Drone Technology in Ukraine - Automation, Lethality & The (Scary) Development Race
Summary
TLDR无人机在乌克兰的演变和生产速度令人震惊,其数量和能力的飞跃式增长对战争产生了深远影响。本文深入探讨了乌克兰战场上小型无人机的类型、演变及其对全球未来战术的潜在影响。分析了无人机在目标识别、射程、制导、杀伤力和对抗电子战措施方面的进步,以及它们如何改变战场态势和战术部署。
Takeaways
- 🚀 乌克兰战场上无人机的快速进化和生产量的提升,已经对战争的各个方面产生了巨大影响。
- 🎯 无人机技术的进步,特别是在夜间作战和长距离打击方面的能力提升,使得战场更加透明且危险。
- 💣 无人机的有效载荷和打击能力的提升,使得它们能够对更多类型的目标造成有效伤害。
- 🔍 电子战和反无人机措施的不断演变,显示了无人机对抗技术的发展和战场适应性。
- 🛠️ 无人机的生产方式从商业现成产品到专门定制,反映了战争需求对工业生产的影响。
- 🔥 无人机在乌克兰战争中的战略影响虽然有争议,但它们的战术和作战价值不容忽视。
- 📈 乌克兰和俄罗斯都在大量投资无人机生产,这表明无人机在现代战争中的重要性日益增加。
- 🌐 无人机技术的发展和应用可能会对未来战场和军事战略产生深远的影响。
- 🤖 随着无人机自主性的提高,未来无人机可能在更多领域发挥作用,同时带来新的挑战。
- 🔄 无人机的广泛使用和生产可能会改变军事力量的平衡,特别是在资源有限的情况下。
- 🚨 无人机的威胁和防御将继续成为军事研究和发展的重点,随着技术的进步,新的对策和战术将不断出现。
Q & A
乌克兰战争中小型无人机的发展有哪些显著特点?
-乌克兰战争中小型无人机的发展特点包括数量和能力的大幅提升,生产目标在某些情况下增加了一个数量级以上。技术方面,无人机的感知、射程、目标定位、致命性和对抗措施的能力都在不断进化。
在乌克兰,小型无人机在战场上的影响有哪些?
-小型无人机在乌克兰战场上提高了战场透明度,增加了战场危险性。它们有助于定位目标和校正炮火,同时对于没有足够掩护或电子战保护的防御位置构成了持续威胁。
无人机在乌克兰战争中的战略影响如何?
-虽然无人机在乌克兰战争中提供了战术和操作层面的成功,但有观点认为它们在战略层面上的影响有限,未能决定战争的胜负。然而,如果考虑到如果没有无人机的投资,战争可能会有不同的发展,无人机可能在某种程度上改变了战争的平衡。
乌克兰和俄罗斯在无人机生产方面采取了哪些不同的模式?
-俄罗斯采取了自上而下的集中式生产模式,重点放在规模化生产少数系统上。乌克兰则采取了更加分散的生产模式,涉及多个小型生产商、志愿者组织和个人,这种模式可能更具有创新性和抗打击能力。
乌克兰计划在2024年生产多少无人机?
-乌克兰计划在2024年生产至少一百万架无人机,并可能进口同样数量的无人机。
无人机在乌克兰战争中扮演了哪些角色?
-无人机在乌克兰战争中扮演了多种角色,包括情报、监视和侦察(ISR),以及作为攻击平台使用。它们被用来发现目标、校正炮火、进行夜间操作,并且能够携带各种类型的载荷进行攻击。
乌克兰和俄罗斯如何应对无人机威胁?
-乌克兰和俄罗斯采取了多种措施应对无人机威胁,包括使用电子战设备干扰无人机的信号、部署专门的无人机猎人进行拦截,以及开发和使用反无人机系统。
无人机技术的未来发展趋势是什么?
