Ukraine’s drone army will play a crucial role in its counteroffensive
Drones improve reconnaissance, aiming artillery. They’re also destroying millions' worth of Russian equipment
Chinese made Mavic 3 drones, and other types of drones have been more important in this war than ever before. Drones also allow more effective operations inside Ukraine, even at night. These tools help Ukraine to identify movement and to keep a watchful eye on Russia’s artillery movement.
Recently, I’ve talked about Russia’s problems with its fixed winged assets.
The impact of drones has been significant, and it is often understated. I will give a frontline update tomorrow. There have been some developments in the past couple of days.
Honestly, I think drone warfare is the future of warfare
I’m surprised that we don’t see more countries spend more money on these kinds of drones. For mid sized military budgets, this might be much more cost-effective than spending money on big and expensive warships and carriers. Advanced drones coupled with AI could soon change the very nature of warfare. Those nations that are too slow to realize this will find themselves on the losing side of many future conflicts.
Drones are the future and the US is taking steps already
There is no point in risking the lives of too many young people by employing more drones with combined arms. Most drones will be combined with long-distance and middle range artillery. Humans will still play a role but not the same kind of role as computers and machines will play in the warfare of the 21st century.
Specific drones can be launched from a carrier. Warships today often function as floating missile batteries. These ships are used both to fire cruise missiles at land targets and to fire interceptors in defense of carriers. The US defense bugets allocate billions on drone advancement. So the future is already here.
Drones are a great way for Ukraine to minimize and eventually eliminate the black sea fleet
Many of you have seen the footage of various attacks at sea in the last 7 months. I’m confident that those are test runs for a large offensive to finally stop Russia’s missile terrorism with its seaborne cruise missiles. These drones will save lives!
The cost to the Ukrainian armed forces to build one of the naval drones is at around $ 10k - $15k. So, sending drones to Ukraine is a cost-effective way to help protect Ukrainian soldiers and civilians from harm. Chinese made Mavic 3 drones are even much cheaper than that.
Drones are flying scouts and an artillery multiplier — the one thing where the Russians still got an edge
With a sufficient enough quantity of these drones, that might change soon. Dropping grenades is probably even more effective than using the drone for artillery spotting. Especially when we’re talking about those anti-armor cluster type munitions. If you can spot the target, you might as well drop a grenade on it with pinpoint accuracy. Swarms of grenade dropping drones will rewrite the rules of this war and of many wars in the future.
When you see what it takes for a squad to overtake a treelined position on foot for just a couple of guys in a hole, the drone drops definitely exceed in value for effectiveness of taking those positions out with minimal exposure for the UA soldiers.
Ukraine has likely utilized Chinese Mavic 3s drones to drop grenades on Russian trenches and hardware with devastating effects.
There have been a few videos that seemed to indicate that some of these drones are even capable of multiple drops. These drones were likely from those large agriculture type drones (I think they have 6 or 8 rotors). The problem with the really big drones is that they are easier targets (for AK-47s) unless they fly really high. If the drones fly really high, though, this makes them easy targets for anti-aircraft systems. It’s very hard to beat those Mavic-3s. They have the perfect size to carry one grenade for a good distance. I’m guessing Mavic-3s are what we’re seeing mostly in those drone grenade dropping videos.
Ukraine’s ingenuity, wisdom, hard work, intelligence, strength, and adaptability are inspiring
The psychological warfare these drones wage upon Russian soldiers is equal to the psychological effect allied soldiers had from the sirens of the Stuka dive bombers. The buzzing sound of a drone is likely one of their biggest fears. A pro Ukrainian chinese onlooker on Reddit had this to say about the drones.
The only positive thing for me as a pro-Ukr Chinese look at this war, at least my country is mass producing shitton of these drones and most of them will end up helping Ukraine. [it’s not much but it’s something I guess]
These drones' main use isn’t combat, though
Drones are best used for reconnaissance. Dropping bombs on enemy targets is a more frequent secondary use. I have already mentioned the profound impact on the Russian morale. Drones are almost always mentioned by Russian soldiers when speaking on the phone to their relatives at home. Scaring 500 Russian soldiers with twenty drones hovering over their fox holes day and night is far more effective to wear down Russian morale compared to taking out a tank.
Summary and conclusion
In my opinion, this is the future of warfare right here. Our enormous systems sometimes cost billions of dollars a copy (looking at you B-21), but swarms of low-cost systems are designed to overwhelm and saturate targets. Drone swarm warfare is not a reality just yet, though. Ukraine has utilized drones to great effect. For example, a Bayractar drone helped take out the Moskva missile cruiser.
Engineers will sooner or later figure out autonomous flight with drones and how we can link them into one formation with automatic ballistics calculation
Then, we can expect to see swarms of drones dropping ordnance simultaneously into places designated by an operator by tapping points on a map. So far, we don’t have this tech yet. But this will happen much faster than we think.
Ukraine’s actual drone army, for the most part, are commercial civilian drones from a Chinese manufacturer
All of them need things such as replacing built-in antennas, hot-wiring secondary batteries, etc., to be used effectively. Additionally, the drones in the photos above are new and thus have current firmware versions. These drones can’t be downgraded and are completely open to aeroscopes.
These aeroscopes are sold by the Chinese company DJI. This company is also the producer of the Mavic 3 drone. Russia then uses these aeroscopes to counter and destroy these same drones the UAF uses against them. In turn, Ukraine has to buy more drones from DJI to replace them.
One of the biggest winners appears to be DJI in monetary terms. Morally, this is, of course, highly questionable.
It’s quite unfortunate that UAF still needs to rely on these civilian products used for military purposes. These drones can save many lives, but only if Ukraine gets them in sufficient enough quantities.
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Further reading
