Drone Technology in Ukraine - Automation, Lethality & The (Scary) Development Race

in early 2023 I covered the evolution of

small drones in Ukraine when the

technology level and production rates

were already scary but now just over a

year later the leaps in quantity and

capability have been immense production

targets have ramped up in some cases by

more than an order of magnitude and even

as the quantities have ramped up the

technology involved has continued to get

better and with no sign of that

Breakneck engineering and Industrial

Evolution slowing down I think it's time

to ask some important questions how are

we seeing these small uas of in Ukraine

what impact are they having on the War

and what might it mean for the rest of

the world when this technology and the

tactics developed for its use inevitably

start to go Global to do that as normal

I'm going to break this up into a couple

of segments we'll start with an overview

of some of the most common types of

drones that are operating in Ukraine and

how they may be getting better looking

at how some of these drones are evolving

in terms of their senses range targeting

lethality or countermeasure resistance

then we'll go to the second scary part

of the picture because drones AR just

getting deadly they're getting more

common so I'll cover some elements

relating to production estimates and

techniques before closing with a zoomed

out look at just how impactful these

systems have been and what their role

might be going forward some quick

caveats then in terms of scope and

content firstly while there are a huge

array of drones out there to keep things

manageable I'm going to focus just on

smaller unmanned aerial systems that are

used in attack rols so bomber drones

fpvs loading Munitions and oneway attack

systems I've talked about dedicated ISR

drones like the Russian orine before so

they won't be in this episode nor will

Naval or ground drones that very much

deserve their own billing I also need to

flag that drone technology and the

tactics for using the me Ukraine are

evolving incredibly quickly and some of

the very latest Technical and tactical

developments are usually fairly

sensitive so I'll generally try and

focus on examples that are at least a

month or two old because I want to put

together a high level picture here not a

how-to guide for example on how to build

a more Jam resistant fpv drone okay so

let's do some quick categorization of

the sort of drones we're going to be

talking about today ranging from small

ISR platforms all the way through to

longrange oneway attack drones your

smallest ISR drones are usually going to

be quadcopters sometimes octocopters

think you're off-the-shelf DJI mavic 3

or equivalent for example and while

they're probably intended to be reusable

they are cheap relatively short ranged

and a lot of times they're being used

for things like increasing situational

awareness identifying attacks calling in

and correcting artillery and giving even

relatively low Echelon units the ability

to metaphorically see what is on the

other side of the next Hill weaponize

one of those quad octocopters and you

might have yourself what are sometimes

called drop drones or bomber drones

these keep the same fundamental

characteristics as the base system so

intended reusability for example but

they add a small payload to be used in

attacks for example knocking out

disabled Vehicles by dropping grenades

through hatches there is of course a

massive variation in scale and cost here

ranging from off-the-shelf hobby drones

dropping hand grenades all the way

through to purpose-built monsters

capable of cting around artillery

projectiles but the basic concept is

broadly similar fpvs or firstperson view

drones are also generally quadcopters

but with a different piloting method

these originally developed out of racing

drones so compared to the more

reconnaissance focused quadcopters they

tend to be much faster require a lot

more in terms of pilot skill and are

also often a lot cheaper a lot of these

systems tend to be intended as

single-use attack options against

tactical targets so you're still

operating in a relatively close range

bracket 10 km for example is a pretty

longrange FP PV strike but you're

probably doing it with a lower cost a

bigger boom single use only although as

always those points should come with a

giant asterisk cuz there are fpv designs

out there that are designed to operate

as reusable bombers Laing Munitions in

Ukraine like the Russian Lancet tend to

represent a bit of a step change from

the fpvs the designs are usually fixed

Wing not quad rotors so optimized for

Speed and range and are often going to

be used by specialized teams at ranges

of tens of kilometers to hit point

valuable targets Lance it in some of its

Ukrainian equivalent for example are

perhaps best known for their counter

battery role hunting enemy artillery

systems that aren't exactly going to be

parked in a Frontline trench finally you

have longrange strike or one-way attack

drones here you're still mostly looking

at fix wi designs that are intended to

be single use only but the range payload

and intended target type are all going

to be different we're talking ranges in

the hundreds of kilom not tens of kilom

targets that are operational or

strategic in nature think fuel

refineries or air bases for example and

usually a larger payload to reflect both

the different Target type and the fact

you're probably not going to get

pinpoint accuracy the Iranian design

shed 136 probably fits into this

category along with a number of

Ukrainian designs and you can see them

as representing a sort of bridge between

the other cheaper drone systems and

traditional long-range Munitions like

cruise missiles compared to a cruise

missile the oneway attack drones we've

