The oil tanker MKD VYOM was on the final leg of a journey from the Netherlands to Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura Refinery as it sailed around the coast of Muscat, Oman on Sunday. Then the tanker, which is the length of two football fields, was rocked by an explosion.

It had been hit by an unmanned drone boat, Oman’s maritime security center said, sparking a fire in its engine room and killing one of its crew members. Its origin is unknown.

In the last few years, Iran’s allies in Yemen have mounted several attacks on freighters using sea drones. But this attack marks the first time an unmanned vessel has been used in the current Gulf conflict, which began Saturday when the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran and killed its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Autonomous boats are increasingly becoming a part of modern warfare — most notably, in the Ukraine war, where the country has effectively used them to take on Russia’s much more powerful navy. At the start of the war in 2022, the Russian Black Sea fleet was threatening Ukraine’s coast line and blocking critical grain exports. Just over four years later, it is largely confined to port in Sevastopol, Crimea, thanks to a series of attacks mounted by a fleet of drone boats operated by Ukraine’s intelligence services.

The speedboat-sized unmanned vessels, laden with explosives, have been responsible for at least 16 strikes where they rammed head on into Russian Navy vessels. The boats, dubbed Magura, have now also been kitted out with surface-to-air missiles, and have been credited with downing at least two Russian fighter jets.

Now a new defense company plans to start selling a version of the Ukraine’s Magura to other NATO militaries. Uforce has now taken majority investments to “roll up” several Ukrainian companies, including the makers of the Magura, to expand production outside Ukraine, and adapt its weapons for western militaries. Uforce’s CEO Oleg Rogynskyy is betting that NATO admirals and generals will want........

© Forbes