-无人机技术的未来发展趋势可能包括更强的自主性、更高级的导航和目标识别系统、以及更多样化的有效载荷。同时,随着对抗无人机的需求增加,反无人机技术和战术也将继续发展。
无人机在乌克兰战争中的使用对全球军事战略有何影响?
-无人机在乌克兰战争中的使用展示了其在全球军事战略中的潜力,特别是在提供战场感知、进行远程打击和执行精确任务方面。这可能会促使其他国家加大对无人机技术的投资,并重新评估其防御系统以应对无人机威胁。
乌克兰战争中无人机的演变对未来战争有哪些启示?
-乌克兰战争中无人机的演变表明,无人机技术可以在实战中迅速发展和适应,对未来战争的启示包括对无人机的依赖可能会增加,同时需要更加重视反无人机能力的发展,以及在战略规划中考虑无人机的潜在影响。
Outlines
🤖 无人机在乌克兰的演变与影响
本段落讨论了自2023年初以来乌克兰小型无人机技术的快速发展,以及它们在数量和能力上的显著提升。作者提出了关于这些小型无人机在乌克兰战争中的作用及其对全球未来战争可能产生的影响的重要问题。
🚀 无人机技术的进步与危险性增加
这一段分析了无人机技术如何变得更加危险,尤其是在过去一年中。作者通过所谓的“致死洋葱”模型,讨论了无人机系统为了最大化杀伤概率所需具备的特性,包括传感器、射程、制导和目标系统、有效载荷以及对抗对手防御的能力。
🌙 夜间作战能力的提高
本段讨论了无人机在夜间作战能力方面的技术进步,特别是在乌克兰战场上的应用。作者指出,尽管小型无人机在低光或夜间条件下的操作存在限制,但随着技术的发展,越来越多的无人机开始集成热像摄像头,提高了夜间作战能力。
📈 无人机射程的增加
这一段分析了无人机在射程方面的进步,特别是在乌克兰战争中。作者指出,随着时间的推移,小型无人机在更长的射程上发动攻击的能力有所提高,这得益于物理性能的提升和控制技术的进步,例如使用中继器来扩展信号范围。
🎯 无人机目标识别与制导的改进
本段讨论了无人机在目标识别和制导方面的技术进步,包括使用机器辅助进行目标识别和半自主/全自主的终端制导。作者分析了这些技术的优势和潜在弱点,并讨论了它们对未来战争的影响。
💣 无人机有效载荷的演变
这一段探讨了无人机有效载荷的演变,以及这对无人机在战场上的作用和目标选择性的影响。作者指出,有效载荷的增加不仅提高了无人机对特定目标的破坏力,还扩大了无人机可以执行的任务类型和目标范围。
🛠️ 无人机专用弹药的发展
本段讨论了为无人机操作专门设计的弹药的发展,以及这些弹药相对于传统弹药的优势和劣势。作者指出,专门的无人机弹药可能会提高操作的安全性和可靠性,同时提供更大的破坏力。
🔄 电子战与无人机对抗的演变
这一段分析了电子战在乌克兰战争中如何被用来对抗无人机,以及无人机制造商如何通过技术进步来抵抗这些对抗措施。作者讨论了电子战的频率变化、导航方法的改进以及其他古典导航方法的应用。
🏭 无人机生产的演变与挑战
本段讨论了乌克兰和俄罗斯在无人机生产方面的演变,包括从商业现成产品到定制系统的转变,以及这些生产方法对战争的影响。作者指出,无人机生产的增加对乌克兰和俄罗斯的战争努力至关重要。
🔍 无人机在乌克兰战争中的实际影响
这一段探讨了无人机在乌克兰战争中的实际影响,包括它们在战术、操作和战略层面的作用。作者分析了无人机如何改变了战场的透明度和危险性,并对无人机在未来冲突中的潜在影响提出了思考。
📊 无人机技术的未来趋势与挑战
最后一段总结了无人机技术的未来趋势,包括生产能力、技术进步和战术应用的潜在变化。作者强调了无人机技术的不可逆性,以及它对未来战争的深远影响。同时,作者还提到了频道更新和其他相关内容。
Mindmap
Keywords
💡无人机
💡电子战
💡自主导航
💡有效载荷
💡生产能力
💡战术和战略影响
💡反无人机系统
💡军事工业复合体
💡ISR
💡自主或半自主制导
Highlights
2023年初,乌克兰小型无人机的技术水平和生产速度已经相当惊人,仅仅一年多之后,无论是数量还是能力都有了巨大的飞跃。
乌克兰战场上小型无人机的使用已经改变了战场的透明度和危险性,为双方提供了前所未有的战场感知能力。
无人机的种类繁多,从小型的ISR平台到远程一次性攻击无人机,它们的功能和成本差异巨大。
无人机技术,尤其是针对乌克兰的战术发展迅速,一些最新的技术和战术发展通常比较敏感,因此本文主要关注一两个月前的例子。
无人机的传感器能力正在提升,尤其是在夜间操作方面,这使得无人机在更多时间段内能够识别目标。
无人机的射程正在增加,这使得它们能够打击更远的目标,扩展了无人机的战术和操作用途。
无人机的自主性正在提高,一些系统开始采用半自主或完全自主的导航和目标识别技术。
无人机的有效载荷正在变得更大和更专业,这使得它们能够对更多种类的目标造成更大的伤害。
乌克兰和俄罗斯都在大量投资无人机生产,这导致了无人机数量的大幅增加,改变了战场的平衡。
尽管无人机在战术和操作上取得了成功,但它们在战略层面上的影响仍有争议,一些观点认为无人机并未改变乌克兰战争的结果。
无人机的部署和使用正在不断进化,乌克兰的经验可能会对未来的战场无人机系统和战术产生深远影响。
无人机的生产和部署模式正在从简单的商业现成产品改装转向更加定制化和专业化的设计。
电子战是对抗无人机的主要手段之一,但无人机制造商也在不断开发新的抗干扰技术。
乌克兰和俄罗斯都在努力提高无人机的生产能力,预计未来无人机的数量和质量还将继续增长。
无人机在乌克兰战争中的作用不容忽视,它们已经成为战场上不可或缺的一部分,并将继续影响战争的走向。
无人机的发展和应用提出了新的挑战,包括如何防御这些系统以及如何适应它们带来的战场变化。
无人机技术的发展可能会迫使军事战略和战术发生根本性的变化,特别是在对抗同等级别的对手时。
Transcripts
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
weapon systems they all after all have
guidance systems and tend to go after
Point targets even if the guidance
system in question is often just the
brain of the pilot of the controls it's
important to understand that in practice
the evidence suggests that these things
do miss a lot and it's an area where I
think it's pretty logical to assume that
the video evidence available to us is
probably a bit skewed sure we do get
videos of drones and Laing Munitions
appear to miss their targets fairly
often just like people on social media
who might love to post images of the
Fast Car the fancy vacation or gour
dinners while conveniently leaving out
images of their credit card statements
in drone Warfare it's the operator who
holds the footage and makes the decision
on releasing it and so you probably get
to see the $500 drone slamming into the
$20 million air defense system or
totaling a t9m and what you don't see
are the drones that Miss or are jammed
out or miss or suffer technical failure
or Miss remembering of course that a lot
of these systems are hard to fly built
by the lowest bidder and often provide
the operator with a solid potato tier
video feed one Trend we've seen which
might have an impact on that particular
problem is the increased utilization of
machine assistance for Target
identification and also for guidance
these sort of visual targeting solutions
for example might include a system that
looks at a video feed and flags things
that might be a potential Target Andor
once the target has been selected and
designated by a human operator allow the
weapon to guide in without further Human
Assistance Russian sources for example
