[Goose]

Fixed-Wing drones (FWDs) have longer range and/or greater payload than multirotor drones of similar size/motive power. FWD are also faster, in many cases much faster. FEDs can also operate at higher altitudes than multirotor drones. These same properties apply to comparisons between fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters. The physics is the same.

 

FWDs can utilize internal combustion engines (ICE) for power. These engines have much better power to weight ratios than electric engines. These types of engines are ubiquitous in FWDs carrying large warheads over long distances. Jet engines (of various types, including turboprops) are a type of ICE. Multirotor designs in general cannot use ICE because stabilization requires different power on each lift fan. Precisely controlling 4 to 8 independent ICE would be impossible on a small drone. At the beginning of the war Ukraine scored a major success with a Soviet-era TU-141 drone. Interestingly even at this point Russia was claiming all drones were shot down. That was manifestly untrue. Some were. Others wandered off course into NATO countries. At least one hit the its target.

 

FWD also have disadvantages. They cannot hover. There is a definite lower limit on their speed below which they fall out of the air. They can't stop and back up. FWDs also require a large area from which they can take off and (usually) land. In some cases launching ramps can mitigate the required take-off area. All FWDs require some kind of "landing gear". The options are parachutes,  air cushions, landing skids, and true landing gear (retractable or fixed). The last three require some kind of runway. Like full-sized aircraft landing is a dangerous time and damage often occurs. Obviously Kamikaze drones do not need to land. However they do need either a launching ramp or wheels in order to take off. The wheels may be jettisoned after take-off (and possibly re-used).

 

Ukraine has used FWDs from the very earliest days of the war. The Bayraktar TB2s were on the news all the time. The reasons that changed are discussed here. [Ref 7] provides a comprehensive treatment of Ukrainian FWDs, including pictures and the properties of each one. It is unfortunately not totally complete. The "?3" drone appears to be the one being used to attack refineries, based on what photographic evidence is available. It also may be a AN-196, but the photographs available show a straight horizontal stabilizer, not a two-piece "peaked" one.

 

[Ref 8] provides an insight into a relatively heavy FWD strike on an ammunition facility in Russia. This strike utilized the AN-196 Lyutyy (also translated as Liutyi) drone as the main strike vehicle accompanied part of the way (at least) by "decoy" drones. A total of 12 AN-196 drones are directed to the main target. There are lots of secondary targets designed to confuse Russian air defense. The route of the drone strike is carefully designed to avoid known Russian air defense sites. I would wager heavily that the main source of regularly updated intelligence regarding the location of such sites is the US.

 

There are some discrepancies in the reported payload of the AN-196. [Ref 8] states the payload of the AN-196 is "up to 250 kg". However, according to this announcement published on 25-Nov-2024 the payload had been upgraded from 50 kg to 75 kg. There are several references to the 75 kg number elsewhere. It is possible that 75 kg is the maximum payload it can carry to maximum range, but it can be "overloaded" for shorter flights with up to 250 kg. On any given mission it may carry less in order to reach the target. Keep in mind the payload of the Shahed 136 (Russian Geran-2) is 50 kg.

 

More information about the Rubaka drone used as a decoy in [Ref 8] can be found here. The reference isn't great but it does reveal the maximum payload of this drone to be 10 kg. No wonder the comment was that it could be operated with or without payload. That said, one should keep in mind that 10 kg is a VERY respectable payload for the FPV drones considered previously. Rubaka also does it over a range of 500 km, not 15 or 20.

 

Ukraine has recently developed several smaller jet-powered drones. These drones are more difficult for Russian air defenses to deal with than the much slower drones like the AN-196. The payload of the Palianytsia is unknown, but probably about 50 kg. The previous linked article states

Some military analysts say firing 30 at a target can inflict more damage than one very expensive ATACMS missile.

At first blush, this is quite plausible, because the ATACMS carries a 214 kg warhead while 30 Palianytsia drones carry 1500 kg aggregate. Many such comparisons exist in (pro-Ukrainian IMO) Internet links to other similar alleged equivalences.

 

However, closer examination shows this comparison has SERIOUS flaws. First, 30 explosions from 50 kg warheads spread out in time and space delivers an entirely different effect than 214 kg in one place at one time. In some circumstances, multiple explosions in time and space are preferable, especially if the target is relatively "thin-skinned" and covers a broad area. An airfield meets this description. A bunker complex does not. Furthermore we know from experience that a single ATACMS dispensing cluster munitions is extremely effective against airports with aircraft parked in the open or open-topped revetments. Munitions are spread all over the place and will damage aircraft and things like oil tanks. Palianytsias will certainly destroy any aircraft they hit or fall very close to. Open-topped revetments create a situation where direct hits are effective, but anything less is not. OTOH the US hardened aircraft shelters (HAS) are designed to be invulnerable to Russian 122 mm rockets. Palianytsia sized warheads almost certainly will not penetrate them. A Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) will go right through (scroll down) them with its 93 kg warhead. An ATACMS with a unitary warhead and traveling at about Mach 3.5 certainly will as well. That said, it would take many ATACMS to destroy an entire airport with direct hits. Therefore it wouldn't be the "first choice". It might be used if there were no better options.

 

The above comparison bring up a very important factor in explosive weapons effectiveness. Many weapons rely on the kinetic energy they posses upon impact to enable them to destroy the target. The warhead uses a delayed fuse to allow it to explode after impact. The SDB  is an example of such engineering. We often see on the Internet videos of impressive explosions upon drone impact. However, a large percentage of those explosions are ineffective. The blast effect is actually outside the target. Impressive videos but relatively ineffective as weapons. Multirotor drones are slow. FWDs are faster. That is a big help, as we shall see later. However, the range of speed among FWDs is considerable. Storm Shadow BROACH warheads rely on the "drone" accelerating to .95 Mach during the terminal attack phase. Ukraine is still well short of that capability.

 

The point of the above discussion is that certain weapons work well against certain target types. They have been engineered to do so. Other weapons may "work" against those same targets, but are less effective.  Still others simply do nothing at all. One often finds references on the Internet to Ukraine using drones to accomplish tasks for which they are less than ideally suited. Ukraine has no other choice because it does not posses (either at all or in adequate numbers) the "ideal" or even "better" weapons for the task.

[Goose]

Fixed-Wing drones (FWDs) have longer range and/or greater payload than multirotor drones of similar size/motive power. FWD are also faster, in many cases much faster. FEDs can also operate at higher altitudes than multirotor drones. These same properties apply to comparisons between fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters. The physics is the same.

 

FWDs can utilize internal combustion engines (ICE) for power. These engines have much better power to weight ratios than electric engines. These types of engines are ubiquitous in FWDs carrying large warheads over long distances. Jet engines (of various types, including turboprops) are a type of ICE. Multirotor designs in general cannot use ICE because stabilization requires different power on each lift fan. Precisely controlling 4 to 8 independent ICE would be impossible on a small drone. At the beginning of the war Ukraine scored a major success with a Soviet-era TU-141 drone. Interestingly even at this point Russia was claiming all drones were shot down. That was manifestly untrue. Some were. Others wandered off course into NATO countries. At least one hit the its target.

 

FWD also have disadvantages. They cannot hover. There is a definite lower limit on their speed below which they fall out of the air. They can't stop and back up. FWDs also require a large area from which they can take off and (usually) land. In some cases launching ramps can mitigate the required take-off area. All FWDs require some kind of "landing gear". The options are parachutes,  air cushions, landing skids, and true landing gear (retractable or fixed). The last three require some kind of runway. Like full-sized aircraft landing is a dangerous time and damage often occurs. Obviously Kamikaze drones do not need to land. However they do need either a launching ramp or wheels in order to take off. The wheels may be jettisoned after take-off (and possibly re-used).

 

Ukraine has used FWDs from the very earliest days of the war. The Bayraktar TB2s were on the news all the time. The reasons that changed are discussed here. [Ref 7] provides a comprehensive treatment of Ukrainian FWDs, including pictures and the properties of each one. It is unfortunately not totally complete. The "?3" drone appears to be the one being used to attack refineries, based on what photographic evidence is available. It also may be a AN-196, but the photographs available show a straight horizontal stabilizer, not a two-piece "peaked" one.

 

[Ref 8] provides an insight into a relatively heavy FWD strike on an ammunition facility in Russia. This strike utilized the AN-196 Lyutyy (also translated as Liutyi) drone as the main strike vehicle accompanied part of the way (at least) by "decoy" drones. A total of 12 AN-196 drones are directed to the main target. There are lots of secondary targets designed to confuse Russian air defense. The route of the drone strike is carefully designed to avoid known Russian air defense sites. I would wager heavily that the main source of regularly updated intelligence regarding the location of such sites is the US.

 

There are some discrepancies in the reported payload of the AN-196. [Ref 8] states the payload of the AN-196 is "up to 250 kg". However, according to this announcement published on 25-Nov-2024 the payload had been upgraded from 50 kg to 75 kg. There are several references to the 75 kg number elsewhere. It is possible that 75 kg is the maximum payload it can carry to maximum range, but it can be "overloaded" for shorter flights with up to 250 kg. On any given mission it may carry less in order to reach the target. Keep in mind the payload of the Shahed 136 (Russian Geran-2) is 50 kg.

 

More information about the Rubaka drone used as a decoy in [Ref 8] can be found here. The reference isn't great but it does reveal the maximum payload of this drone to be 10 kg. No wonder the comment was that it could be operated with or without payload. That said, one should keep in mind that 10 kg is a VERY respectable payload for the FPV drones considered previously. Rubaka also does it over a range of 500 km, not 15 or 20.

 

Ukraine has recently developed several smaller jet-powered drones. These drones are more difficult for Russian air defenses to deal with than the much slower drones like the AN-196. The payload of the Palianytsia is unknown, but probably about 50 kg. The previous linked article states

Some military analysts say firing 30 at a target can inflict more damage than one very expensive ATACMS missile.

At first blush, this is quite plausible, because the ATACMS carries a 214 kg warhead while 30 Palianytsia drones carry 1500 kg aggregate. Many such comparisons exist in (pro-Ukrainian IMO) Internet links to other similar alleged equivalences.

 

However, closer examination shows this comparison has SERIOUS flaws. First, 30 explosions from 50 kg warheads spread out in time and space delivers an entirely different effect than 214 kg in one place at one time. In some circumstances, multiple explosions in time and space are preferable, especially if the target is relatively "thin-skinned" and covers a broad area. An airfield meets this description. A bunker complex does not. Furthermore we know from experience that a single ATACMS dispensing cluster munitions is extremely effective against airports with aircraft parked in the open or open-topped revetments. Munitions are spread all over the place and will damage aircraft and things like oil tanks. Palianytsias will certainly destroy any aircraft they hit or fall very close to. Open-topped revetments create a situation where direct hits are effective, but anything less is not. OTOH the US hardened aircraft shelters (HAS) are designed to be invulnerable to Russian 122 mm rockets. Palianytsia sized warheads almost certainly will not penetrate them. A Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) will go right through (scroll down) them with its 93 kg warhead. An ATACMS with a unitary warhead and traveling at about Mach 3.5 certainly will as well. That said, it would take many ATACMS to destroy an entire airport with direct hits. Therefore it wouldn't be the "first choice". It might be used if there were no better options.

 

The above comparison bring up a very important factor in explosive weapons effectiveness. Many weapons rely on the kinetic energy they posses upon impact to enable them to destroy the target. The warhead uses a delayed fuse to allow it to explode after impact. The SDB  is an example of such engineering. We often see on the Internet videos of impressive explosions upon drone impact. However, a large percentage of those explosions are ineffective. The blast effect is actually outside the target. Impressive videos but relatively ineffective as weapons. Multirotor drones are slow. FWDs are faster. That is a big help, as we shall see later. However, the range of speed among FWDs is considerable. Storm Shadow BROACH warheads rely on the "drone" accelerating to .95 Mach during the terminal attack phase. Ukraine is still well short of that capability.

 

The point of the above discussion is that certain weapons work well against certain target types. They have been engineered to do so. Other weapons may "work" against those same targets, but are less effective.  Still others simply do nothing at all. One often finds references on the Internet to Ukraine using drones to accomplish tasks for which they are less than ideally suited. Ukraine has no other choice because it does not posses (either at all or in adequate numbers) the "ideal" or even "better" weapons for the task.

[Goose]

Ukraine is using FWDs to accomplish several important tasks. One of them is the strategic bombardment of critical infrastructure in Russia. The drones they are forced to use are fairly slow and carry small warheads (50 kg or so). Russia is destroying a lot of them. Exactly how many is hard to say, but IMO about +/- 50% of the real "attack" drones don't hit the target. Predictably a much larger percentage of the decoys are destroyed. This situation is far from ideal, but it is really Ukraine's only available way to strategically damage Russia. Let's hope it works. Let's also hope Ukraine gets the time to make it work. Russia is co-operating by not mounting a really effective effort to shut off this Ukrainian effort.

As previously discussed drones interactively guided by FPV cannot operate autonomously beyond the radio horizon. Many of the fixed-wing drones exclusively fly missions beyond that range. Essentially all of the Ukrainian long range drones require no video capability for that reason. They must fly a pre-programmed track to a non-mobile target. NATO "drones" (such as the Storm Shadow) carry infrared target recognition video systems that work autonomously. At this point Ukraine isn't using such technology on long range strikes by FWDs.

Ukraine is understandably concentrating its FWD capability toward the long-range part of the spectrum. This is by far the most significant strategic weapon Ukraine has. Up to now, Ukraine has neglected the "middle distance" drone capability. From [Ref 7] we see that Ukraine has designed strike and reconnaissance FWDs that could fill that gap. However the proliferation of different designs has undoubtedly made creating a coherent program for this genre more difficult. Unlike the limited range multirotor designs these intermediate range drones require good battlefield coordination to be effective. The "hunter-killer" groups work at longer ranges over wider areas.

It is probable that resource limitations have played a major role in Ukraine's decision not to urgently pursue work in this area. This conclusion is also drawn in the CNAS report page 39. As we will see, this may be changing. The Helsing HX-2 is capable of providing this kind of capability. Of course, how much of this is vapor-ware is unknown. How much Ukraine really intends to commit to this design (or any other) is also unknown.
 
We now turn to examining Russian FWDs. [Ref 5] alluded to the Russian drone program, some of its strengths as well as some of its limitations.  This study is pertinent to answering the question about counter-battery fire. Russia has the same problem as Ukraine in that regard. Arguably, Russia for awhile had as good or better results than Ukraine did. We therefore need to look at how that was achieved.
 
At the beginning of the conflict Russia was fortunate to have three capable FWDs already present in its military. Two of them are primarily reconnaissance drones. These drones are the Orlan-10 and the various ZALA 421-16E models. The Orlan-10 is the major Russian workhorse. This drone is a well thought-out military system designed to fill a well-defined role in the Russian system. The description

The Orlan-10, while not sophisticated, is cheap and simple to operate. It flies too high to be vulnerable to short-range air defenses, but is too inexpensive to justify using costly long-range defenses. It provides a sufficient view of the battlefield to identify targets.

is precisely accurate.
 
Originally the Orlan-10 was equipped to transmit high resolution video at low frame rates. This is an ideal system to locate targets. It is not FPV. Subsequently some Orlan-10s were augmented with an FPV capability. In all cases the "downlink" (usually video) is transmitted separately and using different center frequencies from the control "uplink". The ZALA 421-16E is similar in that regard. It is a newer design (2019) and therefore was from the start more easily electronically upgraded. Both of these drones can carry different ISR packages. Both these drones feature long range and high endurance. Both are "military grade", not "commercial grade" drones. This allows them to use more robust communications systems designed to be resistant to enemy EW. Ukraine has developed jammers that are effective against these drones, but it took awhile.

The "down side" of the military grade drones is that they are considerably more expensive than commercial grade drones. The price of an Orlan-10 is between $87,000 and $120,000, depending on the selected options. The ZALA 431-16E is more expensive, costing between $100,000 and $200,000, again depending on configuration.  At the start of the war Russia believed it had an adequate supply of these drones. It turned out the requirement was vastly underestimated. Attrition caused by Ukrainian actions is a factor, but the main factors are 1) the war dragging on far longer than Russia planned and 2) most importantly, the demand for these reconnaissance assets was at least 52 times greater than the planned inventory. These drones are more affected by sanctions than commercial ones because they use some bespoke components and materials. Russia has so far managed to work around these limitations but it is a factor. The use of cut-up water bottles for fuel tanks is an example. Despite that, Russia has ramped up production and is meeting the demand, at least so far.

