weapons and potential threats, and how hard they can be to counter.

We have talked about this threat several times, but this post offered an example I had not previously mentioned.

“…when a ship filled with explosives bound for Europe during World War I collided with another vessel in Halifax Harbor in 1917 and caught fire, the resulting explosion obliterated everything within a half-mile radius, inflicted copious damage at greater distances, and created a 60-foot tsunami that wiped out whole communities. That vessel had about 2% of the cargo capacity of today’s largest cargo ships.”