Were there any notable proposals, plans or attempts to employ military jet-skis?

[u/Warm-Parsnip3111]

Do note this is not a question of the feasibility of military jet-skis. The issues with jet-skis in a military setting are many and if they were effective then we'd be seeing their deployment as good ideas spread as quickly as bad ones. However as fans of military history, we all know that a bad idea has never stopped military theorists before. Especially for use in littoral, archipelago and delta environments where you can see how an argument could be made on paper for roles such as patrolling, reconnaissance and raiding where a jet-skis small size and speed would be more advantageous.

I'm excluding more law enforcement/civillian leaning uses of jet-skis from this question such as SAR even if used by a military and focusing much more on overtly military minded applications.

I do know that the Kraka jet-ski is apparently used by US special forces. I say apparently because every article I've read about it says the Kraka is used by US special forces but all fail to mention which ones or when it was adopted. None of the articles even mention SOCOM or any US military branch and in some articles special forces is capitalised and in others it's not so I'm unsure if special forces is refering to US Army Special Forces or using the term in the colloquial sense. Doesn't help that all the artcles read more like advertising for the manufacturer rather than reporting on actual military procurement so I'm pretty iffy on if this is true or not. If anyone has any information on that then please feel free to share. However even of it is true, while I suppose it's technically a jet-ski, from what I can gather it's more of an evolution of the RHIB rather than a more traditionally designed jet-ski which is what thinking about with this question.

So does anyone know of any proposals, plans or attempts to employ military jet-skis?

[u/whambulance_man]

I feel bad because I don't have an answer for your actual question, it has only made me curious as hell about it too.

But I can speak a bit to the secondary there. "Adopted by SF" is a really broad phrase, quite similar to the varying quality stamp of "mil spec". For example, take the 300 Blackout shorty AR's that Q made for the teams to replace/outperform their MP5SD's and eventually sold as a commercial product (Honey Badger), that is absolutely a case of "Adopted by SF" that fits what we imagine when we hear the words. Relatively common (for them) situation that is solved with a more specialized tool

There are also items that have been "Adopted by SF" which were one-offs created as part of a harebrained scheme, some of which never even made it to testing. Say they asked a company to make a collapsible titanium paddle with carbon fiber & stealth technology, but it turns out they were gonna HALO jump into inflatables on a river no one has successfully rafted before. It was adopted, sure, but it never got used.

And lastly, there is a real tendency for the people at that level to hate being unprepared, and fully embrace the philosophy of "It is better to have it and not need it" and it seems to go all the way up. It'd be a damn shame to be up shit creek and the only way out is on a Kraka when we don't have one in inventory, ya know? Another case of adopted and unused, but for a different reason.