The main problem Russia has in using these drones effectively is not technical but administrative. This is unsurprising, because the drone units in this war for both Russia and Ukraine have generally been "grafted on" to other formations. There was initially no "horizontal communication" in the ORBAT. Ukraine has adapted better than Russia. A discussion of this problem can be found here.

The third FWD drone that Russia initially brought to this war is the ZALA Lancet 3. Russia originally intended to use both the Lancet 3 and the KUB-BLA Kamikaze drones. The KUB-BLA turned out to be ineffective. It often missed its target and often failed to explode. This failure left the Lancet 3 as the primary weapon. The Lancet 3 has quite a few limitations, as [Ref 5] points out. Originally the Lancet had only a 3 kg warhead. This is approximately equal to the weight of a single-stage RPG-7 warhead. This was later raised to 5kg, probably to allow for a two-stage warhead. It must be noted that these warheads are quite small. While a well directed strike can do significant damage, it is unlikely to destroy a recent NATO armored vehicle. It may achieve a mobility kill. The Lancet is however a functional weapon and has unquestionably done considerable damage to Ukraine.

The use of the Orlon-Lancet team has evolved during the war. This topic will be discussed in conjunction with counter battery effectiveness.

[Goose]

Ukraine is using FWDs to accomplish several important tasks. One of them is the strategic bombardment of critical infrastructure in Russia. The drones they are forced to use are fairly slow and carry small warheads (50 kg or so). Russia is destroying a lot of them. Exactly how many is hard to say, but IMO about +/- 50% of the real "attack" drones don't hit the target. Predictably a much larger percentage of the decoys are destroyed. This situation is far from ideal, but it is really Ukraine's only available way to strategically damage Russia. Let's hope it works. Let's also hope Ukraine gets the time to make it work. Russia is co-operating by not mounting a really effective effort to shut off this Ukrainian effort.

As previously discussed drones interactively guided by FPV cannot operate autonomously beyond the radio horizon. Many of the fixed-wing drones exclusively fly missions beyond that range. Essentially all of the Ukrainian long range drones require no video capability for that reason. They must fly a pre-programmed track to a non-mobile target. NATO "drones" (such as the Storm Shadow) carry infrared target recognition video systems that work autonomously. At this point Ukraine isn't using such technology on long range strikes by FWDs.

Ukraine is understandably concentrating its FWD capability toward the long-range part of the spectrum. This is by far the most significant strategic weapon Ukraine has. Up to now, Ukraine has neglected the "middle distance" drone capability. From [Ref 7] we see that Ukraine has designed strike and reconnaissance FWDs that could fill that gap. However the proliferation of different designs has undoubtedly made creating a coherent program for this genre more difficult. Unlike the limited range multirotor designs these intermediate range drones require good battlefield coordination to be effective. The "hunter-killer" groups work at longer ranges over wider areas.

It is probable that resource limitations have played a major role in Ukraine's decision not to urgently pursue work in this area. This conclusion is also drawn in the CNAS report page 39. As we will see, this may be changing. The Helsing HX-2 is capable of providing this kind of capability. Of course, how much of this is vapor-ware is unknown. How much Ukraine really intends to commit to this design (or any other) is also unknown.
 
We now turn to examining Russian FWDs. [Ref 5] alluded to the Russian drone program, some of its strengths as well as some of its limitations.  This study is pertinent to answering the question about counter-battery fire. Russia has the same problem as Ukraine in that regard. Arguably, Russia for awhile had as good or better results than Ukraine did. We therefore need to look at how that was achieved.
 
At the beginning of the conflict Russia was fortunate to have three capable FWDs already present in its military. Two of them are primarily reconnaissance drones. These drones are the Orlan-10 and the various ZALA 421-16E models. The Orlan-10 is the major Russian workhorse. This drone is a well thought-out military system designed to fill a well-defined role in the Russian system. The description

The Orlan-10, while not sophisticated, is cheap and simple to operate. It flies too high to be vulnerable to short-range air defenses, but is too inexpensive to justify using costly long-range defenses. It provides a sufficient view of the battlefield to identify targets.

is precisely accurate.
 
Originally the Orlan-10 was equipped to transmit high resolution video at low frame rates. This is an ideal system to locate targets. It is not FPV. Subsequently some Orlan-10s were augmented with an FPV capability. In all cases the "downlink" (usually video) is transmitted separately and using different center frequencies from the control "uplink". The ZALA 421-16E is similar in that regard. It is a newer design (2019) and therefore was from the start more easily electronically upgraded. Both of these drones can carry different ISR packages. Both these drones feature long range and high endurance. Both are "military grade", not "commercial grade" drones. This allows them to use more robust communications systems designed to be resistant to enemy EW. Ukraine has developed jammers that are effective against these drones, but it took awhile.

The "down side" of the military grade drones is that they are considerably more expensive than commercial grade drones. The price of an Orlan-10 is between $87,000 and $120,000, depending on the selected options. The ZALA 431-16E is more expensive, costing between $100,000 and $200,000, again depending on configuration.  At the start of the war Russia believed it had an adequate supply of these drones. It turned out the requirement was vastly underestimated. Attrition caused by Ukrainian actions is a factor, but the main factors are 1) the war dragging on far longer than Russia planned and 2) most importantly, the demand for these reconnaissance assets was at least 52 times greater than the planned inventory. These drones are more affected by sanctions than commercial ones because they use some bespoke components and materials. Russia has so far managed to work around these limitations but it is a factor. The use of cut-up water bottles for fuel tanks is an example. Despite that, Russia has ramped up production and is meeting the demand, at least so far.

The main problem Russia has in using these drones effectively is not technical but administrative. This is unsurprising, because the drone units in this war for both Russia and Ukraine have generally been "grafted on" to other formations. There was initially no "horizontal communication" in the ORBAT. Ukraine has adapted better than Russia. A discussion of this problem can be found here.

The third FWD drone that Russia initially brought to this war is the ZALA Lancet 3. Russia originally intended to use both the Lancet 3 and the KUB-BLA Kamikaze drones. The KUB-BLA turned out to be ineffective. It often missed its target and often failed to explode. This failure left the Lancet 3 as the primary weapon. The Lancet 3 has quite a few limitations, as [Ref 5] points out. Originally the Lancet had only a 3 kg warhead. This is approximately equal to the weight of a single-stage RPG-7 warhead. This was later raised to 5kg, probably to allow for a two-stage warhead. It must be noted that these warheads are quite small. While a well directed strike can do significant damage, it is unlikely to destroy a recent NATO armored vehicle. It may achieve a mobility kill. The Lancet is however a functional weapon and has unquestionably done considerable damage to Ukraine.

The use of the Orlon-Lancet team has evolved during the war. This topic will be discussed in conjunction with counter battery effectiveness.

[Goose]

I will now actually attempt to answer the question "Can drones by themselves effectively take over the counter-battery mission". The answer is, like many things in the Ukraine war, complicated. The basic answer would be "No, but...".

 

The "classical" counter-battery operation operates as follows: Artillery "spotters" maintain an alert for enemy artillery to fire. These observers may use radar, sound, or visual information to detect and geolocate enemy artillery batteries. It may require more than one observer to geolocate the enemy.

 

In today's world radar is the quickest and most accurate sensor, but the others are still used. A single radar can observe the enemy shell trajectory and determine the coordinates of the enemy battery well before the enemy round has reached its apogee. That information is then transferred to an artillery battery that ideally will have counter-battery shells in the air before the first enemy rounds hit their target. If the radar geometry is "good" the radar can geolocate the enemy battery without making any assumptions at all about the ballistics of the enemy rounds. If the geometry is particularly bad the major axis of the error ellipse may become excessively long. In that case some assumptions may be required or a second radar with better geometry may be utilized.

 

Visual observation by a forward observer (FO) is certainly a very good way to geolocate the enemy batteries, especially if the FO can actually see them (and knows where he is). The coordinates can often be passed electronically, making this type of observation as fast as the radar would have been. If they must be passed verbally or through several layers of communication delays may be introduced. If the observer can't actually see the target but rather can see the muzzle flashes/smoke the data may still be very good but is obviously somewhat less reliable.

 

Forward observers have the very important added advantage of correcting the fall of shot. All artillery has firing tables that allow taking into consideration environmental characteristics, barrel wear, etc. The goal is to allow the gun to land a shell reliably on any coordinates. In reality things don't work perfectly. If the FO can tell the battery the relative correction (if any) required. Hopefully one correction (at worst) puts them "on", but if not the FO can "walk" the shells onto the target. In an ideal world that isn't necessary, but in a real one it may be.

 

Sound was in the past often used to geolocate enemy batteries. The time of arrival of the firing "boom" can be measure at 3 points. Given the speed of sound at the given temperature and humidity a time difference of arrival can be plotted. This method was used from the 1860s on but obviously isn't all that accurate.

 

The speed of geolocation and getting shells onto the enemy battery is important for two reasons. First the goal is to minimize the effectiveness of the current enemy "barrage". Destroying the guns firing it will of course do that, so the sooner the better. Even more important in today's world is preventing the enemy from employing "shoot and scoot". The self-propelled howitzer (SPH) is ideal for this. It can fire and immediately move to a different location. While moving, the SPH can't fire. It is out of the fight for awhile. It would obviously be better not move and deliver more shells if possible. If the counter-battery fire will arrive "quickly", the decision to displace has to be made early on. This at worst greatly reduces the weight of fire the enemy artillery can deliver. If the enemy is "slow" to displace it may result in significant casualties to the enemy and render them combat-ineffective.

 

Wheeled artillery normally takes longer to displace than SPH. Supposedly the current version of the M109 can displace in 1 min 15 s if required. The M777 requires 2 min 23 s. Soviet era wheeled howitzers require 10 minutes or more. This all must be taken with a grain of salt. It assumes very well trained crews, clear orders, nobody drops anything etc. Apropos Ukraine [CB-1] is a must-read. It discusses many topics. One of them is how Russia does counter-battery fire.

When the system works, Russian targeting cycles can be completed in three minutes, while others take 30. The former is essentially the limit of what is physically possible – a 155mm shell fired to 25 km will take 75 seconds to reach the target.

In reality the Russian performance is very very rarely three minutes. This is caused by inadequate training and by their organizational structure. The artillery and their customers are from different organizations. In the Russian military everything flows up and down. Across is hard. As the article points out the concept of passing the request for fires directly to the battery commander (skipping the artillery commander) is a radical departure. Ukraine has a similar problem but to a much lesser extent. This situation is reported by many Internet sources, FWIW.

 

The idea of using e.g. a Mavic 3 instead of a 155 mm howitzer to effect the counter-battery operation is absolutely impossible. A Mavic 3 can go 25 km on a one-way mission. Its range is 30 km at a speed of 50.4 kph. At 60 kph it will take 25 minutes to reach the target. To match the speed of the 155 mm shell the Mavic would have to operate at its maximum speed of 21 m/s and be within 1.6 km of the target. Obviously impractical. Add to that the difference in kinetic effect of the minuscule warhead of the Mavic 3. By the way, at a range of 25 km the operator loses video and control at a height of 30 meters. Hard to hit anything with that constraint.

 

The Russian Lancet is "better", but has similar problems. At its cursing speed of 110 kph it can cover the 25 km in about 13.6 minutes. Its 5 kg warhead is much larger than the Mavic 3 can carry. The Lancet can also dive on the target at a speed of 300 kph, assuming the operator can line it up for a direct top-attack.

 

13.6 minutes is however an eternity in "classical" counter-battery operations. A single 155mm tube can fire 2-3 rounds per minute. Lots of shells downrange before you can leisurely displace after 10 minutes. None of these drones can be effective when used this way. However that isn't the whole story. Classical counter-battery requires that the enemy first reveal his position by firing. This is necessary because all the detection systems require it. If the enemy doesn't fire, radar can't find him, sound detection can hear him, and there are no muzzle flashes or smoke. If the FO happens to stumble across an enemy battery he can utilize counter-battery against it, but this is relatively rare. Drones change the equation.

 

The greatest contribution drones make to destroying enemy artillery is their ability to do visual reconnaissance behind the opponent's side of the FEBA. Not many FOs want to cross the FEBA and those that do are limited to their line of sight. Drones can (in theory) fly across wide areas looking for targets of opportunity. One important such target class is enemy artillery. The drone can then assume the role of FO. If there is a friendly battery within range, the drone can bring down an artillery strike on the enemy artillery. This can be done even after the enemy does a "shoot and scoot" maneuver. The drone may take awhile to get there but it still has a reasonable chance to locate the enemy. Drones can easily see vehicles moving on the roads. Scooting under these conditions is arguably more dangerous than trying to hide. The drone can also do a Battle Damage Assessment (BDA) of previous counter-battery efforts.  An example of this new type of counter-battery can be found here [CB-2]. In this case the enemy was detected by the dust cloud raised by firing, but a drone was used to spot fall of shot and correct. The counter-battery wouldn't have been successful without the "drone FO".

 

There is another branch of expansion that reconnaissance by drones makes possible. That branch uses long-persistence drones to search for targets of opportunity. If no friendly artillery is within range a drone, such as the Lancet is dispatched to engage the target. Early in the war the Lancet was used for target acquisition and subsequent attack. While it met with some success in as a loitering munition obviously many Lancets found no targets or only low value targets. [CB-3] is a report of such operation.

 

[Goose]

I will now actually attempt to answer the question "Can drones by themselves effectively take over the counter-battery mission". The answer is, like many things in the Ukraine war, complicated. The basic answer would be "No, but...".

 

The "classical" counter-battery operation operates as follows: Artillery "spotters" maintain an alert for enemy artillery to fire. These observers may use radar, sound, or visual information to detect and geolocate enemy artillery batteries. It may require more than one observer to geolocate the enemy.

 

In today's world radar is the quickest and most accurate sensor, but the others are still used. A single radar can observe the enemy shell trajectory and determine the coordinates of the enemy battery well before the enemy round has reached its apogee. That information is then transferred to an artillery battery that ideally will have counter-battery shells in the air before the first enemy rounds hit their target. If the radar geometry is "good" the radar can geolocate the enemy battery without making any assumptions at all about the ballistics of the enemy rounds. If the geometry is particularly bad the major axis of the error ellipse may become excessively long. In that case some assumptions may be required or a second radar with better geometry may be utilized.

 

Visual observation by a forward observer (FO) is certainly a very good way to geolocate the enemy batteries, especially if the FO can actually see them (and knows where he is). The coordinates can often be passed electronically, making this type of observation as fast as the radar would have been. If they must be passed verbally or through several layers of communication delays may be introduced. If the observer can't actually see the target but rather can see the muzzle flashes/smoke the data may still be very good but is obviously somewhat less reliable.

 

Forward observers have the very important added advantage of correcting the fall of shot. All artillery has firing tables that allow taking into consideration environmental characteristics, barrel wear, etc. The goal is to allow the gun to land a shell reliably on any coordinates. In reality things don't work perfectly. If the FO can tell the battery the relative correction (if any) required. Hopefully one correction (at worst) puts them "on", but if not the FO can "walk" the shells onto the target. In an ideal world that isn't necessary, but in a real one it may be.

 

Sound was in the past often used to geolocate enemy batteries. The time of arrival of the firing "boom" can be measure at 3 points. Given the speed of sound at the given temperature and humidity a time difference of arrival can be plotted. This method was used from the 1860s on but obviously isn't all that accurate.

 

The speed of geolocation and getting shells onto the enemy battery is important for two reasons. First the goal is to minimize the effectiveness of the current enemy "barrage". Destroying the guns firing it will of course do that, so the sooner the better. Even more important in today's world is preventing the enemy from employing "shoot and scoot". The self-propelled howitzer (SPH) is ideal for this. It can fire and immediately move to a different location. While moving, the SPH can't fire. It is out of the fight for awhile. It would obviously be better not move and deliver more shells if possible. If the counter-battery fire will arrive "quickly", the decision to displace has to be made early on. This at worst greatly reduces the weight of fire the enemy artillery can deliver. If the enemy is "slow" to displace it may result in significant casualties to the enemy and render them combat-ineffective.

