Ukraine Pulls Off World’s First Unmanned Amphibious Assault

In a World’s first, a Ukrainian drone boat beached itself on Russian-occupied shoreline of the Black sea from which a machine-gun-armed ground robot rolling onto the sand to run a  mission behind enemy lines.

Ukraine’s 123rd Territorial Defense Brigade announced it on July 13. This is claimed to be the first amphibious combat landing in history performed entirely by unmanned systems. The mission was coordinated by aerial command and control drones following instructions of operators located tens of miles away.

Sea drone, ground robot and unmanned air vehicles came together for one coordinated mission, the Ukrainian MoD said. It did not however tell what the objectives of the mission were and if the ground robot encountered any opposition from Russian forces.

Amphibious landings have always been costly in terms of human lives because the landing exposes troops at their most vulnerable moment and large amphibious vessels can seldom access the shoreline undetected. However, unmanned systems can enable forces to take more risks with amphibious assaults.

However, with unmanned assets being limited to light payloads, weaponry such as artillery systems and mortars cannot be injected using drones; this severely limits the unmanned assaults to probe-and-attack roles with light weapons.