often claim that the latest versions of
the Lance at loitering munition are
capable of autonomous or semi-autonomous
guidance basically the system can look
at its surroundings identify things that
look like a tank an infantry fighting
vehicle or a piece of farm machinery say
hey I think that thing over there might
be a Target and then depending on the
exact autonomy settings the information
available is very vague at the moment
either with or without a thumbs up from
a human go in and engage one of those
targets
the exact answer to the question of how
autonomous systems like lan can be is
still very much contested you have
claims that run the full gamut from the
system is just highlighting potential
targets to give the operator a clue as
to what he might want to fly into all
the way up to this is an AI powered
super drone that can recognize the
Ukrainian tank that the human eye would
never spot and then autonomously guide
to it but while there's a lot of debate
about how autonomous exactly systems
like Lancet are we do know we've seen a
significant amount of footage from
Russian sources of lanced attacks being
launched with some sort of mechanical
assistance appearing to be in play at
the moment at least the evidence seems
to suggest that the systems that are out
there including the one on laner isn't
exactly perfect think more 10% Skynet
50% chat GPT and 30% that New Zealand
Supermarket AI that suggested people put
mosquito repellent in their potatoes or
turpentine in their French toast okay so
to make this just a little bit more real
what I want to do is now dissect some
Stills taken from the footage of a
recently documented Russian Lancet
attack this is footage released by a
pro-russian source that appears to show
at least some autonomous targeting
assistance being used and I think it
demonstrates both the strengths and also
potential weaknesses of systems like
this at least right now we'll start with
this image I have on screen there from
relatively early in the video and while
those of you on mobile phone screens
might be struggling a little bit I think
most humans would be able to pass this
image pretty successfully that large
object at the end of the treadmarks that
looks awfully like an armored vehicle is
in fact an armored vehicle I don't know
about you but for me it was the turret
and Main gun system that kind of gave it
away all of the stuff immediately
surrounding the vehicle including the
bit I've highlighted for reasons which
will become obvious in a moment lack
those same obvious visually identifying
features and are probably not the
primary target for this sort of system
next we have a still seemingly taken
from the sequence where the loitering
munition is approaching the potential
Target at this point you see a green
bounding box appear on the right hand
side of the screen which suggests that
maybe the automated targeting system is
identifying another potential Target off
to the right but the munition still
potentially under operator control
continues towards that original Target
we were just looking at a top down image
of before and indeed you can see that
Central Crosshair over that Target at
this point and as the munition
approaches that Target the expectation
is probably that the automated system
will kick in identify the Target and
assist with the Final Approach so of
course the munition races towards the
Target and then proceeds to not identify
it instead you can see it throws a
bounding box around what appears to be
an object that the potential Target is
hiding behind we can go into theories
about why that misidentification may
have been made but the fact is it
happens with negative consequences for
the engagement basically the machine was
fed a real life version of one of those
visual capture problems and it appears
to have proceeded to fail in spectacular
fashion other footage I've looked at has
shown cases of vehicles being correctly
identified as potential targets but also
bounding boxes being thrown around
things that are very obviously not
military equipment and other cases where
military equipment that is fairly