 

Wheeled artillery normally takes longer to displace than SPH. Supposedly the current version of the M109 can displace in 1 min 15 s if required. The M777 requires 2 min 23 s. Soviet era wheeled howitzers require 10 minutes or more. This all must be taken with a grain of salt. It assumes very well trained crews, clear orders, nobody drops anything etc. Apropos Ukraine [CB-1] is a must-read. It discusses many topics. One of them is how Russia does counter-battery fire.

When the system works, Russian targeting cycles can be completed in three minutes, while others take 30. The former is essentially the limit of what is physically possible – a 155mm shell fired to 25 km will take 75 seconds to reach the target.

In reality the Russian performance is very very rarely three minutes. This is caused by inadequate training and by their organizational structure. The artillery and their customers are from different organizations. In the Russian military everything flows up and down. Across is hard. As the article points out the concept of passing the request for fires directly to the battery commander (skipping the artillery commander) is a radical departure. Ukraine has a similar problem but to a much lesser extent. This situation is reported by many Internet sources, FWIW.

 

The idea of using e.g. a Mavic 3 instead of a 155 mm howitzer to effect the counter-battery operation is absolutely impossible. A Mavic 3 can go 25 km on a one-way mission. Its range is 30 km at a speed of 50.4 kph. At 60 kph it will take 25 minutes to reach the target. To match the speed of the 155 mm shell the Mavic would have to operate at its maximum speed of 21 m/s and be within 1.6 km of the target. Obviously impractical. Add to that the difference in kinetic effect of the minuscule warhead of the Mavic 3. By the way, at a range of 25 km the operator loses video and control at a height of 30 meters. Hard to hit anything with that constraint.

 

The Russian Lancet is "better", but has similar problems. At its cursing speed of 110 kph it can cover the 25 km in about 13.6 minutes. Its 5 kg warhead is much larger than the Mavic 3 can carry. The Lancet can also dive on the target at a speed of 300 kph, assuming the operator can line it up for a direct top-attack.

 

13.6 minutes is however an eternity in "classical" counter-battery operations. A single 155mm tube can fire 2-3 rounds per minute. Lots of shells downrange before you can leisurely displace after 10 minutes. None of these drones can be effective when used this way. However that isn't the whole story. Classical counter-battery requires that the enemy first reveal his position by firing. This is necessary because all the detection systems require it. If the enemy doesn't fire, radar can't find him, sound detection can hear him, and there are no muzzle flashes or smoke. If the FO happens to stumble across an enemy battery he can utilize counter-battery against it, but this is relatively rare. Drones change the equation.

 

The greatest contribution drones make to destroying enemy artillery is their ability to do visual reconnaissance behind the opponent's side of the FEBA. Not many FOs want to cross the FEBA and those that do are limited to their line of sight. Drones can (in theory) fly across wide areas looking for targets of opportunity. One important such target class is enemy artillery. The drone can then assume the role of FO. If there is a friendly battery within range, the drone can bring down an artillery strike on the enemy artillery. This can be done even after the enemy does a "shoot and scoot" maneuver. The drone may take awhile to get there but it still has a reasonable chance to locate the enemy. Drones can easily see vehicles moving on the roads. Scooting under these conditions is arguably more dangerous than trying to hide. The drone can also do a Battle Damage Assessment (BDA) of previous counter-battery efforts.  An example of this new type of counter-battery can be found here [CB-2]. In this case the enemy was detected by the dust cloud raised by firing, but a drone was used to spot fall of shot and correct. The counter-battery wouldn't have been successful without the "drone FO".

 

There is another branch of expansion that reconnaissance by drones makes possible. That branch uses long-persistence drones to search for targets of opportunity. If no friendly artillery is within range a drone, such as the Lancet is dispatched to engage the target. Early in the war the Lancet was used for target acquisition and subsequent attack. While it met with some success in as a loitering munition obviously many Lancets found no targets or only low value targets. [CB-3] is a report of such operation.

 

[Goose]

[CB-4]  describes the state of play as of 10-Oct-2023, four months after CB-3. The Lancet drones were clearly having a growing effect. This situation would continue for about a year. CB-4 has lots of interesting information but it also contains some pretty big "reaches". The biggest one is their acceptance of the known very pro-Russian Lost Armor estimates of destroyed and damaged Ukrainian artillery. In the section entitled The Artillery Killer it states

This suggests that Lancets may be responsible for 64% of Ukrainian self-propelled gun losses.

It is much more probable that Lost Armor's evaluation of Lancet effectiveness is wildly overstated, given that Onyx in general reports losses from "known" incidents at under 50% of what Lost Armor claims. Even allowing for that, it was still true that Lancets were becoming more numerous and more effective.

 

CB-4 contains other "interesting" statements:

“The lethality of Lancet is often insufficient,” according to the RUSI Report  [CB-1]. “One officer also said that although he had seen his gun ‘destroyed’ several times online, it remained alive and well.”

This statement appears in many different Internet articles. Probably at least close to true.

The claim in May by Russia’s RIA Novosti that Lancet-3s had destroyed 45% of Ukraine’s Western-supplied artillery is likely a wild exaggeration based on this sort of overcounting.

Yep. No substantiating data at all.

But it is clear that a high proportion of Ukrainian artillery losses are from Lancets, and those losses are likely to increase as more Lancets are deployed.

If the claims are a "wild exaggeration" why is it "clear"? There are many other Russians out there trying to kill Ukrainian artillery using drones for "hunting" and conventional artillery for "killing". Why is that not a candidate for a "high proportion of Ukrainian losses"? CB-4 also states that Lancets miss 70% of the time. When they don't miss, their lethality is questioned. Makes one wonder about the actual number of targets being destroyed.

 

Russia realized that using the Lancet to find targets was inefficient in two different ways. First, once launched a Lancet is expended. It may be totally wasted. Russia also realized they had the ZALA 421-16ES and Orlan-10 drones that could search for targets literally all day. These drones are multiple use so days with no targets do not cause their loss. Second, the Lancet could operate much deeper into Ukrainian territory if it did not waste its battery power looking for targets. This led to a much more successful employment of the Lancet drone as the "killer" of a "hunter-killer" team. The reconnaissance drone could locate the target. A Lancet would be launched  at that time. It would attack the target while the "hunter" watched. If necessary, multiple Lancets could be called upon until the target was destroyed. Russians do learn.

 

It immediately became obvious that at the greater distances where the Lancet was being used that the radio horizon was a problem. The Lancet missed a lot because it couldn't be steered for the last 10-30 meters of flight. The solution was to add a third drone that would function as a radio "router". This drone could fly higher than the other drones because it had no FPV capability and didn't need to see anything. The higher altitude does provide a much greater radio horizon. This extends the radio horizon of the Lancet and allows the pilot to fly the drone precisely all the way to impact. This approach led to much greater success for the Lancet, particularly against Ukrainian artillery. The "drone stack" approach has lots of moving parts and is therefor somewhat of a challenge to execute reliably. For that reason the role of radio relay is often devolved to the "hunter" drone.

 

It is clear that for a period of over a year Ukraine experienced some "very significant" attrition of artillery assets due to "hunter-killer" activity. Ukraine did develop countermeasures to this threat. [CB-5] documents the effects of Ukrainian "interceptor" drone activity in this effort. Starting in  September of 2024 Lancet attacks of all types have fallen significantly. This coincides with Ukraine beginning their interceptor activities "in earnest".  Quoting CB-5

The interceptors are not bringing down many Lancets: instead they are taking out the reconnaissance and communication assets which enable them to find targets.

This destruction carries a double whammy. Normally, succeed or fail, the reconnaissance drones returned to fight another day. If intercepted, they don't. These drones are considerably more expensive and more difficult to build than DJI equivalents. Sanctions make it even more difficult for Russia.

 

Even more importantly Ukrainian jamming started to have a significant effect on Orlan-10s and ZALA 421-16ES drones. Jamming the data signal makes it impossible to use them as target locators for kinetic weapons, Lancet or otherwise. Jamming the control signal (on a different frequency) does not in general cause these drones to crash in the near term. They just keep flying straight ahead until they run out of fuel. Quoting CB-5 again

It is often overlooked that drones are now providing continuous surveillance of the entire length of the battlefront to a considerable depth. This intelligence gathering capability may be the most significant aspect of drone warfare, enabling deep, high-precision strikes with a variety of weapons from cruise missiles to rockets to airstrikes to attack drones.

This statement captures the real value of drones in the war. Lancets are "sexy" but only a much lesser part of Russia's attrition of Ukrainian artillery.

 

IMO the "takeaways" from all this are that drones used for reconnaissance have greatly expanded the ability to destroy artillery wherever it may be independent of a direct response to it firing (counter-battery). As [CB-1] states

Russian artillery units were laagered up to 12–15 km behind the frontline, and that they spend the night even further away. They only approach the frontline to conduct fire missions and withdraw as quickly as possible, indicating that doctrine on proximity has given way to concerns over survivability.

Note that 12-15 km is slightly beyond the absolute maximum two-way range of a Mavic 3. Ukraine forced Russia to change its doctrine to survive. Ukraine undoubtedly killed lots of Russian artillery using drone observed conventional artillery when the Russians approached the desired 3-4 km of the front line.

 

Russia OTOH went through an evolutionary process that allowed them to eventually make a noticeable dent in Ukrainian artillery assets. This effort made use of artillery, aircraft, and Lancet drones. Russia's longer range tactical fixed-wing reconnaissance drones gave them an advantage in this effort. A combination of Ukrainian interceptors and jamming subsequently suppressed the Russian ability to execute this strategy.

 

Ukraine did and does have available very good fixed-wing reconnaissance drones. The following links detail their attributes [URD-1] [URD-2]  [URD-3] [URD-4] [URD-5] [URD-6]. The GOR has some potentially VERY interesting attributes based on its video. Unfortunately Ukraine has not been able to really take advantage of these drones. It may be the inability to focus on one or two options is an issue. It also may be simply their much higher cost. In any event, as [CNAS] states

Russia’s military drones proved an enduring strength and area where Russian forces had a comparative advantage over Ukraine’s less numerous and capable military drone fleet.

[Goose]

[CB-4]  describes the state of play as of 10-Oct-2023, four months after CB-3. The Lancet drones were clearly having a growing effect. This situation would continue for about a year. CB-4 has lots of interesting information but it also contains some pretty big "reaches". The biggest one is their acceptance of the known very pro-Russian Lost Armor estimates of destroyed and damaged Ukrainian artillery. In the section entitled The Artillery Killer it states

This suggests that Lancets may be responsible for 64% of Ukrainian self-propelled gun losses.

It is much more probable that Lost Armor's evaluation of Lancet effectiveness is wildly overstated, given that Onyx in general reports losses from "known" incidents at under 50% of what Lost Armor claims. Even allowing for that, it was still true that Lancets were becoming more numerous and more effective.

 

CB-4 contains other "interesting" statements:

“The lethality of Lancet is often insufficient,” according to the RUSI Report  [CB-1]. “One officer also said that although he had seen his gun ‘destroyed’ several times online, it remained alive and well.”

This statement appears in many different Internet articles. Probably at least close to true.

The claim in May by Russia’s RIA Novosti that Lancet-3s had destroyed 45% of Ukraine’s Western-supplied artillery is likely a wild exaggeration based on this sort of overcounting.

Yep. No substantiating data at all.

But it is clear that a high proportion of Ukrainian artillery losses are from Lancets, and those losses are likely to increase as more Lancets are deployed.

If the claims are a "wild exaggeration" why is it "clear"? There are many other Russians out there trying to kill Ukrainian artillery using drones for "hunting" and conventional artillery for "killing". Why is that not a candidate for a "high proportion of Ukrainian losses"? CB-4 also states that Lancets miss 70% of the time. When they don't miss, their lethality is questioned. Makes one wonder about the actual number of targets being destroyed.

 

Russia realized that using the Lancet to find targets was inefficient in two different ways. First, once launched a Lancet is expended. It may be totally wasted. Russia also realized they had the ZALA 421-16ES and Orlan-10 drones that could search for targets literally all day. These drones are multiple use so days with no targets do not cause their loss. Second, the Lancet could operate much deeper into Ukrainian territory if it did not waste its battery power looking for targets. This led to a much more successful employment of the Lancet drone as the "killer" of a "hunter-killer" team. The reconnaissance drone could locate the target. A Lancet would be launched  at that time. It would attack the target while the "hunter" watched. If necessary, multiple Lancets could be called upon until the target was destroyed. Russians do learn.

 

It immediately became obvious that at the greater distances where the Lancet was being used that the radio horizon was a problem. The Lancet missed a lot because it couldn't be steered for the last 10-30 meters of flight. The solution was to add a third drone that would function as a radio "router". This drone could fly higher than the other drones because it had no FPV capability and didn't need to see anything. The higher altitude does provide a much greater radio horizon. This extends the radio horizon of the Lancet and allows the pilot to fly the drone precisely all the way to impact. This approach led to much greater success for the Lancet, particularly against Ukrainian artillery. The "drone stack" approach has lots of moving parts and is therefor somewhat of a challenge to execute reliably. For that reason the role of radio relay is often devolved to the "hunter" drone.

 

It is clear that for a period of over a year Ukraine experienced some "very significant" attrition of artillery assets due to "hunter-killer" activity. Ukraine did develop countermeasures to this threat. [CB-5] documents the effects of Ukrainian "interceptor" drone activity in this effort. Starting in  September of 2024 Lancet attacks of all types have fallen significantly. This coincides with Ukraine beginning their interceptor activities "in earnest".  Quoting CB-5

The interceptors are not bringing down many Lancets: instead they are taking out the reconnaissance and communication assets which enable them to find targets.

This destruction carries a double whammy. Normally, succeed or fail, the reconnaissance drones returned to fight another day. If intercepted, they don't. These drones are considerably more expensive and more difficult to build than DJI equivalents. Sanctions make it even more difficult for Russia.

 

Even more importantly Ukrainian jamming started to have a significant effect on Orlan-10s and ZALA 421-16ES drones. Jamming the data signal makes it impossible to use them as target locators for kinetic weapons, Lancet or otherwise. Jamming the control signal (on a different frequency) does not in general cause these drones to crash in the near term. They just keep flying straight ahead until they run out of fuel. Quoting CB-5 again

It is often overlooked that drones are now providing continuous surveillance of the entire length of the battlefront to a considerable depth. This intelligence gathering capability may be the most significant aspect of drone warfare, enabling deep, high-precision strikes with a variety of weapons from cruise missiles to rockets to airstrikes to attack drones.

This statement captures the real value of drones in the war. Lancets are "sexy" but only a much lesser part of Russia's attrition of Ukrainian artillery.

 

IMO the "takeaways" from all this are that drones used for reconnaissance have greatly expanded the ability to destroy artillery wherever it may be independent of a direct response to it firing (counter-battery). As [CB-1] states

Russian artillery units were laagered up to 12–15 km behind the frontline, and that they spend the night even further away. They only approach the frontline to conduct fire missions and withdraw as quickly as possible, indicating that doctrine on proximity has given way to concerns over survivability.

Note that 12-15 km is slightly beyond the absolute maximum two-way range of a Mavic 3. Ukraine forced Russia to change its doctrine to survive. Ukraine undoubtedly killed lots of Russian artillery using drone observed conventional artillery when the Russians approached the desired 3-4 km of the front line.

 

Russia OTOH went through an evolutionary process that allowed them to eventually make a noticeable dent in Ukrainian artillery assets. This effort made use of artillery, aircraft, and Lancet drones. Russia's longer range tactical fixed-wing reconnaissance drones gave them an advantage in this effort. A combination of Ukrainian interceptors and jamming subsequently suppressed the Russian ability to execute this strategy.

 

Ukraine did and does have available very good fixed-wing reconnaissance drones. The following links detail their attributes [URD-1] [URD-2]  [URD-3] [URD-4] [URD-5] [URD-6]. The GOR has some potentially VERY interesting attributes based on its video. Unfortunately Ukraine has not been able to really take advantage of these drones. It may be the inability to focus on one or two options is an issue. It also may be simply their much higher cost. In any event, as [CNAS] states

Russia’s military drones proved an enduring strength and area where Russian forces had a comparative advantage over Ukraine’s less numerous and capable military drone fleet.

