Euronaval 2026: Saab's Bigger CB90 CX Drops the Troops, and a Swarming Drone Boat Gets a KNDS Warhead

Two boats at this year's Euronaval show in Paris point the same way: smaller crews, more sensors, and weapons that can be swapped by mission. One is a new version of one of the most successful small combat boats ever built. The other is a jet-ski-sized drone designed to attack in swarms.

Saab CB90 CX: a combat boat without the troops

The Combat Boat 90 has been in Swedish service since 1989 and is also used by Greece, Malaysia, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Ukraine and the United States. Its classic job was to carry around 20 marines at more than 40 knots through the Stockholm archipelago. Saab's new CB90 CX keeps the speed but changes the purpose.

The CX is 18 metres long, against 16.3 metres for the current CB90 HSM, with a 4-metre beam and 1.1-metre draught. Two 1,100 hp Scania V8 diesels drive Kongsberg waterjets for more than 40 knots and a range of 300 nautical miles at cruise speed. Payload rises by about half, from around 4 to about 6 tonnes. The crew number tells the real story: zero to ten. The boat is optionally crewed and designed to become fully uncrewed, and it is no longer meant to carry a platoon of marines.

It is also built for rougher water. The CX is classed by DNV as a high-speed patrol craft that can operate 50 nautical miles from a safe harbour, or 100 in summer, which lets it work across the open Baltic rather than only among the islands.

Swedish and US marines aboard a CB90 during a Baltic exercise. File photo.

Saab showed three versions. A surveillance boat carries the SeaGiraffe 1X 3D radar on a folding mast that rises to 11 metres, with a detection range of more than 100 km, plus a Trackfire remote weapon station with a 12.7 mm machine gun or a 30 mm cannon firing airburst rounds against drones. A strike version swaps the radar for two MBDA Marte ER anti-ship missiles. An air defence version carries Rheinmetall's SeaSnake 30 turret with a 30x173 mm gun firing airburst ammunition. In other words, the CB90 is becoming a small, fast sensor and weapons node for coastal defence.

SeaOwl and KNDS Tracus Combat: the swarm

At the other end of the scale, French firm SeaOwl unveiled Tracus Combat, an uncrewed surface vessel just 3.25 metres long. It uses a hydrojet for more than 40 knots and has a range of over 150 nautical miles, with a satellite link for operations beyond line of sight and a mast carrying day and thermal cameras.

The payload is modular. Tracus Combat can carry electronic warfare jammers, decoys or surveillance sensors, or it can be a naval loitering munition with a 30 kg warhead made by KNDS. The warhead comes in a fragmentation version to break up swarms of enemy drone boats, and a shaped-charge version meant to punch a hole in a warship's hull. KNDS also designed a safe-and-arm device so the boat can be recovered safely if an attack is called off.

SeaOwl's software, first developed for drone boats used to train French Navy gunners, has been adapted so one operator can control a swarm, reportedly about ten boats. The company also showed Sealancer, a 4-metre launch box that pushes the 400 kg boat off a ship's side from up to 7 metres high using a pneumatic system. Tracus Combat has not yet been tested at sea in this configuration; trials are due shortly.

Neither boat would exist in this form without the Black Sea. Ukraine's drone boats sank or drove back much of Russia's fleet there, and every navy at Euronaval is now trying to field cheap uncrewed attackers and the defences against them at the same time.