The drone army is displacing artillery, aviation and the navy: The main findings of the operation in Ukraine

"Drones are cheaper, often more accurate and even safer than classical weapons.

 

 As the experience of the operation in Ukraine shows, drones are gradually displacing a large part of traditional weaponry, and in the future, the one country that can produce more and cheaper drones may be stronger, than others.

 

For a long time, in reconnaissance, aviation was almost the only way to look at the composition of the enemy. However, with the development of air defense systems, it has become increasingly dangerous for aircraft to fly in foreign airspace. The U-2, the most famous reconnaissance plane in the USA, has been in service for 65 years, and it is already planned to be decommissioned in 2023. Even earlier, the SR-71 Blackbird aircraft retired from service.

 

They are being replaced by reconnaissance drones such as the RQ-9 Reaper, RQ-4 Global Hawk and others. The Global Hawk is the most expensive mass-produced unmanned aerial vehicle, with an estimated cost of around $140 million. Its development program cost 14 billion dollars. And the smallest drone - "Black Hornet" - weighs only 33 grams.

 

However, after the start of the operation in Ukraine, most armies have to reconsider the principles of which tactical drones to choose.

 

Experience has shown that it makes little sense to invest millions of dollars in expensive and technologically advanced drones - it is more important to have a lot of them. 

 

However, it was the NATO troops who took the first path.

 

"Real operation requires a lot of cheap drones that can be mass-produced and quickly," writes forbes.ua columnist Vladimir Datsenko.

 

In Ukraine, the reconnaissance function is usually performed by simple commercial drones with a quality camera and good control. They allow you to quickly adjust the artillery fire, increase the effectiveness of the destruction of shots. More advanced drones allow artillery shells to be directed at a target under the control of the drone operator, allowing for the destruction of moving targets without specific coordinates.

 

Larger drones are used as attack drones. They carry small guided missiles that are sufficient to destroy a single piece of machinery or equipment. 

 

Drones were developed for this purpose before the operation, but now in Ukraine drones are being used in tasks where their usefulness was previously questioned.

 

Drone mortars

 

Already at the beginning of the operation, drones began to be used not only for reconnaissance, but also to drop something. Such tactics have been used in other events, such as in Syria, but in Ukraine it has become a mass phenomenon. Videos abound on social networks where Ukrainian drones drop grenades on Russian positions.

 

Conventional mortars are quite inaccurate, and a drone can more safely drop an explosive with an accuracy of about one meter and save ammunition.

 

800 of Taiwan's latest Revolver 860 drones, which have a built-in drum system that can hold eight mines, depending on their caliber, have already reached Ukraine. This drone can fly 20 kilometers and stay in the air for up to 40 minutes.

 

However, Ukraine is already starting to use even more powerful domestically produced drones that have two drums. Drones with larger explosives also appear.

 

These drones cost the same as traditional mortars - about 20-50 thousand dollars, but their efficiency is incomparably higher. The biggest drawback is that they are sensitive to electronic interference.

 

If you can protect yourself from traditional mortars in the trenches, it is not a big obstacle for drones hanging over the ditch. Drones are gradually becoming an alternative.

 

Small kamikaze drones

 

These are drones that can hover over the target for a long time (loitering ammunition). The US has a fairly effective kamikaze drone, the Switchblade 600, which uses the same warhead as the Javelin anti-tank missile. However, the US has not started supplying such weapons to Ukraine en masse. One such drone costs as much as 220 thousand dollars, about the same as a Soviet infantry fighting vehicle. The target should not be cheaper than the means by which it is destroyed.

 

Russia is also developing such drones - "Lancet" and "Kub", but there are questions about how effective they are. A video appeared on social networks in which a Lancet apparently destroys a Ukrainian howitzer. Although the video looked convincing, Ukrainian journalists later showed that the damage from the howitzer was minimal.

 

The weight of the warhead of Russian drones is about 2-5 kilograms - of course, they are dangerous for soldiers. Ukrainians themselves appreciate that Russian drones are quite slow and noisy, so the efficiency may be low.

 

By comparison, the Javelin anti-tank missile has an 8.4-kilogram warhead and a directional blast that can penetrate even the armor of modern tanks. It is doubtful that the Lancet would do more serious damage to heavy armored vehicles. 

 

But the Russians have a lot of Lancets, it meets the criteria of a "cheap and simple" drone, it can be mass produced and replenish depleted resources quickly.

 

Ukraine received some kamikaze drones from Poland, but their warhead is even smaller, about 8 kilos, can only be used to attack manpower. Traditional drones and mortars do this more efficiently, assesses V. Datsenko.