[Goose]

When "conventional" counter-battery (using radar etc. to locate the enemy artillery) is the "main" threat, artillery can greatly improve their survivability by displacing quickly after firing. The shoot and scoot requirement is more easily met by SPH than by towed artillery. However, if reconnaissance drones are available they can often follow enemy artillery that is moving. They can also locate enemy artillery in laager. In this condition the best course of action for enemy artillery is to hide. Towed artillery like the M777 is inherently smaller and lower than SPHs. They can be more easily hidden. OTOH [CB-6] states

as the ability to ‘hide’ guns on the battlefield with become almost impossible due to what Gen. James Rainey, the chief of U.S. Army Futures Command, called the ‘absolute saturation’ of sensors.

In so far as that is true, artillery is indeed doomed. CB-6 does not at all address how being "nimble" prevents these same sensors from targeting your howitzer while it is driving down "the good road system of Europe" in front of God and everybody.

 

Artillery, both Ukrainian and Russian, is resorting to dispersion as a defense against the proliferation of sensors (reconnaissance drones). US Army batteries consist of six guns. It is desirable for logistical and C3 reason that the battery be kept together. Concentration also means that the battery can deliver a significant weight of fire from the same geometry. Communication is simple and simultaneous. The command element is right there if there is any confusion. All supplies can be delivered to one place. It is much simpler to make this structure "work".

 

The Ukraine war has demonstrated that a concentrated battery is a lucrative target for counter-battery artillery fire. It also means that if a drone finds one gun, it finds them all. Both Russia and Ukraine have countered this problem by dispersing their guns over a much wider area. In general, firing artillery to take out a single gun is not efficient. If the guns are concentrated, near misses will probably hit other guns. If the guns are widely  dispersed, the same number of shells will kill perhaps one gun. The downside is that each gun has to operate independently. The target coordinates have to be transferred to each gun and its firing solution computed. More room for error. Things are not inherently "simultaneous". It also requires more decision making by NCOs operating independently.

 

The US Army has lots of experience (going back to WW II) with Time On Target (TOT) firing, with dispersed guns all striking a give target at exactly the same moment. The US Army used lots of two gun sections in Afghanistan. Dispersal was often mandatory due to terrain. There was no room for more than two guns, or maybe one. We know how to do this. Ukraine and Russia have learned how on the fly. Russia lacks trained and experience NCOs. Their logistics are also not very good. Dispersion has hurt them much more than it has Ukraine.

 

[CB-7] provides an interesting example of Ukrainian FPV drones examining "hidden" Russian towed guns and destroying them. The weapon the drones are using appears to be a "sticky bomb" made from a thermite grenade. This is a "traditional" use of such weapons but placed by drones rather than infantry. It must be noted that in this case these guns were dispersed, but not by enough to matter. The drones easily found them all. One may also ask where are all the Russian 13Bs. Did they all go on break? One wonders if CB-7 is showing the destruction of a group of Russian guns that are inoperable and being readied for movement to repair depots.

 

Many of the ideas presented here are better expressed in [CB-8]. It is IMO worth a read. At this point, I hope the "No, but..." makes more sense to the reader. The presence of drones has changed many things on the battlefield. Much has been "learned" about drone warfare in Ukraine. However, the development of these new weapons is moving at a rapid pace. Paraphrasing Adolf Galland "By 1941 all we had learned from the experience of the Condor Legion in Spain was false".  Given the developments of jamming effectiveness in the last few months, it is IMO probable the same situation will exist regarding Ukraine, only quicker.

[Goose]

When "conventional" counter-battery (using radar etc. to locate the enemy artillery) is the "main" threat, artillery can greatly improve their survivability by displacing quickly after firing. The shoot and scoot requirement is more easily met by SPH than by towed artillery. However, if reconnaissance drones are available they can often follow enemy artillery that is moving. They can also locate enemy artillery in laager. In this condition the best course of action for enemy artillery is to hide. Towed artillery like the M777 is inherently smaller and lower than SPHs. They can be more easily hidden. OTOH [CB-6] states

as the ability to ‘hide’ guns on the battlefield with become almost impossible due to what Gen. James Rainey, the chief of U.S. Army Futures Command, called the ‘absolute saturation’ of sensors.

In so far as that is true, artillery is indeed doomed. CB-6 does not at all address how being "nimble" prevents these same sensors from targeting your howitzer while it is driving down "the good road system of Europe" in front of God and everybody.

 

Artillery, both Ukrainian and Russian, is resorting to dispersion as a defense against the proliferation of sensors (reconnaissance drones). US Army batteries consist of six guns. It is desirable for logistical and C3 reason that the battery be kept together. Concentration also means that the battery can deliver a significant weight of fire from the same geometry. Communication is simple and simultaneous. The command element is right there if there is any confusion. All supplies can be delivered to one place. It is much simpler to make this structure "work".

 

The Ukraine war has demonstrated that a concentrated battery is a lucrative target for counter-battery artillery fire. It also means that if a drone finds one gun, it finds them all. Both Russia and Ukraine have countered this problem by dispersing their guns over a much wider area. In general, firing artillery to take out a single gun is not efficient. If the guns are concentrated, near misses will probably hit other guns. If the guns are widely  dispersed, the same number of shells will kill perhaps one gun. The downside is that each gun has to operate independently. The target coordinates have to be transferred to each gun and its firing solution computed. More room for error. Things are not inherently "simultaneous". It also requires more decision making by NCOs operating independently.

 

The US Army has lots of experience (going back to WW II) with Time On Target (TOT) firing, with dispersed guns all striking a give target at exactly the same moment. The US Army used lots of two gun sections in Afghanistan. Dispersal was often mandatory due to terrain. There was no room for more than two guns, or maybe one. We know how to do this. Ukraine and Russia have learned how on the fly. Russia lacks trained and experience NCOs. Their logistics are also not very good. Dispersion has hurt them much more than it has Ukraine.

 

[CB-7] provides an interesting example of Ukrainian FPV drones examining "hidden" Russian towed guns and destroying them. The weapon the drones are using appears to be a "sticky bomb" made from a thermite grenade. This is a "traditional" use of such weapons but placed by drones rather than infantry. It must be noted that in this case these guns were dispersed, but not by enough to matter. The drones easily found them all. One may also ask where are all the Russian 13Bs. Did they all go on break? One wonders if CB-7 is showing the destruction of a group of Russian guns that are inoperable and being readied for movement to repair depots.

 

Many of the ideas presented here are better expressed in [CB-8]. It is IMO worth a read. At this point, I hope the "No, but..." makes more sense to the reader. The presence of drones has changed many things on the battlefield. Much has been "learned" about drone warfare in Ukraine. However, the development of these new weapons is moving at a rapid pace. Paraphrasing Adolf Galland "By 1941 all we had learned from the experience of the Condor Legion in Spain was false".  Given the developments of jamming effectiveness in the last few months, it is IMO probable the same situation will exist regarding Ukraine, only quicker.

[Goose]

Attempting to predict the course of the "next" war from the previous one has a 100% failure rate. That said, it is the only data we have so it is always attempted. I will make an (vain I know) attempt here to do so, at least as it relates to drones. Every war has unique features that may or may not apply in the next one. I will attempt to identify at least some of these and discuss why they will or will not feature in the future. Having done that I will attempt to predict where drone warfare is going in the future.

 
US involvement in any given conflict can range from "moral support",  committing various types of weapons, committing complete military units, to finally outright full-scale war. The opponent may range from peer down to massively inferior. I can't even pretend to cover all these cases, but I may point out situations where drone use will be affected.
 
The most obvious and significant unique feature of the Ukraine war is that neither Russia (because they chose not to) nor Ukraine (because they lacked the capability) attempted to establish air superiority of each other's territory, even locally. In no conflict in which the US is a direct participant will this be the case. The US must execute a SEAD/DEAD plan that provides at a very minimum air supremacy over the "blue force" territory and air superiority over designated areas of the "red force" territory. If we can't do that, we will probably lose the war. It is that simple.
 
Our Army relies on the ability to move men and material around (both by road and air) without significant interference from the enemy air force. The USAF relies on its ability to operate tankers, AWACS, and EW aircraft over friendly territory. The Army also operates ISR aircraft and expects them to be relatively safe. Losses of any significant number of the aforementioned assets cannot be easily and rapidly replaced. The US Navy uses its carrier fleet to project power over international waters and over designated areas of "red force" areas. This is a precursor to conveying the Army and USMC to the land battle according to an operations plan.
 
The US already has a bevy of air-launched cruise missiles that will function as our long range fixed wing drones. A peer opponent with an air force and/or an IADS will undoubtedly destroy some of these drones. If our opponents attempt to use drones in the Geran-2/AN-196 class our air force has demonstrated it can destroy the threat totally. The DEAD plan must attrit the enemy IADS in whatever depth necessary for our cruise missiles to reach their targets. The long range version of the HARM, AGM-88G AARGM-ER will be a key player in this process. It isn't finished yet. Previous models do not fit in the F-35A/C weapons bay. Carrying them externally reduces its stealth capability. I hope the Green Flag exercises have made us ready to remove as many S-400s as required using the weapons we have today.
 
The US already possesses quite a few reconnaissance drones that operate via satellite uplinks. They are effectively unjammable. Reconnaissance being the most important function of drones, even in the Ukraine war, leads to concerns about the cost and survivability of the very capable US drone force. Against lower-end opponents we are undoubtedly fine. Against Russia and China it is very questionable that we have enough such drones.
 
The success of US SEAD/DEAD plans are key to our ability to use these drones effectively. While that is being played out significant losses are inevitable. It is essential that this be accounted for in acquisition planning. As will become a refrain in this analysis, the cost of US drones is way too high. Up to the present this has led to simply reducing acquisition targets and/or forgoing certain capabilities. Virtually no effort has been spent in "productizing" these drones. IMO this has to change. They need to get cheaper.
 
That said, drones similar to [WA-1] are definitely a part of the future. They have many of the capabilities of drones like the MQ-4C (especially an "over the horizon" datalink) but cost an order of magnitude less. We do need to keep costs in mind and pound on the vendors to compete. We also need some "new" vendors that actually want to compete based on their products, not their lobbyists. AeroVironment is not a poster child for this kind of effort. They are better than Boeing and Lockheed, but that is damning by faint praise. Above all, out DoD leadership has to themselves understand and make clear to their subordinates that our fixed-wing drones will suffer losses in any war against a peer or near-peer competitor, no matter what the USAF accomplishes. Drones go where we don't rule the sky. Otherwise, they are unnecessary. Plan accordingly.
 
The US also has a significant number of theater ballistic missiles that will be used to strike important targets that are well protected from cruise missiles. Despite its very long gestation period the Precision Strike Strategic Missile (PrSM) is actually looking pretty good. Lets hope we buy enough of them. We need to find a way to make them cheap enough that we can do so.

---

IMO "low-end" FPV drones will largely disappear from the battlespace. This is without a doubt a controversial opinion at this point in the Ukraine war. IMO the Ukraine war is a unicorn situation. The ubiquitous use of commercial derived FPV drones occurs  in Ukraine because both sides were forced to utilize them. Ukraine pioneered the effort because civilians stepped up, bought the drones, showed up on the battlefield and made them work. Ukraine adopted this a a major part of their military effort due to lack of any immediately viable alternatives. Russia eventually followed suit.
 
Russia initially adopted a different course. Russia intended to build their own "military grade" drones to meet the need. Their initial path is discussed in [WA-2]. The result was the VT-40. [Ref 5] describes its failures. Russia then ended up using the same drones Ukraine was using and using the same control electronics and frequencies even in their "semi-bespoke" multirotor drones. Ref-5 also quotes a Russian drone operator

“They reach the target only if [jamming-free] windows appear. A common practice is to hit a target with only one drone from a series of several units, the rest simply fall.”

 

“An operator who launches 30-40 drones a day and has zero hits is a very typical story,” one operator lamented. David Hambling wrote at Forbes that Ukrainian operators report hitting targets 20-50% of the time. Russian operators appear less successful in staying ahead of Ukraine’s electronic warfare (EW) capabilities, and often wastefully expend individual drones against EW “walls” until one finds a gap through dumb luck.

 
[WA-3] is a very good summary of the current state of play in Ukraine by RUSI. It is definitely worth reading. At a minimum read the one page section entitled Reconnaissance: Mass Observation. One quote from that section:

The aggregate consequence of this dense and overlapping network of UAVs is battlefield transparency within 3 km of the line of contact, with diminishing density of observation out to 15 km of depth.

How can this mesh with the previous quotes? It is actually simple. As the Russian drone operator lamented, if your side is jamming the opponents it also jams you. Again, this is because both sides use identically the same technology.

 

At this point I want to document and clearly show why EW against these commercial FPV drones is and always will be fatally effective. [JAM-1]  section 2.3 (pages 12-14) shows that the DJI video links use Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM). The video signal has a 10 MHz bandwidth with center frequencies in an 80 MHz region between 5.745-5.825 GHz or in a 50 MHz region between  2.412-2.462 GHz. The drone uses a Carrier Sense Multiple Access (CSMA) algorithm to avoid interference with other drones/signals operating in the same band. Obviously, if there are more than (5-8) drones operating near each other the video from some of them will be irrecoverably lost.

 

The control link uses Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS). The control signal (and response) has a bandwidth of 1.4 MHz. The center frequencies occupy a 120 MHz region between 5.7285-5.8465 GHz  or in a 60 MHz region between  2.4075-2.4655 MHz. The controller transmits for 1.1 ms. It then "hops" to a new frequency, waits 9.9 ms, and transmits the next control command. The "hopping" was originally designed to mitigate interference between several drones operating in the same area. It works pretty well in that respect. It also functions as a very primitive anti-jamming measure. It is virtually useless for that task, as the hops are much too slow, 100 hops per second.

[Goose]

Attempting to predict the course of the "next" war from the previous one has a 100% failure rate. That said, it is the only data we have so it is always attempted. I will make an (vain I know) attempt here to do so, at least as it relates to drones. Every war has unique features that may or may not apply in the next one. I will attempt to identify at least some of these and discuss why they will or will not feature in the future. Having done that I will attempt to predict where drone warfare is going in the future.

 
US involvement in any given conflict can range from "moral support",  committing various types of weapons, committing complete military units, to finally outright full-scale war. The opponent may range from peer down to massively inferior. I can't even pretend to cover all these cases, but I may point out situations where drone use will be affected.
 
The most obvious and significant unique feature of the Ukraine war is that neither Russia (because they chose not to) nor Ukraine (because they lacked the capability) attempted to establish air superiority of each other's territory, even locally. In no conflict in which the US is a direct participant will this be the case. The US must execute a SEAD/DEAD plan that provides at a very minimum air supremacy over the "blue force" territory and air superiority over designated areas of the "red force" territory. If we can't do that, we will probably lose the war. It is that simple.
 
Our Army relies on the ability to move men and material around (both by road and air) without significant interference from the enemy air force. The USAF relies on its ability to operate tankers, AWACS, and EW aircraft over friendly territory. The Army also operates ISR aircraft and expects them to be relatively safe. Losses of any significant number of the aforementioned assets cannot be easily and rapidly replaced. The US Navy uses its carrier fleet to project power over international waters and over designated areas of "red force" areas. This is a precursor to conveying the Army and USMC to the land battle according to an operations plan.
 
The US already has a bevy of air-launched cruise missiles that will function as our long range fixed wing drones. A peer opponent with an air force and/or an IADS will undoubtedly destroy some of these drones. If our opponents attempt to use drones in the Geran-2/AN-196 class our air force has demonstrated it can destroy the threat totally. The DEAD plan must attrit the enemy IADS in whatever depth necessary for our cruise missiles to reach their targets. The long range version of the HARM, AGM-88G AARGM-ER will be a key player in this process. It isn't finished yet. Previous models do not fit in the F-35A/C weapons bay. Carrying them externally reduces its stealth capability. I hope the Green Flag exercises have made us ready to remove as many S-400s as required using the weapons we have today.
 
The US already possesses quite a few reconnaissance drones that operate via satellite uplinks. They are effectively unjammable. Reconnaissance being the most important function of drones, even in the Ukraine war, leads to concerns about the cost and survivability of the very capable US drone force. Against lower-end opponents we are undoubtedly fine. Against Russia and China it is very questionable that we have enough such drones.
 