obvious doesn't get the automated Target
recognition treatment and some observers
have noted that after a rush of videos
it appeared to show lanets being used
with this sort of autonomous or
semi-autonomous targeting system it's
being comparatively rarer or absent in
more recent releases potentially
suggesting although this is very much
straight guesswork that potentially the
feature got some Battlefield beta
testing attracted a little bit of
customer feedback so to speak and may
now be in a revision and itation phase
but here's the thing there is every
reason to believe that better versions
of this technology are coming and coming
quickly we'll probably talk about this
more in the future but when you're
trying to make an AI driven visual
targeting solution work there's a couple
of components that go into it and some
of those components are the literal
components the things that give it the
computing power it needs to make this
solution work that compute is already
lighter and cheaper than it has been at
any other point in human history and
it's only going to get lighter and
cheaper there was some reporting I saw
that suggested that some lancets might
be using Nvidia Jetson tx2 modules to
provide some of that compute I did ask
some people who keep a down Lancet as a
sort of office pet whether or not it
contains such a module but the version
they have appears to be a pre- autonomy
version so I can't confirm one way or
the other but as a hypothetical exercise
that sort of embedded AI Computing
device only goes for a couple of hundred
US and the hardware that's available and
the price point it's available at is
improving quickly another main input to
getting good outcomes out of AI is to
have a lot of good data to train it on
and the opportunity to iterate and
develop and so whether the rest of the
world likes it or not the war in Ukraine
where drones are being used on a massive
scale in combat conditions might become
a sort of Nursery trining ground for the
targeting AI of the future it's also
concentrating a lot of resources human
and financial Capital potentially
creating that sort of Precinct of
capability that sort of Rapid
development environment where you have
the full array of Engineers Specialists
and end users concentrated communic and
capable of Rapid development and
iteration so in Broad summary Strokes if
in 2022 and early 2023 drone targeting
Ukraine was mostly a matter of pilot
skill experience intuition and
occasionally just hoping that you didn't
lose signal at an inopportune moment in
2024 more of the options were seeing
deployed include at least some degree of
computer assistance would that just be
in the area of Target identification and
recognition or in the field of semi or
fully autonomous terminal guidance and
as to why High developments like that
might matter I think we're only now
starting to unpack the potential
implications camouflage and concealment
may become even more difficult if you
need your scheme to fool both the human
operator and the automatic recognition
system the need to have a highly skilled
loitering munition or fpv operator might
be somewhat reduced which matters a lot
given just how difficult training can be
and the premium that's currently being
placed on skilled operators plus and
perhaps most frighteningly it might
offer a partial answer to jamming
because even if electronic warfare can
successfully disrupt communication
between an operator and their drone
that's not going to stop the attack if
the Drone is capable of autonomously
identifying its own targets and guiding
into them okay so at this point the
drones have been able to fire a Target
reach the Target and then with a little
bit of mechanical assistance hit the
target let's now talk about the element
that actually makes that hit mean
something the payload the system is
carrying and just how lethal it is after
all without an effective payload
slamming a drone into something like a
tank is probably going to be about as
effective as throwing a bike at a
battleship and here's where lethality
ties into the purpose that drones can
