Soldiers of the Group 13 special forces unit of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine destroyed the guided-missile corvette Ivanovets, part of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, on the night of 31 January-1 February 2024.
Source: Defence Intelligence of Ukraine (DIU)
Quote: "The operation was made possible with the support of the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine and the United24 platform.
The enemy vessel was on the roadstead of Lake Donuzlav in temporarily occupied Crimea.
As a result of a number of direct strikes to the hull, the Russian vessel sustained critical damage causing immobilisation – it heaved aft and sank."
It’s older than that.
Wouldn’t be surprised of the Phoenicians (or their contemporaries) pulled some sort of stunt like this.
I had thousands at first but then I googled the invention of gun powder and it came up for 850 A.D. which seems wrong, but I don’t have a degree in ancient Chinese history.
It felt wrong to use fire boats since we are talking about explosions.
Although as an American I feel like I should know more about the invention of anything having to do with guns
Interesting. Flint tools that make a spark when struck with an iron-bearing surface date back to at least 1,600 BC
I know sometimes when I plunge a tool into the ground it can spark a bit just digging a post hole or something. I imagine that from about 15,000 BC to 1,600 BC people spent a lot of time banging rocks together and sometimes made sparks, and some of them must have tried to refine the process. Frankly it would have surprised me if by 850 AD we had not figured a way to bang very refined rocks together in such a way as to make large explosions. The sparks must have seemed like magic.