seen so far tend to be much slower have

smaller warheads and be missing a lot of

the technological bells and whistles but

they also tend to be available at a

fraction of the cost while being much

easier to produce

okay so now we do get to the scary part

where we start talking about how these

systems which are increasingly

everywhere and very affordable are also

continuously evolving and have become

more dangerous even just over the last

year but in order to give an overview of

some of the factors that might be making

drones in Ukraine more dangerous over

time what I thought I'd do is take a

concept that we've looked at before the

survivability onion and flip it around a

little the survivability onion usually

just describes all the things that have

to go wrong sequentially for you to get

killed in your vehicle on the

battlefield you have to be somewhere the

enemy is a looking and B can reach and

then you have to be seen identified

targeted and hit by something that is

lethal enough to penetrate your defenses

and do significant damage so in order to

identify some changing Trends in drone

lethality we're going to take that same

concept and sort of flip it around

instead of a survivability onion we have

a much tastier and more traditionally

Australian lethality lamington a layered

list of the characteristics your system

is going to need to maximize the

probability of a kill you need the

sensors to see a Target the range to

reach it a guidance and targeting system

to hit it and enough of a payload to

make sure they know that they've been

hit and of course you want your system

to be as resistant as possible to

whatever countermeasures or defenses

your opponent might be using to maximize

the probability that you make it to the

end of that process we've observed

technical changes in Ukraine that impact

each layer of the lamington so now what

I'll do is go through some of them in

sequence okay so step one for our

hypothetical drone system is finding a

Target

and here the war in Ukraine has already

witnessed some pretty significant

technical improvements particularly when

it comes to night operations while we

talk about flocks of drones being an

omnipresent fact of life on the

Ukrainian Battlefield the reality is

it's actually a lot of conditions during

which a lot of the systems out there

just can't operate effectively bad

weather can be even more of a problem

for a lot of uas than it is for manned

aircraft and while already in 2022 a lot

of larger and more expensive drones were

equipped with things like thermal and

Night Vision Optics for the vast

majority of fpvs and quad rotors out

there the sensor Suite on board which

would often be just a simple visual

camera didn't operate effectively in low

light or nighttime conditions indeed

what you get with a lot of fpv drones is

visual Spectrum only just like the Mark

1 eyeball only with resolution levels

reminiscent of the Xbox 360 and a level

of grain and interference that wouldn't

look out of place in an old analog TV

broadcast the obvious tactical

adaptation that that sort of limitation

imposed is that in environments where

the opponent has the ability to fly a

lot of these drones we have seen reports

of Russian and Ukrainian forces doing

for example a lot of their low-level

Logistics and resupply operations and

maneuver at night now of course there

were still small drones and ISR assets

that could see you even if you're

maneuvering after Sundown as well as the

quite Advanced sensor packages on things

like the tb2 Drone smaller tactical

level uas also had some night vision

capability off the shelf DJI drones for

example have some thermal options the

30t and the 3T being some of the most

common and that was fine if your goal

was to see enemy units maneuvering at

night and do something like call in

artillery on them because unguided

artillery shells don't tend to care

about the ambient light level when

they're addressed to a particular set of

grid coordinates but that Arrangement

brings with it two limitations one if

there is a target type that you would

rather engage with something like an fpv

as opposed to artillery perhaps for

example because you're short of

artillery ammunition that might be

difficult to do when the fpvs can't fly

at night and so you either inefficiently

task artillery to deal with the problem

or you let the Target go the other

limitation was that thermal camera

equipped drones were generally just much

more expensive than those that didn't

have that level of bling which means

both a probably not everyone gets to

have one and secondly if you want to

make cheap fpvs thermal capable you

probably can't do it by adding those

sort of thermal optics otherwise your

cheap fpv isn't going to be so cheap

anymore make no mistake it'll probably

still be cheap compared to many of the

other weapon systems on the battlefield

but is it really the quintessential you

cran War experience if you're not tou

touching off multi-million dollar

armored vehicles with something that

cost a couple hundred bucks and yes I am

joking around a lot but it's mostly to

distract from the fact the next bits

kind of terrifying as we go into 2024 I

think there are plenty of signs that

more and more drone systems including

relatively cheap fpvs are going to be

capable of operating at times that were

previously at least if not safe maybe

safer we've seen more and more fpvs

Laing Munitions and drop drones that

integrate thermal cameras into their

designs and you also see some Innovative

approaches like the one mentioned on the

right there that's a post by the

Ukrainian organization wild Hornets that

manufacture fpv drones showing off what

they describe as quote an affordable

solution for nighttime fpv drone

operations end quote and when they say

that they don't mean it in the corporate