actually fill with just about any weapon
system there are going to be certain
targets it's designed to service and
others that it doesn't really provide an
effective answer for a machine gun isn't
an anti-tank weapon and a javelin
missile is going to struggle against
infantry in the open so an evolution in
drone payloads isn't just about making
them more effective against certain
sorts of targets it's about broadening
the sort of missions they can do and
targets they can service at 1 kg of
payload you're probably talking about
infantry or vehicles with the hatches
left open 2 and 1/2 kilos plus and you
start to have more anti- armor options
available to you and once you start
getting into serious double- digit
figures your drone might be able to do
its bit for the global emissions
reduction Movement by proactively
imposing a output restriction or two on
opposing oil refineries in 2022 while
there were some units operating
specialized heavier drop drones even at
that time most of the drop drones we saw
operating and the first generations of
fpvs that started to come through were
mostly using very light payload there
were a lot of systems I saw at that time
that were often using effectors in the 1
kg or under range perhaps the
quintessential examples here were either
literal hand grenades or adaptations of
the famous vog the vog often
specifically the vog 17 version is a
lightweight 30 mm high explosive
projectile primarily intended for the
AGS series automatic grenade launchers a
wooden case of these things from some
manufacturers would contain about 108
grenades and weigh 55 kilos with a lot
of that being packaging the actual
rounds themselves from memory are about
350 G so about 3/4 of a pound and
particularly when you're only dropping
them in singles you're only really going
to do damage to light targets and even
then only with a direct or very close
hit but everyone us them because with a
3D printed Tail kit they could be
dropped relatively accurately and
because the Soviet Union was kind enough
to leave an absolute [ __ ] ton of these
things behind American 40 mm grenades
would be another more lethal option but
we're only available in much smaller
numbers in 2022 through 23 the path of
drone Evolution created a number of fpv
designs that were capable of carrying
heavier payloads some of the most common
payloads here for obvious reasons were
rpg7 Warheads things like the pg7 VL so
now you have a munition that is yes
heavier and requires a chunkier drone to
carry but is a designed to act as an
anti- armor weapon meaning you probably
can graduate from killing golf carts to
bmps and of course like the vog 30 mm
the Soviet Union built a [ __ ] ton of
these things and there's plenty of them
available that availability was
important not just in a quantity sense
it was also important in terms of making
sure that drone operators could actually
get access to the Munitions this was
stuff that might already be being pushed
down the logistics train anyway there
are a lot of units with RPG SS out there
and so you just have to nicely ask the
supply officer to let the Drone units
borrow a few boxes a heavier option
again that we saw for the chunkiest of
fpvs and also some loitering Munitions
were tandem charges this would be
something a bit heavier again like the
pg7 VR which basically gives you two
charges and one of the main useful
benefits of that is making the Warhead
much more effective against explosive
reactive armor which obviously has
utility in Ukraine where 90% of every
vehicle upgrade package seems to consist
of covering an object in as many ER
blocks as will fit so that's already a
scary enough Evolution but obviously
designers don't stand still and so I'd
argue we've seen at least three parallel
tracks of continued development when it
comes to increasing The lethality of
combat drones in Ukraine the first is
just continued experimentation with
larger and larger payloads because one
of the simplest expedients for
increasing the damage something does is
either making it make a bigger boom or
having it make more booms so one of the
responses might be to come up with
