Naval drones changed the war at sea. Magura, Sea Hunter, Sounder and Poland's StormRider in the race

Three years ago an unmanned strike boat was a curiosity at trade fairs. Today it is a weapon that pushed the Russian Black Sea Fleet out of Sevastopol, shot down two Su-30 fighters and gave rise to the world's first brigade made up entirely of naval drone operators. The Americans, Israelis, Turks and Norwegians are each responding to that revolution in their own way. Poland's entry in the race is WB Group's StormRider family: a platform that went from first public showing to a second model within a year and which, while still a prototype, is developing at a pace that justifies talk of catching up with the world's leaders.

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15 september 2026   |   07:27   |   Source: Gazeta Morska   |   Prepared by: Kamil Kusier   |   Print

fot. Grupa WB / Gazeta Morska

Ukraine wrote the manual

Everything we know today about the combat use of unmanned boats, we know from the Black Sea. Ukraine, with practically no surface fleet, built in two years a capability that forced Russian warships to withdraw from Crimea to Novorossiysk. Two drone families did it. Sea Baby, developed by the Security Service of Ukraine, is the larger craft with a heavy explosive payload, intended above all for strikes on stationary targets: ships in port and the Crimean Bridge. Magura, developed for the HUR military intelligence directorate, is smaller, more agile and designed to attack warships under way at sea.

Both were assigned in August 2023 to the 385th Unmanned Surface Vehicle Brigade, the first unit of its kind in the world. The Magura V5 became the symbol of the new naval war: a swarm of several cheap boats, each carrying a few hundred kilograms of explosive, sank or damaged ships worth hundreds of millions of dollars. By May 2025 HUR was counting hits on more than a dozen Russian targets, including landing and patrol ships.

Then something happened that no doctrine had foreseen. The enlarged Magura V7, a diesel-powered boat more than seven metres long, was fitted with AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles and in May 2025 shot down two Russian Su-30 fighters. A surface drone had become a mobile air defence launcher. Later versions received stabilised machine gun modules, and in 2026 the Ukrainian military began using boats as carriers for interceptor drones that bring down Shaheds over the sea. The parade in Kyiv this August also showed the larger Magura MV11 carrier and the new Sargan family, armed with hangars for FPV drones, 122 mm rockets and electronic warfare systems.

Uforce, the manufacturer of the Magura, already has an agreement with the American company Red Cat to produce the V7 for the US market. The Ukrainian naval drone has stopped being an improvisation and become an export product.

The Americans are building a fleet without crews

The United States took a different route, from large, expensive demonstrators towards a fleet. Sea Hunter, a 40-metre trimaran built by Leidos for DARPA, and its successor Seahawk spent years as test beds. In January 2026 the US Navy announced that both were passing to fleet control as its first operational medium unmanned surface vessels. It was a symbolic moment: test platforms had become front-line equipment.

The segment of smaller, faster boats is growing in parallel. Florida-based MARTAC is developing the Devil Ray family, led by the T38 catamaran, tested among others by the 5th Fleet in the Persian Gulf. Textron Systems has the CUSV, originally a mine countermeasures boat for the LCS, now offered in reconnaissance and strike versions. L3Harris supplies the MAST-13, known from Middle East trials as the Arabian Fox. Saildrone is heading towards persistent surveillance: its wind- and solar-powered Surveyor and Voyager craft can patrol an area for months without refuelling, which interests both the navy and the coast guard.

The American model is systemic: the boats are elements of a wider architecture in which integration with crewed ships, satellite communications and a common operating picture matter most. It is also the only market able to order hundreds of craft at short notice.

Israel and Turkey: in series and in modules

Israel's Elbit Systems offers the Seagull, a 12-metre boat intended mainly for anti-submarine and mine warfare, fitted with a towed sonar and a remote weapon station. Seagull is one of the few unmanned surface vessels to have reached export customers and to work in routine tasks rather than only at demonstrations.

Turkey has built an entire industrial segment in a few years. ULAQ, a joint effort by Ares Shipyard and Meteksan, was the first Turkish armed surface drone and was fitted with guided missiles. Marlin, developed by Aselsan and Sefine Shipyard, is a larger craft with electronic warfare modules and weapons, tested in NATO exercises. The Turkish approach is to move quickly through successive versions and to sell abroad before a product fully matures, which is risky but commercially effective.

The Norwegian school: Kongsberg goes for survey and offshore

Kongsberg is a special case in this line-up, because it is not trying to compete with the Magura. The Norwegian group is building capabilities where it holds an advantage: hydrography, underwater robotics and the autonomy of large vessels. Sounder, an eight-metre boat from Kongsberg Discovery, is one of the most mature reconnaissance drones in the world: it surveys the seabed, hunts mines and carries sonars, and in March 2026 Kongsberg signed an agreement with Fugro to deploy the technology across the Dutch giant's survey fleet.