buzzword cense they actually mean

affordable as in $50 US per unit at

$11,000 for a thermal camera you might

be tripling the cost of your average fpv

at $50 per drone it's only a 10% premium

for giving something that ability to

operate at night and at that point

widescale adoption might start to make a

greater degree of sense so at the big

picture level what's changed and what

matters basically if in 2022 thermal or

night vision was an expensive rare

capability for small drones in 2024 the

direction of travel has been towards

cheaper and more common all else being

equal you should expect that means that

in the future there'll be more drones

out there capable of identifying more

targets during more hours of the day the

protection that nighttime provided which

was already highly imperfect is likely

to be reduced and the

military-industrial complex as a whole

will take one more gigantic step towards

what I can only assume is the ultimate

goal of equipping every drone with a

mechanical equivalent of the eye of

saour on for less than the cost of a

Happy Meal okay so increasingly drones

can solve problem number one of needing

to be able to see a Target what about

actually being able to reach it after

all just because I can see the top of a

mountain doesn't mean that I can climb

to it the war in Ukraine has arguably

really highlighted the value of weapons

with longer reach explo the limitations

of your opposing systems reach has also

been one way commonly used to protect

important targets when the Russians

pulled a lot of their ammunition depos

out of high Mars range that was a

range-based adaptation and while yes

there are some limitations on the

ability of forces to just move

everything of note out of opposing range

good luck shifting an oil refinery for

example particularly in the earlier

stage of the invasion a lot of the

cheaper drone systems out there had

comparatively limited endurance and

practical range now while there is

always a lot of uncertainty in this anal

Anis here I just want to flag there's

more uncertainty than normal but if

you've gone through some of the relevant

publicly released interviews and

reviewed a lot of the Drone footage out

there that has been geolocated from 2022

and 2023 one thing you might notice is

that as time has gone on the number of

attacks being launched by small uas like

fpvs at longer and longer ranges has

increased and we've seen that Trend

towards increased practical range play

out across a range of systems with

various effects for an fpv drone it

might mean being able to hear get

relatively short- range artillery

systems like the toss 1A I think we've

actually seen videos of two fpv strikes

on those systems in the last week at

time of recording but also they use in

more of an interdiction role where

you're attacking Supply trucks or

reinforcements trying to move up to the

front line meanwhile for a system like

lanet that started with a double digit

range enhancing it considerably might

mean putting longer range artillery

systems or things like Forward Air

strips that were out of range in range

with unfortunate results for example for

the occasional Ukrainian Mig 9 airframe

that's been caught out of position in a

sense when you see the range of these

systems improving often there are two

different elements that are moving

together first are the improvements to

the physical performance of the system

how far can it physically fly in that

sense the move from offthe shelf drones

to more dedicated military models has a

lot of potential compared to a civilian

version a military fpv might have a lot

of [ __ ] you don't strictly need stripped

off it doesn't need to last particularly

long or look particularly good so you

can make some economies there and to an

extent you can also always just add more

fuel tank Edge or battery problem two

then is trying to find a way to control

said drone when it does fly further here

again from a mechanical perspective

there are a couple of related but still

distinct problems firstly you just need

an underlying signal strength and

quality that lets you reach the

requisite distance especially in a

battlefield context where both sides are

likely to have ew guys roaming around

the place doing their best to do

selective violence to different parts of

the electromagnetic spectrum the second

problem is just maintaining signal line

of site with all due respect to the Flat

Earth is out there the Earth isn't so

all else being equal the further a drone

flies at low altitude the more likely it

is that a bunch of dirt Rock and burnt

out tanks get between it and the

transmitter and while you can compensate

to an extent by increasing altitude to

maintain line of sight longer that also

leads into a phenomena we've seen in

lots of videos of fpv and other drone

attacks where during the final terminal

phase of an attack the Drone Dives

towards the ground because that's where

the target is and you can pH ially see

the signs of the signal breaking up in

real time to an extent a good fpv

operator knows that disruption is likely

to come and can pre- aim the Drone so

it's going to make the hit regardless

but it's still a factor relating to

signal range and quality that can

significantly impact just how effective

these weapons practically are okay so

how do you then increase the range of

the signal well one approach we've seen

used is the employment of repeaters

where you might have one or more drones

that instead of carrying Munitions or a

sensor package is carrying a signal

repeater these then can form an aerial

relay noting there's no reason you have

to put them on the Drone you can have

groundbased repeaters as well but

putting them on the drones has an

obvious Advantage from a line of sight

perspective now instead of having to