somewhat chunkier drones that can handle
the additional payload and some designs
capable of doing so already existed
before the full scale Invasion that
image you see there on the right for
example is a shot that was put up by the
Russians of a captured Ukrainian drone
allegedly there it looks like the
payload is actually three p tabs which
is a roughly 2 kg anti-tank bomb
originally designed during the second
world war that implies a payload of at
least 6 kg and we're pretty confident
there are designs out there that can do
considerably more and this movement
towards higher payload capacity isn't
just something we've seen with drop
drones or fpvs we've seen it in other
systems categories as well the Russians
have increased the Warhead size on the
average Lance that you see used in
Ukraine by several times over since 2022
and if you look at some of the longrange
strike drones Ukraine is using again
heavier Warheads have become
increasingly available and recently it's
been reported the Russians may even be
following this same evolutionary path
with some of their cruise missiles when
the ukrainians recently broke open a
crashed Russian x101 cruise missile NATO
reporting name as15 they found that it
looked like the Russians had pulled out
some of the fuel tank Edge to replace it
with a second Warhead adding roughly
another 400 kg of payload to the thing
while sacrificing range that
realistically the system didn't need to
hit Targets in Ukraine the logic in all
of these cases is at least somewhat
similar if you're going to invest a lot
of money and resources into either
smashing an object into something or
using it to bomb something you want it
to be effective when it does so and all
else being equal bigger boom often
equals bigger effect of course for any
given Target type there is an optimate
amount of boom and it is possible to go
too far recently Russian TV showed
Sergey Sher touring an arms plant during
which one of the weapons showed off was
the Fab 3000 3 ton aerial bomb this
fragile masculinity special is obviously
a very dangerous weapon but there are
serious questions over whether or not it
would actually be practical or efficient
its range as a Glide bomb is
questionable the ability to mount this
thing under anything less than a
dedicated bomber aircraft likewise
questionable and it's likely to run face
first into that basic physics problem
wherein doubling the amount of explosive
yield does not in fact double the blast
radius so the trend towards increasing
payloads probably has a limit and the
dedication of resources to extremely
large systems like Fab 3000 is probably
questionable although to be fair
probably not historically surprising
given that after America spent a portion
of its very large military budget to
development field the 9.8 ton GBU 43
Moab sometimes referred to as the mother
of all bombs Russia dedicated a portion
of its much smaller military budget to
building an even larger one which it
dubbed the father of all bombs a totally
efficient and not at all wasteful
exercise the second big trend is not so
much to increase the size of the
payloads but rather to change the nature
of the payload this potentially offers
the option to take a drone and optimize
it better for certain Target types
without increasing its size or cost if
you swap out the anti-tank RPG Warhead
on an fpv with a thermobaric payload for
example that might be much more
effective against Targets in buildings
or enclosed spaces without any increase
in weight air bursting and enhanced
fragmentation projectiles might be more
effective against infantry Targets in
the open and of course there are a
variety of specialized anti- armor
Munitions available there's always been
a degree of this sort of munition to
Target matching going on and there are a
bunch of off-the-shelf Munitions that
you can potentially bolt to a drone to
get alternative effects but as the war
has gone on we've seen more Focus placed
on dedicated Munitions for drone
operations this is the process where we
see more and more Munitions that have
either been substantially modified for