The success of US SEAD/DEAD plans are key to our ability to use these drones effectively. While that is being played out significant losses are inevitable. It is essential that this be accounted for in acquisition planning. As will become a refrain in this analysis, the cost of US drones is way too high. Up to the present this has led to simply reducing acquisition targets and/or forgoing certain capabilities. Virtually no effort has been spent in "productizing" these drones. IMO this has to change. They need to get cheaper.
 
That said, drones similar to [WA-1] are definitely a part of the future. They have many of the capabilities of drones like the MQ-4C (especially an "over the horizon" datalink) but cost an order of magnitude less. We do need to keep costs in mind and pound on the vendors to compete. We also need some "new" vendors that actually want to compete based on their products, not their lobbyists. AeroVironment is not a poster child for this kind of effort. They are better than Boeing and Lockheed, but that is damning by faint praise. Above all, out DoD leadership has to themselves understand and make clear to their subordinates that our fixed-wing drones will suffer losses in any war against a peer or near-peer competitor, no matter what the USAF accomplishes. Drones go where we don't rule the sky. Otherwise, they are unnecessary. Plan accordingly.
 
The US also has a significant number of theater ballistic missiles that will be used to strike important targets that are well protected from cruise missiles. Despite its very long gestation period the Precision Strike Strategic Missile (PrSM) is actually looking pretty good. Lets hope we buy enough of them. We need to find a way to make them cheap enough that we can do so.

---

IMO "low-end" FPV drones will largely disappear from the battlespace. This is without a doubt a controversial opinion at this point in the Ukraine war. IMO the Ukraine war is a unicorn situation. The ubiquitous use of commercial derived FPV drones occurs  in Ukraine because both sides were forced to utilize them. Ukraine pioneered the effort because civilians stepped up, bought the drones, showed up on the battlefield and made them work. Ukraine adopted this a a major part of their military effort due to lack of any immediately viable alternatives. Russia eventually followed suit.
 
Russia initially adopted a different course. Russia intended to build their own "military grade" drones to meet the need. Their initial path is discussed in [WA-2]. The result was the VT-40. [Ref 5] describes its failures. Russia then ended up using the same drones Ukraine was using and using the same control electronics and frequencies even in their "semi-bespoke" multirotor drones. Ref-5 also quotes a Russian drone operator

“They reach the target only if [jamming-free] windows appear. A common practice is to hit a target with only one drone from a series of several units, the rest simply fall.”

 

“An operator who launches 30-40 drones a day and has zero hits is a very typical story,” one operator lamented. David Hambling wrote at Forbes that Ukrainian operators report hitting targets 20-50% of the time. Russian operators appear less successful in staying ahead of Ukraine’s electronic warfare (EW) capabilities, and often wastefully expend individual drones against EW “walls” until one finds a gap through dumb luck.

 
[WA-3] is a very good summary of the current state of play in Ukraine by RUSI. It is definitely worth reading. At a minimum read the one page section entitled Reconnaissance: Mass Observation. One quote from that section:

The aggregate consequence of this dense and overlapping network of UAVs is battlefield transparency within 3 km of the line of contact, with diminishing density of observation out to 15 km of depth.

How can this mesh with the previous quotes? It is actually simple. As the Russian drone operator lamented, if your side is jamming the opponents it also jams you. Again, this is because both sides use identically the same technology.

 

At this point I want to document and clearly show why EW against these commercial FPV drones is and always will be fatally effective. [JAM-1]  section 2.3 (pages 12-14) shows that the DJI video links use Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM). The video signal has a 10 MHz bandwidth with center frequencies in an 80 MHz region between 5.745-5.825 GHz or in a 50 MHz region between  2.412-2.462 GHz. The drone uses a Carrier Sense Multiple Access (CSMA) algorithm to avoid interference with other drones/signals operating in the same band. Obviously, if there are more than (5-8) drones operating near each other the video from some of them will be irrecoverably lost.

 

The control link uses Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS). The control signal (and response) has a bandwidth of 1.4 MHz. The center frequencies occupy a 120 MHz region between 5.7285-5.8465 GHz  or in a 60 MHz region between  2.4075-2.4655 MHz. The controller transmits for 1.1 ms. It then "hops" to a new frequency, waits 9.9 ms, and transmits the next control command. The "hopping" was originally designed to mitigate interference between several drones operating in the same area. It works pretty well in that respect. It also functions as a very primitive anti-jamming measure. It is virtually useless for that task, as the hops are much too slow, 100 hops per second.

[Goose]

There are several masters thesis on the Internet reverse engineering the DJI protocol. [JAM-2] actually reverse engineers what the control messages to the DJI drones are and what they do down to the bit level. There are many more dealing with all aspects of the various commercial drone protocols. I am willing to wager that Russia by now has source code copies of all the DJI software. If Ukraine doesn't have that as well they have reverse engineered it and produced the equivalent. There are no secrets.

It is critical to understand that the control link and video backlink required by commercial FPV drones that use radio communication creates an inherent vulnerability to EW. There is no way around that fact. They can and will be jammed into uselessness in any future conflict.  This has already happened in Ukraine, mitigated only by the fact both sides use the same drones. 

Section 2.4 of [JAM-1] presents a good description of various jamming techniques. Suffice it to say it is quite easy to build a barrage noise jammer that will cover the  entire 2.4-2.5 GHz (100 MHz wide) ISM band and the entire 5.725-5.875 GHz (150 MHz wide) ISM band. These frequencies are an immutable attribute of commercial drones. It would be illegal to use these drones commercially if they used non-approved bands, so such drones will never be built. Of course, the military can order drones using other bands, but because they would use non-standard parts they would be at least an order of magnitude (probably more) expensive. Russia is a past master at building high-power barrage noise jammers. The US is pretty good at it too. A B-52 can render E through G band unusable for several miles around it. This is not news.
 

Both sides are also using "tone jammers to jam some of the frequencies in the ISM band but not others. This temporarily allows the side doing that to operate their own drones while their opponent cannot. Ukraine has had some success in Electronic Counter-Counter Measures (ECCM) by hacking the DJI software to change the operating frequency set. This defeats Russian jamming until Russia figures out what Ukraine is doing. It is effective for a few hours at most, and usually much less than that. It also imposes a significant organizational challenge to Ukraine as the change has to be made simultaneously by all the "users" for it to be effective. This tactic is addressed in [JAM-3]. Of course, if the opponent is jamming the entire band, this approach will not work. Note that this tactic doesn't increase the frequency range the drones can use. That is dictated by hardware constraints.

 

The simple fact is that when jamming is present these DJI-based drones (or any other drones in the same ISM bands) are totally useless for both sides, period.  Both Ukraine and Russia are stuck with that. They are also stuck with the fact that their own EW by design will jam their own drones as well as their opponents. This places both sides equally on the horns of a dilemma. If either side is jamming, neither can use drones because the drones will go out of control when they reach the jamming boundary. If neither side is jamming, both can use drones. Nobody is "getting around" this conundrum. Both sides can manipulate the situation by selectively jamming only parts of the band and not jamming others. Of course, if the other side is jamming the entire band, that won't help.
 
There are Internet sources that assert the "answer" to the jamming problems is simply to buy more drones. An example is [WA-4]. It states

“Both sides recognize that the adversary EW is having a massive effect on such drones, but it’s not cost-effective to proof them against EW. It’s just cheaper and easier to get large quantities of COTS [Commercial Off-The-Shelf] UAVs and replace lost drones.”

This is solving the wrong problem. Yes, you can replace the drones that do not penetrate the EW screen. Those replacements can't penetrate it either. The E field doesn't care how many drones you send against it. It is not being "expended" in knocking them down. If you desperately want to know what is going on 1.5 km in front of you having all kinds of "spare" drones won't help you one bit if they can't get through the enemy EW. [CNAS] makes similar points, stating (pg. 2)

Drones do not have to be survivable if they are cheap and plentiful because one can have resiliency through reconstitution. Because they are vulnerable, drones must be cheap enough and easy enough to manufacture that they can be readily replaced. Instead of hardening commercial drones against electronic attacks, which would notably raise the costs, both parties have opted to instead buy more cheap drones.
The logic of resiliency through reconstitution also applies to military drones.

Once again, replacing drones that are destroyed by EW isn't a solution to the military necessity that they will be effective when they are needed.
 
It is indeed true that "hardening" commercial drones against electronic attack will "notably" raise costs. It is also true that increasing the ground EW capability to defeat that hardening is generally much cheaper proportionally. This subject can be discussed in detail but for the purposes of this discussion, I can only say "trust me" (and CNAS). It is a long nerdy journey.  That doesn't mean attempts are not being made. [WA-5] shows an attempt by Russia to move one of their bespoke drones that uses DJI electronics out of the 2.4 and 5.8 ISM bands. Of course, when/if it works Ukraine will just add a 1.4 Ghz capability to their jammers.
 
CNAS also states

As a result, Ukrainian troops often refrain from sending commercial drones on missions if Russian EW systems are operating. Yet, Russia cannot jam everywhere all the time.

CNAS concedes the point that Russia can deny Ukraine the ability to use their FPV drones whenever the Russian EW is present. Of course, Russia also can't use their own FPV drones then either.  It is clearly true that Russia cannot jam "everywhere". Their country is far too large for that. It is unclear (to me at least) why/if CNAS believes Russia can't jam along the entire line of contact if they wish to do so. It is not a technological challenge. Russia knows how to build the equipment. Sanctions may prevent them from getting enough parts to do so. Disorganization may inhibit appropriate distribution of EW assets. Eventually Russia would get it done, given time. It is reasonable to assume any near-peer enemy of the US, especially China, could successfully execute the task.
 
Importantly, we do know that the US could jam along the entire line of contact in Ukraine if we wished to. At least we could back when the insurgents were using cell phones to set of Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) in Iraq. The US built jammers that jammed cell phones "locally". From a standing start within three months at least two manufactures were cranking them out like hotcakes. We built so many that virtually every unit in Iraq had plenty of them. Every vehicle had one. The insurgents quickly figured out using cell phones as detonators didn't work anymore. They quit using them within a couple of months of the jammers started showing up. However, the contracts were in place and the government feared cancellation fees. So the companies kept building them. I have no idea where the many thousands of jammers ended up. These jammers were IMO technically more complicated than what is being used in Ukraine, although they were still relatively simple.
 
If our ability to field ground jammers isn't immediately available, there is always this [EC-37B]  and these [EC-130H]. The EC-130H Baseline 2 was a state-of-the art platform in the early 2000s. Unfortunately not all EC-130Hs were upgraded to Baseline 2 because the airframes were running out of hours (and we still believed we would never need them). Similarly, the EC-37B program started in 2017 has only recently delivered an operational platform. The stuff still "works", but obviously we must take our ECM requirements seriously going forward. Of course, the EA-18G and the F-35s carry jammers that can neutralize commercial FPVs. I am assuming they will have better things to do if the US is involved in a war.

[Goose]

There are several masters thesis on the Internet reverse engineering the DJI protocol. [JAM-2] actually reverse engineers what the control messages to the DJI drones are and what they do down to the bit level. There are many more dealing with all aspects of the various commercial drone protocols. I am willing to wager that Russia by now has source code copies of all the DJI software. If Ukraine doesn't have that as well they have reverse engineered it and produced the equivalent. There are no secrets.

It is critical to understand that the control link and video backlink required by commercial FPV drones that use radio communication creates an inherent vulnerability to EW. There is no way around that fact. They can and will be jammed into uselessness in any future conflict.  This has already happened in Ukraine, mitigated only by the fact both sides use the same drones. 

Section 2.4 of [JAM-1] presents a good description of various jamming techniques. Suffice it to say it is quite easy to build a barrage noise jammer that will cover the  entire 2.4-2.5 GHz (100 MHz wide) ISM band and the entire 5.725-5.875 GHz (150 MHz wide) ISM band. These frequencies are an immutable attribute of commercial drones. It would be illegal to use these drones commercially if they used non-approved bands, so such drones will never be built. Of course, the military can order drones using other bands, but because they would use non-standard parts they would be at least an order of magnitude (probably more) expensive. Russia is a past master at building high-power barrage noise jammers. The US is pretty good at it too. A B-52 can render E through G band unusable for several miles around it. This is not news.
 

Both sides are also using "tone jammers to jam some of the frequencies in the ISM band but not others. This temporarily allows the side doing that to operate their own drones while their opponent cannot. Ukraine has had some success in Electronic Counter-Counter Measures (ECCM) by hacking the DJI software to change the operating frequency set. This defeats Russian jamming until Russia figures out what Ukraine is doing. It is effective for a few hours at most, and usually much less than that. It also imposes a significant organizational challenge to Ukraine as the change has to be made simultaneously by all the "users" for it to be effective. This tactic is addressed in [JAM-3]. Of course, if the opponent is jamming the entire band, this approach will not work. Note that this tactic doesn't increase the frequency range the drones can use. That is dictated by hardware constraints.

 

The simple fact is that when jamming is present these DJI-based drones (or any other drones in the same ISM bands) are totally useless for both sides, period.  Both Ukraine and Russia are stuck with that. They are also stuck with the fact that their own EW by design will jam their own drones as well as their opponents. This places both sides equally on the horns of a dilemma. If either side is jamming, neither can use drones because the drones will go out of control when they reach the jamming boundary. If neither side is jamming, both can use drones. Nobody is "getting around" this conundrum. Both sides can manipulate the situation by selectively jamming only parts of the band and not jamming others. Of course, if the other side is jamming the entire band, that won't help.
 
There are Internet sources that assert the "answer" to the jamming problems is simply to buy more drones. An example is [WA-4]. It states

“Both sides recognize that the adversary EW is having a massive effect on such drones, but it’s not cost-effective to proof them against EW. It’s just cheaper and easier to get large quantities of COTS [Commercial Off-The-Shelf] UAVs and replace lost drones.”

This is solving the wrong problem. Yes, you can replace the drones that do not penetrate the EW screen. Those replacements can't penetrate it either. The E field doesn't care how many drones you send against it. It is not being "expended" in knocking them down. If you desperately want to know what is going on 1.5 km in front of you having all kinds of "spare" drones won't help you one bit if they can't get through the enemy EW. [CNAS] makes similar points, stating (pg. 2)

Drones do not have to be survivable if they are cheap and plentiful because one can have resiliency through reconstitution. Because they are vulnerable, drones must be cheap enough and easy enough to manufacture that they can be readily replaced. Instead of hardening commercial drones against electronic attacks, which would notably raise the costs, both parties have opted to instead buy more cheap drones.
The logic of resiliency through reconstitution also applies to military drones.

Once again, replacing drones that are destroyed by EW isn't a solution to the military necessity that they will be effective when they are needed.
 
It is indeed true that "hardening" commercial drones against electronic attack will "notably" raise costs. It is also true that increasing the ground EW capability to defeat that hardening is generally much cheaper proportionally. This subject can be discussed in detail but for the purposes of this discussion, I can only say "trust me" (and CNAS). It is a long nerdy journey.  That doesn't mean attempts are not being made. [WA-5] shows an attempt by Russia to move one of their bespoke drones that uses DJI electronics out of the 2.4 and 5.8 ISM bands. Of course, when/if it works Ukraine will just add a 1.4 Ghz capability to their jammers.
 
CNAS also states

As a result, Ukrainian troops often refrain from sending commercial drones on missions if Russian EW systems are operating. Yet, Russia cannot jam everywhere all the time.

CNAS concedes the point that Russia can deny Ukraine the ability to use their FPV drones whenever the Russian EW is present. Of course, Russia also can't use their own FPV drones then either.  It is clearly true that Russia cannot jam "everywhere". Their country is far too large for that. It is unclear (to me at least) why/if CNAS believes Russia can't jam along the entire line of contact if they wish to do so. It is not a technological challenge. Russia knows how to build the equipment. Sanctions may prevent them from getting enough parts to do so. Disorganization may inhibit appropriate distribution of EW assets. Eventually Russia would get it done, given time. It is reasonable to assume any near-peer enemy of the US, especially China, could successfully execute the task.
 
Importantly, we do know that the US could jam along the entire line of contact in Ukraine if we wished to. At least we could back when the insurgents were using cell phones to set of Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) in Iraq. The US built jammers that jammed cell phones "locally". From a standing start within three months at least two manufactures were cranking them out like hotcakes. We built so many that virtually every unit in Iraq had plenty of them. Every vehicle had one. The insurgents quickly figured out using cell phones as detonators didn't work anymore. They quit using them within a couple of months of the jammers started showing up. However, the contracts were in place and the government feared cancellation fees. So the companies kept building them. I have no idea where the many thousands of jammers ended up. These jammers were IMO technically more complicated than what is being used in Ukraine, although they were still relatively simple.
 