send a signal to the Drone that's making

the attack you just have to reach the

repeater which then has to reach the

next repeater which can then reach the

Drone that is making the attack if you

think of this from a line of sight

perspective a repeater that is

relatively close to the side of the

attack is less likely all else being

equal to lose sight of an fpv making an

attack in its terminal phase and so an

operator might be more able to make

those last minute flight path

adjustments that lead to a hit rather

than a swing and a mess repeaters also

have potential implications for the

survivability of the Drone operators

themselves it means you might not need

the Drone operator metaphorically

kneeling in a Frontline trench in order

to get the maximum possible reach out of

their drones instead you can send the

repeaters forward while The Operators

are sheltered in a position further back

depending on the particular setup and

opposing capabilities you might still

have a signature problem from a

concealment perspective but you may

still end up being more survival as a

drone operator using this sort of system

another thing to note here is that the

repeater drone and the drones it's

controlling don't have to be the same

design in fact that might be a

disadvantage I feel like I can talk

about this case because it has a casual

732 th000 views on Twitter but recently

there was a case of a Russian serviceman

describing a situation where Ukrainian

drone operators allegedly attacked a

position using a larger so-called Queen

drone with a signal repeater controlling

a bunch of smaller cheaper fpvs the

possibilities of that sort of

configuration are obviously massive

because a lot of signals equipment you

could fit on a larger drone that you

can't and probably don't want to try and

fit onto an fpv a large enough quad or

octocopter for example might be able to

carry a satellite internet terminal

worth thousands of dollars which would

not exactly work from any perspective if

you tried it with an fpv plus of course

in this environment a lot of the most

expensive equipment is concentrated on a

reusable system the queen drone rather

than the Disposable systems the PVS that

are going and slamming into things if

the queen isn't shot down it can be

recalled and then sent out again with a

new wing of supporting attack drones

it's worth noting that this idea of a

queen system providing information and

controlling other systems in a flock is

not at all new You could argue that the

pairing of ISR drones and Laing

Munitions already to an extent fits that

definition with the ISR drones generally

carrying the more expensive sensor and

communication package and the loitering

munition carrying the Warhead and a mad

maxian desire to be witnessed back

during the Cold War for example the

Soviets introduced the p700 with the

highly creative NATO reporting name

shipwreck which had an attack mode where

a flight of missiles directed towards an

enemy Fleet would have a single missile

act as the Target designator that Queen

missile would climb to a higher altitude

so it could better see the potential

targets and communicate via data link

with the others that were hiding closer

to the deck if the queen perhaps owing

to its higher altitude and more exposed

position were shot down a drone would be

promoted to Queen Judy climb to altitude

and assume where the previous missile

left off here there was no physical

difference between the different p700 in

the Salvo but you still have a split

between attacking missiles and a

coordinating or Target designating

missile in order to help solve the

underlying line of side issues so we

probably shouldn't be that surprised

more than 2 years into the invasion of

Ukraine that this old concept is being

leveraged to deadly effect so in summary

and as always this is oversimplifying if

in the early stages of the war the norm

was for small drones to attack Frontline

targets and face significant line of

side issues in 2024 The Meta if you will

increasingly involves long range

interdicting strikes supported by

technologies that mean that range and

line of sight are no longer always as

much of an issue the reason that matters

is because it establishes more and more

tactical and operational use cases for

these systems at 2 or 3 km your anti-

armor fpvs can supplement the role of

something like a javelin missile but if

you start reaching out to 10 km you're

playing in territory that might normally

be serviced by indirect fire options

artillery and once you have loitering

Munitions that might be able to go out

70 km you're playing in territory that

was previously dominated by long range

Precision Rock and artillery and air

support that's obviously a factor on the

battlefield because you're putting more

and more of the Tactical and operational

depths at risk from systems that might

be able to economically engage targets

that aren't worth dumping an entire

battery of mrls on it may also raise

questions in some armies as to who

should control these longer range Fire

Systems because suddenly you might have

a cheap system whose Prim Target is

tanks and armored vehicles so you think

it belongs wherever the atgms go but it

has a range bracket that's much much

longer than your traditional platoon

level asset you have a family of weapon

systems here with the potential to for

lack of a better word democratize access

to longrange precision and it may not be

fully understood just yet what all the

implications of that are going to be but

moving on what all those changes have

basically done at this point has

increased the odds that our drones will

find a Target and then be able to get to

it the next step and a pretty important

one at that is actually hitting it even

though you can argue that drop drones

laery Munitions fpvs are all Precision