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Comment by yxhuvud | Hacker News Reader

I'm actually somewhat surprised Iran is openly telling us they are using underwater drones for this. That piece of technological advance has gone mostly under the radar (!) so far.

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> That piece of technological advance has gone mostly under the radar (!) so far

The Ukraine would like to have a word.

The drones that are mainly used there are the flying kind.

"Mainly" but they've been assaulting Russian boats and ships with USVs and submersibles.

For example - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Baby#Sub_Sea_Baby

Ukraine completely locked up the Russian fleet inside its bases with the underwater drones.

Underwater drones, not drones in general.

Ukraine has been sinking Russian warships in their harbor using underwater drones for at least a year now.

It’s Ukraine, no “the”.

In many languages the article is necessary. I assume English is their second language.

Yes but as one of the other commenters pointed out, its a charged term when it comes to Ukraine so its worth mentioning to people that use it accidentally.

FYI, "The Ukraine" is politically charged wording held over from Soviet times, and implies that it is part of Russia. The independent country is known simply as "Ukraine".

How do you explain "back in the USSR"?

... or "Born in the USA"

For the same reason as "The UK" or "The USA" - all of them are acronyms starting "The Union of ..." or "The United ...".

Similarly you say "The commonwealth of Massachusetts" but not "The Massachusetts".

This does not apply to Ukraine, unless you want to say "The Republic of Ukraine".

You don't know how lucky you are, boy...

There are plenty of languages with gendered country names. Ukraine is die Ukraine (feminine gender) in German and the article is necessary since changing the article changes the meaning of what you're expressing. Whenever I see/hear "the Ukraine" I assume English is their second language.

Yes, my bad, I am not an english native, thanks for the reminder.

What defense is there against something like this? AFAIK only a few US aircraft carriers are equipped with anti torpedo torpedoes, and one of those sitting in the straight would be pretty vulnerable.

Of course that could be the entire idea.

The calculation is that of course there are defences, but if you have a big stockpile of $20K drones, and your opponent has a limited number of $2mil drone interceptors, then you can keep throwing drones and keeping your opponent busy there, and you're coming out ahead even before one finally gets through.

See: https://bsky.app/profile/mekka.mekka-tech.com/post/3mgrvx5gr...

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