If our ability to field ground jammers isn't immediately available, there is always this [EC-37B]  and these [EC-130H]. The EC-130H Baseline 2 was a state-of-the art platform in the early 2000s. Unfortunately not all EC-130Hs were upgraded to Baseline 2 because the airframes were running out of hours (and we still believed we would never need them). Similarly, the EC-37B program started in 2017 has only recently delivered an operational platform. The stuff still "works", but obviously we must take our ECM requirements seriously going forward. Of course, the EA-18G and the F-35s carry jammers that can neutralize commercial FPVs. I am assuming they will have better things to do if the US is involved in a war.

[Goose]

My crystal balls says:

 

There will be a class of small, relatively short range FPV reconnaissance drones. They will use fiber optic cables instead of radio transmissions for control uplink and video downlink. They will be therefore "jam proof". I  am hoping they will be company-level assets and operated by 11Cs. Targets located by these drones can be passed directly to the company mortar section or the Fire Direction Center (FDC) as appropriate. If adequate bandwidth via other links is available the FPV video may be forwarded to battalion. Unlike the Russian and Ukrainian battalion level drone management system a quick kinetic response will be immediately available at the company level. I am guessing they will be mostly winged drones for better efficiency, but that is by no means certain. These drones need to be cheap and easy to operate, as well as plentiful.

 
There will be a class of medium size longer range and longer endurance reconnaissance drones. These drones will be in the same class as the drone shown in [WA-1]. FPV will be optionally configurable on these drones, but if fitted it will also be capable of recording the video and downloading video when not being jammed or after landing. These drones will be a battalion asset and operated by 15Ws. They will be capable of operating over a wide frequency range and utilize signals for both uplink and downlink that are as "jamming resistant as possible for the money available". It may be these drones end up utilizing satellite or airborne relay for both uplink and downlink because that is the only practical approach. The "jam-proof" terrestrial radio solutions may be too expensive, too power-hungry, too large or all of the above.These drones will have waypoints loaded into the navigation system before launch so that they can operate in the absence of any communication at all. The MAY also have some AI capabilities that allow them to pursue high priority reconnaissance opportunities.
 

Both of these drone classes will require development. The US has not been real good at that for quite awhile. These drones should use COTS hardware whenever possible, recognizing that sometimes trade-offs must be made between capability, affordability, and availability. The small drones could conceivably be derived from commercial drones, since no radio system is involved. However, it may be that the "signature" of the commercial drone is such that it is extremely vulnerable to interceptor drones. While the small drones are in theory recoverable problems with the fiber-optic cable ensure a steady attrition. They need to be inexpensive.

 

That takes care of the reconnaissance drones. Now the "fun" begins. The existing kinetic commercial FPV drones suffer from several problems.

1. First and foremost, they can be totally defeated by EW (jamming).
   
2. Unlike both mortars and howitzers FPV drones cannot deliver lots of ordinance quickly, i.e they lack "weight of fire". Each drone carries a relatively small warhead (5 kg or so). At present, they are normally operated as independent single units. Even if launched in a group, no more than 5 to 8 can operate within range of any given controller. Beyond that they fatally interfere with each others video.
   
3. FPV drones are slow compared to other "heavy" weapons. They are normally launched from well behind the line of contact. Going full speed a Mavic 3 will take about two minutes after launch to reach the line of contact. Any distance it must travel beyond that is just added on. If a fiber-optic reconnaissance drone  locates a target, that target has at a minimum several minutes to withdraw or take measures to avoid the subsequent inbound drone attack.
   
4. FPV drones are inherently manpower intensive. The "pilot" has to fly the drone for several minutes before he selects the target and attacks it. During that time the pilot is unavailable for other tasks. This restriction limits the "rounds per minute" a drone operator can deliver.
   

 

Of course, FPV drones have several advantages as well. Going forward, the goal of the new drone designs will be to eliminate/mitigate the disadvantages of current FPV drone designs while preserving their advantages.

 

There will be several classes of "killer" drones. Notionally the classes will be anti-personnel, anti-armor (vehicles) and interceptors (anti-drone drones). These drones will have no FPV or downlink. The size, weight and power (SWAP) made available by these features being omitted will be used for target identification sensors, hardware and software. This design eliminates problems 1, 2 and 4 completely. These drones can't be jammed and do not require a "pilot". They also can't interfere with each other, so as many as desired can be launched as fast as physically possible. This allows drones to deliver a very large kinetic effect at almost a single point in time, a very important capability they previously lacked. These drones are not limited by mutual interference or the number of highly-trained specialized operators available. They can be launched at will right on the line of contact. This mitigates problem 3. Interestingly [WA-6]  shows the Russians recognize this problem and are trying to mitigate it using current technology. The FPV requirement however restricts the number of drones flying at any one time to 5-8.

[WA-7] discusses applying "AI" to drone warfare, as does [JAM-3]. Some drones supposedly already use "AI" to steer the drone when it is on "final approach" to the target and therefore too low to receive the uplink. The operator can't receive the downlink anyway at that point. There are many, many more articles about drones using AI to identify targets. IMO lots of the claims need to be taken with several grains of salt, but there is no question that for many years software has been "trained" to identify and kill targets with no "man in the loop" intervention. It is in a sense "AI". However the term AI is being used to create specious associations with the current social media and Internet publicity. It isn't anything like ChatGPT or other large language model (LLM) AI. It is "simple" AI. The sensors don't need to provide megapixels of data. "Old" multi-spectrum technology as used on e.g. the AARGM works just fine.

 

[WA-8] also has a lot to say about AI targeting of drones. Lots of it is pretty arguable, but it does say the one important thing that will drive the future of armed drones.

The solution is to avoid jamming altogether by relying on AI to guide the drone to its target in the final stages of flight.

The "in the final stages of flight" should simply be deleted. This statement is true wherever there is jamming, which in Ukraine today is almost ubiquitous.

 

Helsing and all the other AI drone companies all are careful to say that there is a "man in the loop" who will make the final decisions about attacking. This is of course nonsense and is said for political correctness only. Jamming means the man in the loop can't see what the drone sees and can't command the drone one way or another. The enemy side of the line of contact is a free-fire zone anyway. [WA-9] is VERY hyperbolic and draws some very questionable inferences BUT it does show clearly that fully autonomous  AI is going to be the future. There is no "man in the loop" on most long range cruise missile strikes. There won't be one on anti-tank drones either.

 

IMO closely customizing the various drone classes to their intended targets is going to be necessary to overcome SWAP and cost issues. The flight dynamics requirements, munitions and target detection schemes used for anti-personnel drones, anti-armor drones and reconnaissance drone interceptors are quite distinct.  Anti-personnel drones probably will function best with two CCD arrays sensitive to different wavelengths of infrared light. Anti-armor drones probably want a W band radar and a CCD array. That might work for drone interceptors as well but the CCD array probably will be for a different color. The warhead of the interceptor (if any) will obviously be different than the anti-armor drone.

 

The anti-personnel drones will have a specialized fragmentation warhead optimally detonated by the multi-spectrum thermal imaging system and its target detection software. The warhead will be optimized for kill radius. The Switchblade 600 is protypical for the anti-personnel drone, without the FPV transmitter and electronics.

[Goose]

My crystal balls says:

 

There will be a class of small, relatively short range FPV reconnaissance drones. They will use fiber optic cables instead of radio transmissions for control uplink and video downlink. They will be therefore "jam proof". I  am hoping they will be company-level assets and operated by 11Cs. Targets located by these drones can be passed directly to the company mortar section or the Fire Direction Center (FDC) as appropriate. If adequate bandwidth via other links is available the FPV video may be forwarded to battalion. Unlike the Russian and Ukrainian battalion level drone management system a quick kinetic response will be immediately available at the company level. I am guessing they will be mostly winged drones for better efficiency, but that is by no means certain. These drones need to be cheap and easy to operate, as well as plentiful.

 
There will be a class of medium size longer range and longer endurance reconnaissance drones. These drones will be in the same class as the drone shown in [WA-1]. FPV will be optionally configurable on these drones, but if fitted it will also be capable of recording the video and downloading video when not being jammed or after landing. These drones will be a battalion asset and operated by 15Ws. They will be capable of operating over a wide frequency range and utilize signals for both uplink and downlink that are as "jamming resistant as possible for the money available". It may be these drones end up utilizing satellite or airborne relay for both uplink and downlink because that is the only practical approach. The "jam-proof" terrestrial radio solutions may be too expensive, too power-hungry, too large or all of the above.These drones will have waypoints loaded into the navigation system before launch so that they can operate in the absence of any communication at all. The MAY also have some AI capabilities that allow them to pursue high priority reconnaissance opportunities.
 

Both of these drone classes will require development. The US has not been real good at that for quite awhile. These drones should use COTS hardware whenever possible, recognizing that sometimes trade-offs must be made between capability, affordability, and availability. The small drones could conceivably be derived from commercial drones, since no radio system is involved. However, it may be that the "signature" of the commercial drone is such that it is extremely vulnerable to interceptor drones. While the small drones are in theory recoverable problems with the fiber-optic cable ensure a steady attrition. They need to be inexpensive.

 

That takes care of the reconnaissance drones. Now the "fun" begins. The existing kinetic commercial FPV drones suffer from several problems.

1. First and foremost, they can be totally defeated by EW (jamming).
   
2. Unlike both mortars and howitzers FPV drones cannot deliver lots of ordinance quickly, i.e they lack "weight of fire". Each drone carries a relatively small warhead (5 kg or so). At present, they are normally operated as independent single units. Even if launched in a group, no more than 5 to 8 can operate within range of any given controller. Beyond that they fatally interfere with each others video.
   
3. FPV drones are slow compared to other "heavy" weapons. They are normally launched from well behind the line of contact. Going full speed a Mavic 3 will take about two minutes after launch to reach the line of contact. Any distance it must travel beyond that is just added on. If a fiber-optic reconnaissance drone  locates a target, that target has at a minimum several minutes to withdraw or take measures to avoid the subsequent inbound drone attack.
   
4. FPV drones are inherently manpower intensive. The "pilot" has to fly the drone for several minutes before he selects the target and attacks it. During that time the pilot is unavailable for other tasks. This restriction limits the "rounds per minute" a drone operator can deliver.
   

 

Of course, FPV drones have several advantages as well. Going forward, the goal of the new drone designs will be to eliminate/mitigate the disadvantages of current FPV drone designs while preserving their advantages.

 

There will be several classes of "killer" drones. Notionally the classes will be anti-personnel, anti-armor (vehicles) and interceptors (anti-drone drones). These drones will have no FPV or downlink. The size, weight and power (SWAP) made available by these features being omitted will be used for target identification sensors, hardware and software. This design eliminates problems 1, 2 and 4 completely. These drones can't be jammed and do not require a "pilot". They also can't interfere with each other, so as many as desired can be launched as fast as physically possible. This allows drones to deliver a very large kinetic effect at almost a single point in time, a very important capability they previously lacked. These drones are not limited by mutual interference or the number of highly-trained specialized operators available. They can be launched at will right on the line of contact. This mitigates problem 3. Interestingly [WA-6]  shows the Russians recognize this problem and are trying to mitigate it using current technology. The FPV requirement however restricts the number of drones flying at any one time to 5-8.

[WA-7] discusses applying "AI" to drone warfare, as does [JAM-3]. Some drones supposedly already use "AI" to steer the drone when it is on "final approach" to the target and therefore too low to receive the uplink. The operator can't receive the downlink anyway at that point. There are many, many more articles about drones using AI to identify targets. IMO lots of the claims need to be taken with several grains of salt, but there is no question that for many years software has been "trained" to identify and kill targets with no "man in the loop" intervention. It is in a sense "AI". However the term AI is being used to create specious associations with the current social media and Internet publicity. It isn't anything like ChatGPT or other large language model (LLM) AI. It is "simple" AI. The sensors don't need to provide megapixels of data. "Old" multi-spectrum technology as used on e.g. the AARGM works just fine.

 

[WA-8] also has a lot to say about AI targeting of drones. Lots of it is pretty arguable, but it does say the one important thing that will drive the future of armed drones.

The solution is to avoid jamming altogether by relying on AI to guide the drone to its target in the final stages of flight.

The "in the final stages of flight" should simply be deleted. This statement is true wherever there is jamming, which in Ukraine today is almost ubiquitous.

 

Helsing and all the other AI drone companies all are careful to say that there is a "man in the loop" who will make the final decisions about attacking. This is of course nonsense and is said for political correctness only. Jamming means the man in the loop can't see what the drone sees and can't command the drone one way or another. The enemy side of the line of contact is a free-fire zone anyway. [WA-9] is VERY hyperbolic and draws some very questionable inferences BUT it does show clearly that fully autonomous  AI is going to be the future. There is no "man in the loop" on most long range cruise missile strikes. There won't be one on anti-tank drones either.

 

IMO closely customizing the various drone classes to their intended targets is going to be necessary to overcome SWAP and cost issues. The flight dynamics requirements, munitions and target detection schemes used for anti-personnel drones, anti-armor drones and reconnaissance drone interceptors are quite distinct.  Anti-personnel drones probably will function best with two CCD arrays sensitive to different wavelengths of infrared light. Anti-armor drones probably want a W band radar and a CCD array. That might work for drone interceptors as well but the CCD array probably will be for a different color. The warhead of the interceptor (if any) will obviously be different than the anti-armor drone.

 

The anti-personnel drones will have a specialized fragmentation warhead optimally detonated by the multi-spectrum thermal imaging system and its target detection software. The warhead will be optimized for kill radius. The Switchblade 600 is protypical for the anti-personnel drone, without the FPV transmitter and electronics.

[Goose]

The anti-armor drones will have a two-stage HEAT warhead detonated by contact or by the target detection software. This is the type of warhead used by Lancets and other anti-armor drones. The Helsing HX-2 is protypical for the anti-armor drone, without the FPV transmitter and electronics.

 

Two variants of interceptors will be required (at least), one for small fiber optic reconnaissance drones and another, more robust one for the medium reconnaissance drones. The interceptors targeting fiber-optic FPV drones can be "aimed" by a soldier using a ground based video "gun sight". The interceptor will be high speed (relatively speaking) winged drone. It will be "locked on" to the designated FPV drone target much as a Maverick missile is. The soldier does the target acquisition and recognition. The "AI" capability will be very minimal. The target is designated by a human, all the drone does is optically track it. Only a very minimal camera/CCD is needed to do this. They can also be launched "dumb" and acquire targets themselves, though the "hit rate" will undoubtedly be lower. These drones MAY have an uplink receiver to allow retargeting them dynamically. How desirable that is will be decided by testing/simulation. All the technology exists today. These drones need to be very cheap and considered like bullets. You can fire a lot of them when necessary. If they have to fly for more than a couple of minutes, it is a "miss". Their primary purpose is to deny the enemy information about our forces. Simple vehicle mounted launchers will be provided as well.

 

The above described anti-FPV interceptor drones will also be useful against attack drones. In order to provide adequate protection against attack drones a quicker and more capable video system will be required. This video system will scan the environment (using "AI") for constant bearing decreasing range (CBDR) anti-personnel/anti-armor drones, designate the target for the interceptor and launch it (or several). The important concept here is that the expensive and SWAP consuming video and "capable" AI is not in the interceptor drones. Those drones will be expended. The targeting system will not. It uses the same drones as the "manual" system does, thereby lowering costs and logistical burden on ammunition resupply. The interceptor drones probably will require a compressed gas (or possibly a small rocket) booster when used against attack drones. They require the ability to quickly get in front of the inbound threat detected late in the game. Obviously a human operator in the kill chain would be too slow in many cases.

 

Using the exact same drones for destroying both attack drones and fiber-optic FPV drones may require a decision regarding the warhead of the interceptor drone. The FPV drones can definitely be taken down by a "hit to kill" approach applied to their fiber-optic dispensing tail. The attack drones won't have that vulnerability. However, "hit to kill" may still be a viable approach. If it is, great advantages ensue. No additional weight and volume will be added to the drone. The drone will also not be capable of exploding due to mishandling. If it isn't viable, a warhead will be required. The warhead does allow less than perfect tracking of the target, so it is a tradeoff. Testing is the only way to decide. Making both kinds is also possible if necessary. That will increase costs and logistics burdens.