drone use or designed and built from
scratch for drone use although in some
cases even those scratch built in
inverted commas Munitions will include
some recycled or repurposed components
in 2023 Ukraine announced that they were
creating a new category of ammunition
for drone operations which sort of puts
the organizational Scaffolding in place
for getting better at designing and
procuring drone Munitions and allowing
drone units to order and be supplied
with them military supply systems are
often like engaging with customer
support which consists of nothing other
than the automated options you can press
one for vogs two for RPG 7s three for
152 mm shells or press four to hear
options 1 through 3 again now it might
be more possible to streamline that
process from an organizational
perspective but we'll see how things
actually play out in 2024 the move over
to purpose-built or more significantly
modified payloads has a number of
potential benefits for drone operations
and it must be said potentially a lot of
drawbacks for those being targeted by
them purpose-built Munitions might be
more stable and predictable if they're
being used for a drop drone for example
they might improve safety and handling
so you don't have troops having to cut
open cluster Munitions in order to ad
hoc Munitions for their drones it's
worth noting that converting regular
Munitions into drone carry Munitions can
be a dangerous and difficult process
sometimes people are injured or killed
sometimes Munitions fail on impact and
so the extra safety and reliability you
might get with a purpose-built option
really does mean something and for a lot
of systems you might just see increased
yields for no increase in weight to
illustrate that imagine an early ad hoc
strike drone concept where the way you
gave the thing its boom was by
integrating an arery shell you have lots
of shells so you just create an empty
space plop in the Shell fuse it
appropriately and off you go the issue
however is that most of the weight of an
artillery projectile isn't the explosive
charge a lot of the mass in your average
152 or 155 mm projectile is just metal
the structure of the projectile that is
designed to survive the very violent
experience of being fired out of a metal
tube at very high velocity which as a
propulsion method for a warhead is much
much more traumatic than being gently
carried aoft and then to target by a
drone so a purpose-built warhead for a
longrange strike drone might have a lot
less casing and a lot more actual charge
there also just might be a push because
of the sheer scale of the number of
Munitions being demanded the Soviet
Union and other producers did leave
behind a truly mindboggling amount of
Munitions but as hard as burning through
the old Soviet stocks is in Ukraine
they're certainly giving it a red hot go
so you have producers and organizations
springing up to try and do at drone
munition production at larger scale
recently for example there was an
article covering the steel Hornets which
is an organization in Ukraine which is
described is functioning like a sort of
Amazon for drone Munitions units can
reportedly Place orders for all sorts of
specialized drone payloads including
some very nasty looking anti-personnel
options and those are then after some
obvious Security checks boxed up and
shipped out so to summarize if the old
Arch type for drone Munitions was a
small existing general purpose munition
the new overly generalized archetype
would be payloads that are larger more
specialized and purpose-built and as for
why that matters hopefully it's obvious
for both Ukraine and The Wider World in
2022 23 and early 24 we have already
seen drones be terrifyingly effective
drones and loitering Munitions account
for a significant proportion of visually
confirmed artillery losses and have
inflicted a lot of visually confirmed
damage against a lot of Target types but
a lot of that observational Baseline
we're getting was probably established
using munitions that were not Optimum
for purpose I think it's logical to
assume that Russian Lancer teams would
have inflicted greater losses on Ukraine