The second direction is scale. Reach Remote 1, a 24-metre unmanned offshore support vessel built by Kongsberg Maritime for Reach Subsea, has been conducting underwater surveys off Norway since 2025, controlled from a shore-based operations centre in Horten. The third is depth: in July 2026 the US Department of Defense selected Kongsberg and Oceaneering to design an extra-large unmanned undersea vehicle for the US Navy. Add the Hugin vehicles used for years by NATO navies and the Protector remote weapon stations that Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace supplies for other manufacturers' platforms.

The Norwegians, then, are not building a kamikaze drone. They are building an ecosystem in which the unmanned surface vessel is a sensor carrier and a network node rather than the weapon itself. For Baltic states that must watch over cables, pipelines and wind farms, that model matters as much as the Ukrainian one.

Poland: StormRider, from prototype to family

Against this background WB Group, a company known until now mainly for FlyEye aerial drones and Warmate loitering munitions, has built its own position in the maritime domain within a year. The first StormRider, a craft of around 8.5 metres, was shown at MSPO in 2025 after earlier trials in the Baltic, during which an unmarked, camouflaged boat was photographed by observers and dubbed a maritime UFO. The hull draws on the experience of Poland's yacht-building industry, propulsion is a Volvo Penta diesel with a waterjet, range is around 500 km and the craft can operate in sea state 3.

The configuration shown a year ago was reconnaissance and strike: navigation radar, sonar, an electro-optical turret, the ZMU-05N remote weapon station with a 12.7 mm heavy machine gun, and a tube launcher for Warmate loitering munitions in reconnaissance and strike versions. The platform is modular: the same hull can serve as a forward observation post, assess the results of strikes by other units, collect hydrographic data, conduct electronic warfare or support special forces. It can operate fully remotely, semi-autonomously or with a crew, which matters where regulations do not yet permit fully unmanned navigation. Specialists from the Polish Navy took part in its development.

This year the boat was named StormRider 850, and at MSPO 2026 its smaller cousin, the StormRider 550, made its debut. The new craft is 5.5 metres long, weighs 650 kg, has a range of around 400 km and an outboard engine giving around 30 knots, which above all simplifies handling and lowers operating costs. It was built, as the manufacturer admits, at the request of potential users looking for training craft and target boats for warships. WB Group spokesman Remigiusz Wilk said openly that the first unmanned surface vessel in the Polish Navy may well be a target and training drone, just as target aircraft were the first unmanned systems in armed forces around the world.

It has to be said honestly: StormRider today is a rapidly developing prototype, not series equipment. There is no order yet from the Polish Navy or the Border Guard, no export customer, no combat use. But it also has to be said honestly what it does have. It has real sea trials in the Baltic behind it. It has two models in the family rather than one. It has ready integration with the company's own weapons and loitering munitions and with the TOPAZ command system, which WB Group has just sold to Croatia. And it has behind it a company that in the air domain went down exactly the same road: from prototype through target and training platform to a product that allies now buy. In a segment where Turkey and Israel reached export products in four years and Ukraine in two, the Polish timeline is not out of step.

StormRider is not the only Polish project in this class. Ukrainian media noted last year that Poland had unveiled its own counterparts to the Magura and Sea Baby, listing the SK@RP project alongside StormRider. It is a sign that what is emerging in Poland is not a single product but the nucleus of a segment.

What it means for the Baltic

The Baltic is an almost ideal sea for unmanned boats: shallow, densely covered with critical infrastructure, with ports, LNG terminals, power cables and a growing number of wind farms that nobody can patrol around the clock with crewed ships. Since the incidents of damage to cables and pipelines, NATO has maintained a standing surveillance mission here, and the region's states are investing in sensors and unmanned craft.

All the models described above fit into that picture: the Ukrainian one, in which cheap boats deter an adversary's fleet, the American one, in which drones are part of a wider network, and the Norwegian one, in which they guard the seabed and infrastructure. For Poland, with more than 500 km of coastline, two major ports, the terminal in Świnoujście and offshore wind farms now under construction, the need covers all three. The fact that domestic industry already has a platform that can be configured for these tasks matters more in this context than whether StormRider reaches series production this year or next.

Ten unmanned surface vessels that set the standard today

An editorial ranking by degree of proof in real operations and technical maturity: 1. Magura V5 and V7 (Uforce for HUR, Ukraine), 2. Sea Baby (SBU, Ukraine), 3. Sea Hunter and Seahawk (Leidos, USA), 4. Devil Ray T38 (MARTAC, USA), 5. Seagull (Elbit Systems, Israel), 6. Sounder (Kongsberg Discovery, Norway), 7. ULAQ (Ares Shipyard and Meteksan, Turkey), 8. Marlin (Aselsan and Sefine, Turkey), 9. CUSV (Textron Systems, USA), 10. Saildrone Surveyor (Saildrone, USA). Poland's StormRider 850 and 550 (WB Group) we place just outside this ten, as the most advanced prototype in the region.

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