 

The targeting system will be available in different forms. The video system may be multi-spectral. It may contain the ubiquitous W band radar. The video system may be mounted on a multirotor platform interfaced to the ground based launchers and AI processing system via a short fiber-optic cable. This platform will have limited mobility. Its purpose is to improve the field of view for the video system and to displace it from the location of the rest of the equipment.  There will of course be a "manpack" system designed to protect an infantry platoon from anti-infantry drones. Less capability but also less weight. There will be vehicle mounted systems (probably with more optional video capabilities etc.) to protect armored vehicles. This system will be a "poor man's [Trophy System]. It will not a Javelin ATM or anything "very fast". Its detection system will be much less capable. It will however defeat anti-armor drones that are not rocket propelled. An important characteristics of this defensive system is that it is modular and easily upgradeable. New hardware and software can be provided as requirements change and sensors improve.

 

Medium range drones can cross the line of contact at high enough altitudes that they are very hard to see. The interceptors designed for fiber-optic drones may be too short range/low altitude to reach the medium range drones even when the video system can "see" them. Of course, if conditions are right the "short-range" systems may occasionally destroy a medium-range drone. Aircraft can be used to destroy reconnaissance drones if they are queued by a radar or optical picket of some type. The air defense network can handle those cases, which will account for lots of medium range reconnaissance drones. However, IMO an AI enabled medium range interceptor drone will need to be developed. They will be fairly long endurance and will mostly operate behind the line of contact. They will constitute a counter drone combat air patrol (DRONECAP). These drones can detect and destroy any enemy medium range drones they encounter. They should also be able to RTB and be recovered if no targets are detected. That will be a frequent occurrence. They also definitely have GPS.

 

These drones will need radar capabilities to detect and track enemy reconnaissance drones that have successfully penetrated the line of contact. Infrared capability is a necessity, because the drone needs to operate at night as well as daytime. Visible light video capability will also be required. These drones will not carry a warhead and will utilize "hit to kill". In general the enemy drones will have no capability to detect the threat and will be unable to evade at all.

 

These drones should also be able to receive tasking by other sensors, such as ground based air defense radar and AWACS. Similarly, if the enemy reconnaissance drone begins transmitting it can be geolocated by friendly COMINT sites. The nearest DRONECAP asset can be tasked with hunting and killing the enemy drone. It will receive updates via a similar process as AMRAAM missiles do. Since these interceptors operate in friendly airspace it is a communications permissive environment. Once the interceptor "sees" the target it autonomously tracks and kills it.

 

There are laser-based weapons being developed that can also operate against fiber-optic FPV drones. They may be viable for vehicle mounted systems but will IMO be too heavy for general use. These laser based systems will also be useful against attack drones. They also will be useful against the medium range winged reconnaissance drone.

 

IMO FPV drones using fiber optics that operate kinetically won't be developed or used. The manpower intensive nature of FPV drones operations make them inherently inferior to AI drones. If the AI works well there would be no need for them. Kinetic FPV drones also suffer a weight penalty because they must carry a warhead as well as carrying a reconnaissance capability. Their main advantage is that they can immediately attack a target of opportunity  without waiting for an attack drone to arrive. Of course, the reconnaissance drone can just follow the target until the attack drone arrives. This scenario is the reason attack drones MAY have an uplink receiver. The target coordinates may be profitably updated while in flight.

[Goose]

The anti-armor drones will have a two-stage HEAT warhead detonated by contact or by the target detection software. This is the type of warhead used by Lancets and other anti-armor drones. The Helsing HX-2 is protypical for the anti-armor drone, without the FPV transmitter and electronics.

 

Two variants of interceptors will be required (at least), one for small fiber optic reconnaissance drones and another, more robust one for the medium reconnaissance drones. The interceptors targeting fiber-optic FPV drones can be "aimed" by a soldier using a ground based video "gun sight". The interceptor will be high speed (relatively speaking) winged drone. It will be "locked on" to the designated FPV drone target much as a Maverick missile is. The soldier does the target acquisition and recognition. The "AI" capability will be very minimal. The target is designated by a human, all the drone does is optically track it. Only a very minimal camera/CCD is needed to do this. They can also be launched "dumb" and acquire targets themselves, though the "hit rate" will undoubtedly be lower. These drones MAY have an uplink receiver to allow retargeting them dynamically. How desirable that is will be decided by testing/simulation. All the technology exists today. These drones need to be very cheap and considered like bullets. You can fire a lot of them when necessary. If they have to fly for more than a couple of minutes, it is a "miss". Their primary purpose is to deny the enemy information about our forces. Simple vehicle mounted launchers will be provided as well.

 

The above described anti-FPV interceptor drones will also be useful against attack drones. In order to provide adequate protection against attack drones a quicker and more capable video system will be required. This video system will scan the environment (using "AI") for constant bearing decreasing range (CBDR) anti-personnel/anti-armor drones, designate the target for the interceptor and launch it (or several). The important concept here is that the expensive and SWAP consuming video and "capable" AI is not in the interceptor drones. Those drones will be expended. The targeting system will not. It uses the same drones as the "manual" system does, thereby lowering costs and logistical burden on ammunition resupply. The interceptor drones probably will require a compressed gas (or possibly a small rocket) booster when used against attack drones. They require the ability to quickly get in front of the inbound threat detected late in the game. Obviously a human operator in the kill chain would be too slow in many cases.

 

Using the exact same drones for destroying both attack drones and fiber-optic FPV drones may require a decision regarding the warhead of the interceptor drone. The FPV drones can definitely be taken down by a "hit to kill" approach applied to their fiber-optic dispensing tail. The attack drones won't have that vulnerability. However, "hit to kill" may still be a viable approach. If it is, great advantages ensue. No additional weight and volume will be added to the drone. The drone will also not be capable of exploding due to mishandling. If it isn't viable, a warhead will be required. The warhead does allow less than perfect tracking of the target, so it is a tradeoff. Testing is the only way to decide. Making both kinds is also possible if necessary. That will increase costs and logistics burdens.

 

The targeting system will be available in different forms. The video system may be multi-spectral. It may contain the ubiquitous W band radar. The video system may be mounted on a multirotor platform interfaced to the ground based launchers and AI processing system via a short fiber-optic cable. This platform will have limited mobility. Its purpose is to improve the field of view for the video system and to displace it from the location of the rest of the equipment.  There will of course be a "manpack" system designed to protect an infantry platoon from anti-infantry drones. Less capability but also less weight. There will be vehicle mounted systems (probably with more optional video capabilities etc.) to protect armored vehicles. This system will be a "poor man's [Trophy System]. It will not a Javelin ATM or anything "very fast". Its detection system will be much less capable. It will however defeat anti-armor drones that are not rocket propelled. An important characteristics of this defensive system is that it is modular and easily upgradeable. New hardware and software can be provided as requirements change and sensors improve.

 

Medium range drones can cross the line of contact at high enough altitudes that they are very hard to see. The interceptors designed for fiber-optic drones may be too short range/low altitude to reach the medium range drones even when the video system can "see" them. Of course, if conditions are right the "short-range" systems may occasionally destroy a medium-range drone. Aircraft can be used to destroy reconnaissance drones if they are queued by a radar or optical picket of some type. The air defense network can handle those cases, which will account for lots of medium range reconnaissance drones. However, IMO an AI enabled medium range interceptor drone will need to be developed. They will be fairly long endurance and will mostly operate behind the line of contact. They will constitute a counter drone combat air patrol (DRONECAP). These drones can detect and destroy any enemy medium range drones they encounter. They should also be able to RTB and be recovered if no targets are detected. That will be a frequent occurrence. They also definitely have GPS.

 

These drones will need radar capabilities to detect and track enemy reconnaissance drones that have successfully penetrated the line of contact. Infrared capability is a necessity, because the drone needs to operate at night as well as daytime. Visible light video capability will also be required. These drones will not carry a warhead and will utilize "hit to kill". In general the enemy drones will have no capability to detect the threat and will be unable to evade at all.

 

These drones should also be able to receive tasking by other sensors, such as ground based air defense radar and AWACS. Similarly, if the enemy reconnaissance drone begins transmitting it can be geolocated by friendly COMINT sites. The nearest DRONECAP asset can be tasked with hunting and killing the enemy drone. It will receive updates via a similar process as AMRAAM missiles do. Since these interceptors operate in friendly airspace it is a communications permissive environment. Once the interceptor "sees" the target it autonomously tracks and kills it.

 

There are laser-based weapons being developed that can also operate against fiber-optic FPV drones. They may be viable for vehicle mounted systems but will IMO be too heavy for general use. These laser based systems will also be useful against attack drones. They also will be useful against the medium range winged reconnaissance drone.

 

IMO FPV drones using fiber optics that operate kinetically won't be developed or used. The manpower intensive nature of FPV drones operations make them inherently inferior to AI drones. If the AI works well there would be no need for them. Kinetic FPV drones also suffer a weight penalty because they must carry a warhead as well as carrying a reconnaissance capability. Their main advantage is that they can immediately attack a target of opportunity  without waiting for an attack drone to arrive. Of course, the reconnaissance drone can just follow the target until the attack drone arrives. This scenario is the reason attack drones MAY have an uplink receiver. The target coordinates may be profitably updated while in flight.

[Goose]

The AI "attack" drones coupled with FPV reconnaissance drones using fiber optic cables eliminate most of the disadvantages of the current "commercial" FPV drones used in Ukraine. The main issues will be cost and production capacity. Right now Ukraine is talking about requiring a production rate of four million(!) drones per year. This very high demand is mostly due to the very high attrition caused by EW. That won't be true of the new attack drone designs because they do not transmit. That said, the new designs need to be cost-effective. The US hasn't been good at doing that. It is essential we  overcome that problem or all the "clever" AI in the world won't help.

 

Ukraine and Russia have greatly benefited from the fact that a significant commercial market led to mass production of drone designs that could be adapted to military use. That adaptation was however very sub-optimal. The "next generation" military drones will not have anywhere near the quantity of production commercial drones offer. Commercial drones will however provide a very useful set of mechanical parts and assemblies that should be used in the military drones going forward. The electronics provided with commercial drones will be much less useful, although the fiber-optic reconnaissance drones can probable use a lot of it. Once again, anything COTS that can be used should be used. We can't afford the ultimate, gold-plated mil-spec products that our military-industrial complex wants to produce.

 

The US will need a large quantity of drones going forward. It will also need a large quantity of other munitions as well. Right now we are not capable of meeting demand that a major war would require. Up to about 1970-1980 the US probably had enough manufacturing capacity we could repurpose our domestic manufacturing to meet our needs. That is no longer the case. This is a big problem for drone production as well.

 

In summary, the way ahead in drone warfare as I see it has been presented in these posts. Again, predicting the future is at best very inexact. While gathering the information to attempt this, I have run across many contradictions in the same documents. The real "data" is pretty questionable. I am now going to descend into some minutia that I thinks illustrates some procedural and organizational problems with drone use in Ukraine. IMO some of this illustrates "immutable truths" that are often ignored in Ukraine. They are ignored for various reasons. One of the reasons is that both sides in Ukraine aren't fighting the way they "want to" but rather the way they have to. Sometimes the reasons they "have to" are questionable.

---

Here is one example from [Ref 4]. Quoting the reference

"If enemy infantry approaches our positions, our [soldiers] open fire with machine guns and the enemy lies down, they no longer pay attention to our drones, and then we finish them off, we kill them," Pip says, describing one of the tactics commonly in use by his men.

IMO using drones to deal with pinned-down infantry is silly. A Ukrainian "heavy" drone can typically carry 8 or fewer 60 mm mortar shell sized "bombs". A drone launching team located directly behind the machine gun will require about two minutes of "transit time" to arrive at the target. If the launch point is further away than this "best case" it will take proportionally longer.  In US usage, the company of which the machine gun is part has three 60 mm mortars. A single mortar can deliver 30 round per minute for "awhile" and 20 round per minute thereafter until it is out of ammunition. The flight time is a matter of seconds.

 

The mortar is clearly the weapon of choice. This has been true since WW I. Both Russia and Ukraine have mortars. The problem is they are not organic to infantry companies. They are attached to battalion or higher levels. Their use is subject to all kinds of communication delays. The Russians know there is problem. From [CB-1]

The attachment of artillery formations to combined arms units is also discussed in Russian military journals covering the war. One article relates a case of an officer skipping the artillery commander altogether and sending his requests directly to battery commanders. This has resulted in articles explaining how a commander should designate and report targets directly to a battery commander. Another example reportedly involved ‘improvised mortar platoons’, which were temporary mortar teams established by a mechanised commander from regular infantry. This methodology provided immediately available fire support from three mortars that did not require additional clearance or process to fire.

I wonder where he got that idea?

 

Both Russia and Ukraine have elected to attach their "drone warfare" special units at the battalion level and control them like they do artillery. Ukraine is undoubtedly more flexible than Russia is but both suffer from organizational delays. In US service the FIST operating at the company level executes the requests to the battery commanders. It is much faster than the "Russian" way. As previously stated I hope the command and control of drones in US service is pushed to the company level. Battalion will have its own dedicated units under its direct control, as it does with artillery.

---

Quoting once again from [Ref 4]

But he also says it's clear remote controlled weapons won't be enough to stop the much larger Russian army entirely.
"We try to take out as many [Russians] as we can before they reach our positions," Yuri says. "But sometimes they're just too many. It's impossible to hold."

This fact is an immutable consequence of commercial drones inability to deliver an adequate "weight of fire". In a notional conflict between two forces of company size initially 3 km apart, one armed only with drones and another that is "regular infantry", the infantry will win every time, quickly. In "real life" no such battle will ever be fought, but the point must be understood. My future prediction is that the lack of mass problem for drones will be addressed as much as possible. However, in many cases drones aren't the best way to deliver massed fires. That isn't their "thing". 

---

Thanks to BC for his gifted article. [NYT-1]  has lots of interesting information. One very interesting quote

The proliferation of drones inevitably gave rise to widespread electronic warfare — tools to jam the radio signals that most drones need to fly.
Tens of thousands of jammers have been littered across Ukraine’s front lines to disable drones, cluttering the electromagnetic spectrum that also enables GPS, military communications, navigation, radar and surveillance.

If we are conservative and and accept that there are 10,000 total jammers littered across the front lines of Ukraine then 5000 of them are Ukrainian. The line of contact in Ukraine is about 1,300 km long. Therefore there is one jammer every 260 meters. To be fair, they are not all drone jammers and they are not uniformly distributed. However, the clearly puts to bed any notion that both sides lack the ability to jam along the entire line of contact, confirming what was previously conjectured in these posts.

---

From the same article

Ukrainian engineers have built drones and robots with “frequency hoppers,” automatically switching from one radio signal to another to evade jammers.

As we know, all the commercially available drones are "frequency hoppers". We also know that that is ineffective against jamming in Ukraine. The frequency range is small enough barrage noise is possible, although I suspect multi-tone is being used because the channel center frequencies are known. The statement IMO reflects a serious lack of understanding. What Ukraine HAS done is modify the hopping frequencies. They have also developed a "rota" for moving frequency bands between 2.4, 5.8, and the 5.2 bands. That is all the commercial drones can do.

---

That is all I have. Well, not really. I have many very interesting links. I am however out of gas and this is way too long already

[Goose]

The AI "attack" drones coupled with FPV reconnaissance drones using fiber optic cables eliminate most of the disadvantages of the current "commercial" FPV drones used in Ukraine. The main issues will be cost and production capacity. Right now Ukraine is talking about requiring a production rate of four million(!) drones per year. This very high demand is mostly due to the very high attrition caused by EW. That won't be true of the new attack drone designs because they do not transmit. That said, the new designs need to be cost-effective. The US hasn't been good at doing that. It is essential we  overcome that problem or all the "clever" AI in the world won't help.