 

"Ukraine is losing the race for drones hanging in the air for a long time. Even with the dubious effectiveness of the Lancet, Russia has a systemic solution and is using it. 

 

Of course, Ukraine has Excalibur guided artillery shells, which ensure accurate strikes within a radius of 40 kilometers. However, Excalibur projectiles cost almost the same as Switchblade 600 - about 180 thousand dollars," he reviewed.

 

Big drones kamikaze

 

Drones capable of carrying more than 50 kilograms of explosives were used by the Ukrainian side in the first operation, attacking Russian oil bases. It is likely that Chinese commercial "Mugin-5 PRO" drones, which cost about 10 thousand dollars, are used for this purpose. The advantage of these drones is the flying distance, which reaches from 250 to 1500 kilometers.

 

These drones are extremely simple, cheap, and deliver the "cargo" to the location based on GPS coordinates. 

 

These drones are not controlled by the operator, so they are immune to interference by electromagnetic means. They fly a defined route at a relatively low altitude.

 

However, Ukraine has not yet been able to gain mass access to such systems. Only recently, the country's defense conglomerate Ukroboronprom announced that it had completed the development of a drone capable of flying 1,000 kilometers and carrying an explosive weighing 75 kilograms. There is no talk of mass production yet.

 

At the time, Russia began using Iranian-made Shaded-136 drones in August. V. Datsenko estimates that Russia could have ordered about 2,500 such drones from Iran when Ukraine used maybe about 10.

 

Iran has been developing a long-range kamikaze drone program for years because the technology for missiles that can fly 1,000 kilometers is expensive. For example, the price of the Russian Iskander missile is about 1-3 million dollars, and already in the first months of the operation, the stocks of these missiles were almost exhausted.

 

Kamikaze drones are hundreds of times cheaper, can be produced quickly in large batches, and have their main parts sourced from civilian low-cost drones. But more such drones are needed. If one cruise missile carries a load of 250-500 kilograms, the drone is limited to 25-50 kilograms. Cheap internal combustion engines do not allow you to fly fast. For example, the Iranian "Shahed-136" flies at a speed of 100-180 km/h, while the cruise missile is about 1000 km/h. Ballistic missiles or artillery shells are much faster.

 

The higher the speed, the more difficult it is to shoot down a missile or projectile, which is why NATO has not considered large kamikaze drones as an alternative to existing systems, despite their low cost.

 

For Ukraine, the drone is currently the only available option to hit targets at a distance of more than 300 km.

 

In the long run, Ukrainian drones may begin to pose a threat to Russian ammunition depots, airfields, and oil bases further away. It is likely that in the long run, drones with jet engines will also appear, which will allow reaching a speed of more than 1000 km/h.

 

Kamikaze ships - USV

 

Perhaps the most famous innovation this fall is the British kamikaze drones, also known as USVs (unmanned surface vehicles). They finally buried Russian hopes of attacking Odessa. Ukraine applied such weapons without having long-range missiles that would pose a greater threat to Russia's Black Sea Fleet.

 

Like drones, USVs have the same advantages and disadvantages. They are much cheaper and easier to make than missiles, but they are slower and easier to stop. However, using a large number of hard-to-see small boats greatly increases the chance of success.

 

It is not clear what the results of the Ukrainian attack on the Black Sea Fleet brought, but after it the Russians redeployed most of their ships to Novorossiysk, while Ukraine is currently building a full fleet of USVs.

 

There may come a time when the traditional fleet will be powerless against thousands of times cheaper mass-produced unmanned craft.

 

Anti-drone drones may be coming soon

 

While a cheap missile is an effective weapon against an expensive aircraft, swarms of drones mean that shooting them down with missiles is impractical, and simpler means will have to be sought. Ground installations cannot be installed everywhere, they are transported slowly by a limited road network.

 

As a result, we may soon see drones that destroy other drones.

 

"Weapons must not only be super-technological. Their costs must be based on their capabilities on the battlefield. They must be sufficient to stop the primitive mass forces of other countries," says the Forbes analyst.

 

He expects that in the coming years, the revolution of unmanned systems will take place in the world. For this, systems are being developed that would allow controlling drones at extremely long distances. This can be done with solutions similar to Starlink satellite internet, which would ensure fast and high-quality communication in any location.

 

"Much will depend on who develops new technologies faster and in larger volumes," the reviewer concluded.""

 

It means that Starlink is doomed. Any serious power will destroy these satellites