 

Ukraine and Russia have greatly benefited from the fact that a significant commercial market led to mass production of drone designs that could be adapted to military use. That adaptation was however very sub-optimal. The "next generation" military drones will not have anywhere near the quantity of production commercial drones offer. Commercial drones will however provide a very useful set of mechanical parts and assemblies that should be used in the military drones going forward. The electronics provided with commercial drones will be much less useful, although the fiber-optic reconnaissance drones can probable use a lot of it. Once again, anything COTS that can be used should be used. We can't afford the ultimate, gold-plated mil-spec products that our military-industrial complex wants to produce.

 

The US will need a large quantity of drones going forward. It will also need a large quantity of other munitions as well. Right now we are not capable of meeting demand that a major war would require. Up to about 1970-1980 the US probably had enough manufacturing capacity we could repurpose our domestic manufacturing to meet our needs. That is no longer the case. This is a big problem for drone production as well.

 

In summary, the way ahead in drone warfare as I see it has been presented in these posts. Again, predicting the future is at best very inexact. While gathering the information to attempt this, I have run across many contradictions in the same documents. The real "data" is pretty questionable. I am now going to descend into some minutia that I thinks illustrates some procedural and organizational problems with drone use in Ukraine. IMO some of this illustrates "immutable truths" that are often ignored in Ukraine. They are ignored for various reasons. One of the reasons is that both sides in Ukraine aren't fighting the way they "want to" but rather the way they have to. Sometimes the reasons they "have to" are questionable.

---

Here is one example from [Ref 4]. Quoting the reference

"If enemy infantry approaches our positions, our [soldiers] open fire with machine guns and the enemy lies down, they no longer pay attention to our drones, and then we finish them off, we kill them," Pip says, describing one of the tactics commonly in use by his men.

IMO using drones to deal with pinned-down infantry is silly. A Ukrainian "heavy" drone can typically carry 8 or fewer 60 mm mortar shell sized "bombs". A drone launching team located directly behind the machine gun will require about two minutes of "transit time" to arrive at the target. If the launch point is further away than this "best case" it will take proportionally longer.  In US usage, the company of which the machine gun is part has three 60 mm mortars. A single mortar can deliver 30 round per minute for "awhile" and 20 round per minute thereafter until it is out of ammunition. The flight time is a matter of seconds.

 

The mortar is clearly the weapon of choice. This has been true since WW I. Both Russia and Ukraine have mortars. The problem is they are not organic to infantry companies. They are attached to battalion or higher levels. Their use is subject to all kinds of communication delays. The Russians know there is problem. From [CB-1]

The attachment of artillery formations to combined arms units is also discussed in Russian military journals covering the war. One article relates a case of an officer skipping the artillery commander altogether and sending his requests directly to battery commanders. This has resulted in articles explaining how a commander should designate and report targets directly to a battery commander. Another example reportedly involved ‘improvised mortar platoons’, which were temporary mortar teams established by a mechanised commander from regular infantry. This methodology provided immediately available fire support from three mortars that did not require additional clearance or process to fire.

I wonder where he got that idea?

 

Both Russia and Ukraine have elected to attach their "drone warfare" special units at the battalion level and control them like they do artillery. Ukraine is undoubtedly more flexible than Russia is but both suffer from organizational delays. In US service the FIST operating at the company level executes the requests to the battery commanders. It is much faster than the "Russian" way. As previously stated I hope the command and control of drones in US service is pushed to the company level. Battalion will have its own dedicated units under its direct control, as it does with artillery.

---

Quoting once again from [Ref 4]

But he also says it's clear remote controlled weapons won't be enough to stop the much larger Russian army entirely.
"We try to take out as many [Russians] as we can before they reach our positions," Yuri says. "But sometimes they're just too many. It's impossible to hold."

This fact is an immutable consequence of commercial drones inability to deliver an adequate "weight of fire". In a notional conflict between two forces of company size initially 3 km apart, one armed only with drones and another that is "regular infantry", the infantry will win every time, quickly. In "real life" no such battle will ever be fought, but the point must be understood. My future prediction is that the lack of mass problem for drones will be addressed as much as possible. However, in many cases drones aren't the best way to deliver massed fires. That isn't their "thing". 

---

Thanks to BC for his gifted article. [NYT-1]  has lots of interesting information. One very interesting quote

The proliferation of drones inevitably gave rise to widespread electronic warfare — tools to jam the radio signals that most drones need to fly.
Tens of thousands of jammers have been littered across Ukraine’s front lines to disable drones, cluttering the electromagnetic spectrum that also enables GPS, military communications, navigation, radar and surveillance.

If we are conservative and and accept that there are 10,000 total jammers littered across the front lines of Ukraine then 5000 of them are Ukrainian. The line of contact in Ukraine is about 1,300 km long. Therefore there is one jammer every 260 meters. To be fair, they are not all drone jammers and they are not uniformly distributed. However, the clearly puts to bed any notion that both sides lack the ability to jam along the entire line of contact, confirming what was previously conjectured in these posts.

---

From the same article

Ukrainian engineers have built drones and robots with “frequency hoppers,” automatically switching from one radio signal to another to evade jammers.

As we know, all the commercially available drones are "frequency hoppers". We also know that that is ineffective against jamming in Ukraine. The frequency range is small enough barrage noise is possible, although I suspect multi-tone is being used because the channel center frequencies are known. The statement IMO reflects a serious lack of understanding. What Ukraine HAS done is modify the hopping frequencies. They have also developed a "rota" for moving frequency bands between 2.4, 5.8, and the 5.2 bands. That is all the commercial drones can do.

---

That is all I have. Well, not really. I have many very interesting links. I am however out of gas and this is way too long already

[fullmetal]

I will read Goose's treatise soon, but sources are saying that the US has cut off targeting data for HIMARS in Ukraine.

[fullmetal]

I will read Goose's treatise soon, but sources are saying that the US has cut off targeting data for HIMARS in Ukraine.

[dabigv13]

From what I have read, Ukraine can still use HIMARS, but will need to develop their own targeting information. 

See below-

https://x.com/John_A_Ridge/status/1897344452974514666

https://x.com/yarotrof/status/1897346414960861462

[dabigv13]

From what I have read, Ukraine can still use HIMARS, but will need to develop their own targeting information. 

See below-

https://x.com/John_A_Ridge/status/1897344452974514666

https://x.com/yarotrof/status/1897346414960861462

[BostonCard]

Thanks, Goose, for your thorough discussion, which was super informative.  It does seem like we are seeing a lot of people jumping the gun on the future of warfare, assuming that drone swarms will overwhelm defenses (this was in the context of a future war in the Pacific).  Notwithstanding the questions of jamming and communication range someone pointed out that at the end of the day, you are trying to propel an explosive charge a distance.  The greater the warhead, and the greater the distance, the more propulsion you will need.  This is a problem for cheap and even not-so-cheap drones, and that missiles have been largely optimized to maximize the size and distance a warhead is delivered in a way that drones generally cannot be.

Anyways, I think you are single-handedly keeping this thread from being locked.

BC

[BostonCard]

Thanks, Goose, for your thorough discussion, which was super informative.  It does seem like we are seeing a lot of people jumping the gun on the future of warfare, assuming that drone swarms will overwhelm defenses (this was in the context of a future war in the Pacific).  Notwithstanding the questions of jamming and communication range someone pointed out that at the end of the day, you are trying to propel an explosive charge a distance.  The greater the warhead, and the greater the distance, the more propulsion you will need.  This is a problem for cheap and even not-so-cheap drones, and that missiles have been largely optimized to maximize the size and distance a warhead is delivered in a way that drones generally cannot be.

Anyways, I think you are single-handedly keeping this thread from being locked.

BC

[paloalto]

Thanks Goose for the drone posts.  About eight years ago my company did some R & D work for Raytheon on a variant of their “Coyote” drone.  We made electrical cable assemblies with composite, micro-miniature connectors for testing and also fiber optic cables for evaluation.  

Even back then Raytheon was really big on using COTS components but it always seemed like new programs needed some special features or size requirements that weren’t available on off-the-shelf products.

[paloalto]

Thanks Goose for the drone posts.  About eight years ago my company did some R & D work for Raytheon on a variant of their “Coyote” drone.  We made electrical cable assemblies with composite, micro-miniature connectors for testing and also fiber optic cables for evaluation.  

Even back then Raytheon was really big on using COTS components but it always seemed like new programs needed some special features or size requirements that weren’t available on off-the-shelf products.

[Mick]

Story on Ukrainians assembling their weapons locally using foreign parts. Still bugs in the process, but seems effective.

A NATO ally figured out the trick to getting weapons to Ukraine cheaper and faster. It could be critical.

[Mick]

Story on Ukrainians assembling their weapons locally using foreign parts. Still bugs in the process, but seems effective.

A NATO ally figured out the trick to getting weapons to Ukraine cheaper and faster. It could be critical.

[Goose]

Thanks, Goose, for your thorough discussion, which was super informative.  It does seem like we are seeing a lot of people jumping the gun on the future of warfare, assuming that drone swarms will overwhelm defenses (this was in the context of a future war in the Pacific).  Notwithstanding the questions of jamming and communication range someone pointed out that at the end of the day, you are trying to propel an explosive charge a distance.  The greater the warhead, and the greater the distance, the more propulsion you will need.  This is a problem for cheap and even not-so-cheap drones, and that missiles have been largely optimized to maximize the size and distance a warhead is delivered in a way that drones generally cannot be.

As is often the case BC you said more in a few words than I did with many. I would only add "you are trying to propel an explosive charge a distance quickly."

[Goose]

Thanks, Goose, for your thorough discussion, which was super informative.  It does seem like we are seeing a lot of people jumping the gun on the future of warfare, assuming that drone swarms will overwhelm defenses (this was in the context of a future war in the Pacific).  Notwithstanding the questions of jamming and communication range someone pointed out that at the end of the day, you are trying to propel an explosive charge a distance.  The greater the warhead, and the greater the distance, the more propulsion you will need.  This is a problem for cheap and even not-so-cheap drones, and that missiles have been largely optimized to maximize the size and distance a warhead is delivered in a way that drones generally cannot be.

As is often the case BC you said more in a few words than I did with many. I would only add "you are trying to propel an explosive charge a distance quickly."

[M T]

I haven't made it through all of Goose's posts on drones, so maybe he covered this.

The points raised about radio range of a drone from a ground based antenna would seem to be easily.overcome with a repeater drone (a tag team of them) flying high above the operator on the ground, communicating to the operator with a fiber.  Potentially, they could even have copper, and get power over the wire (I don't know that the benefit of the power overcomes the negative of the weight of the wire)  (Actually, instead of "repeater", it is more like a remote antenna.)

Mostly, they would be dark, receiving video from the attacking/recon drones and delivering it to the operator  Only when commands need to be given would they transmit. (I don't know whether the piloting commands are continuous or not)

Of course a problem would be that as an emitter such a repeater drone would be vulnerable to some sort of HARM device.  But, if you have a swarm of 20 of them, they only need a duty cycle of 5% and could be continuously changing positions.

[M T]

I haven't made it through all of Goose's posts on drones, so maybe he covered this.

The points raised about radio range of a drone from a ground based antenna would seem to be easily.overcome with a repeater drone (a tag team of them) flying high above the operator on the ground, communicating to the operator with a fiber.  Potentially, they could even have copper, and get power over the wire (I don't know that the benefit of the power overcomes the negative of the weight of the wire)  (Actually, instead of "repeater", it is more like a remote antenna.)

Mostly, they would be dark, receiving video from the attacking/recon drones and delivering it to the operator  Only when commands need to be given would they transmit. (I don't know whether the piloting commands are continuous or not)

Of course a problem would be that as an emitter such a repeater drone would be vulnerable to some sort of HARM device.  But, if you have a swarm of 20 of them, they only need a duty cycle of 5% and could be continuously changing positions.

[Goose]

I haven't made it through all of Goose's posts on drones, so maybe he covered this.

The points raised about radio range of a drone from a ground based antenna would seem to be easily.overcome with a repeater drone (a tag team of them) flying high above the operator on the ground, communicating to the operator with a fiber.  Potentially, they could even have copper, and get power over the wire (I don't know that the benefit of the power overcomes the negative of the weight of the wire)  (Actually, instead of "repeater", it is more like a remote antenna.)

Mostly, they would be dark, receiving video from the attacking/recon drones and delivering it to the operator  Only when commands need to be given would they transmit. (I don't know whether the piloting commands are continuous or not)

Of course a problem would be that as an emitter such a repeater drone would be vulnerable to some sort of HARM device.  But, if you have a swarm of 20 of them, they only need a duty cycle of 5% and could be continuously changing positions.

That is covered in the documents. The Russians do this all the time with a repeater-hunter-killer stack, often simplified to make the hunter also be the repeater. Ukraine counters by using an anti-drone drone to destroy the repeater. Lots of moving parts in this approach, so adding and managing multiple repeaters is probably too hard. Using "aerostat-like" tethered repeaters has not caught on in Ukraine. I am guessing they are too easy meat for anti-drone drones because they can't evade. It would indeed work though.

[Goose]

I haven't made it through all of Goose's posts on drones, so maybe he covered this.

The points raised about radio range of a drone from a ground based antenna would seem to be easily.overcome with a repeater drone (a tag team of them) flying high above the operator on the ground, communicating to the operator with a fiber.  Potentially, they could even have copper, and get power over the wire (I don't know that the benefit of the power overcomes the negative of the weight of the wire)  (Actually, instead of "repeater", it is more like a remote antenna.)

Mostly, they would be dark, receiving video from the attacking/recon drones and delivering it to the operator  Only when commands need to be given would they transmit. (I don't know whether the piloting commands are continuous or not)

Of course a problem would be that as an emitter such a repeater drone would be vulnerable to some sort of HARM device.  But, if you have a swarm of 20 of them, they only need a duty cycle of 5% and could be continuously changing positions.

That is covered in the documents. The Russians do this all the time with a repeater-hunter-killer stack, often simplified to make the hunter also be the repeater. Ukraine counters by using an anti-drone drone to destroy the repeater. Lots of moving parts in this approach, so adding and managing multiple repeaters is probably too hard. Using "aerostat-like" tethered repeaters has not caught on in Ukraine. I am guessing they are too easy meat for anti-drone drones because they can't evade. It would indeed work though.

[newguy]

Ukraine may be getting a new influx of Ukrainian citizens.  There's a program called 'Humanitarian Parole' which allows citizens from various countries, including Ukraine, to enter and stay in the United States.  It's possible that this will be revoked, but that hasn't been decided yet.

If the program is revoked, then it's doubtful that most of the Ukrainians would return to Ukraine if other countries will accept them. But some of the 240,000 would return there, for various reasons.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-p...025-03-06/

[newguy]

Ukraine may be getting a new influx of Ukrainian citizens.  There's a program called 'Humanitarian Parole' which allows citizens from various countries, including Ukraine, to enter and stay in the United States.  It's possible that this will be revoked, but that hasn't been decided yet.

If the program is revoked, then it's doubtful that most of the Ukrainians would return to Ukraine if other countries will accept them. But some of the 240,000 would return there, for various reasons.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-p...025-03-06/

[dabigv13]

Ukraine has had successful counterattacks recently. Chasiv Yar and Pokrovsk were both at risk of falling if Russian advances continued, but Ukraine seems to have stabilized and retaken some territory in both locations. 

Ukrainian forces are retaking more and more villages around Pokrovsk. Russian channels report of problems in manpower and Russian glide bombs being jammed.

Together with reports coming from Toretsk, Chasiv Yar and Kupyansk, where Ukrainian forces are gradually pushing back Russian troops, this seems to be not a local outlier, but a general development.

https://x.com/Tendar/status/1897663041589690831

Ukraine still holding on in Kursk as well.

Important to remember that while Ukraine has been through a lot, they aren't on the edge of crumbling and desperate for any possible deal.

[dabigv13]

Ukraine has had successful counterattacks recently. Chasiv Yar and Pokrovsk were both at risk of falling if Russian advances continued, but Ukraine seems to have stabilized and retaken some territory in both locations. 

Ukrainian forces are retaking more and more villages around Pokrovsk. Russian channels report of problems in manpower and Russian glide bombs being jammed.

Together with reports coming from Toretsk, Chasiv Yar and Kupyansk, where Ukrainian forces are gradually pushing back Russian troops, this seems to be not a local outlier, but a general development.

https://x.com/Tendar/status/1897663041589690831

Ukraine still holding on in Kursk as well.

Important to remember that while Ukraine has been through a lot, they aren't on the edge of crumbling and desperate for any possible deal.