for example if they had started in
February 2022 universally equipped with
the larger Warhead version you can
filter through huge volumes of Russian
and Ukrainian video of drone attacks
where with a different payload the
result might have been different I think
it's also safe to assume that when other
major militaries start equipping with
these sorts of systems in Earnest Uncle
Sam's not going to be buying a version
where someone's duct AP a $15 grenade to
the bottom of a $500 drone no your
future hypothetical drone optimized
payload effector Army future or dope AF
might add a zero or two to the price of
your average Ukrainian option but we
probably have to model in the fact that
they might be much more lethal for it as
drones have evolved they've flown
further found their targets more
effectively and done more damage when
they get there which is all of course
horrifically terrifying and logically
brings us to the question of how to stop
them and in Ukraine just as the uas have
continued to evolve so too are the
counter measures being relied on to
defeat them during the years of fighting
in the dbass pre full scale Invasion and
during the early stages of the fullscale
invasion you saw a number of reports of
drone operators claiming to suffer
because of countermeasure options that
were provided by the Drone manufacturers
themselves you can think of this
essentially as a software-based
countermeasure system where a
manufacturer has decided they don't want
their drones to be used for Warfare or
other such purposes might for example
offer a system like the old DJI
aeroscope which was marketed to law
enforcement and enabled an operator to
see both nearby DJI drones and also the
location of their operators the
Ukrainian vice prime minister would then
complain about the Russians using the
aeroscope system to hunt down Ukrainian
operators DJI would then later
discontinue aeroscope but that's
certainly not the end for manufacturer
built-in countermeasures in the US for
example the FAA has steadily moved
towards a world where the manufacturers
of many drones are required to build in
a remote identification broadcast system
relying on the software and Hardware of
the Drone itself to provide one of the
counter measures against potential
misuse however in 2024 you won't really
hear anything about any of these systems
or options in Ukraine based on the
evidence we have they don't really seem
to be a problem for drone operations now
although for hopefully obvious reasons I
won't go into any detail about how
that's been done you could probably
argue that this sort of evolution
provides a little bit of a warning to
governments and security agencies that
are relying on this sort of approach to
answer the potential security threats
drones might pose domestically and it
helps highlight the difficulty the
manufacturer of something like a drone
might face controlling their product
after it's sold as opposed to a service
like starlink with a system like
starlink the customer buys a terminal
but the terminal can't magically provide
internet it can only do that by
communicating with satellites and the
satellites are still controlled by
starlink and what that means is that if
Elon Musk and SpaceX decide to shut down
starlink service in a particular area
area you probably can't get around that
problem by messing with your terminal
you'd have to mess with the satellites
and those are significantly harder to
physically reach and tamper with a drone
by contrast is going to be intrinsically
mechanically functional even if you
write a line in its codes saying it
shouldn't be operable in particular
areas say around sensitive military and
civilian sites the Drone is physically
capable of getting there it's just a
line of software telling it not to and
if hypothetically for some reason that
block of code was ever to change or
disappear then the system would likely
be physically capable of doing a couple
of loopy Loops over places it really
shouldn't be that's a concern with
potentially Global implications but for
now let's focus on the countermeasure
picture in Ukraine in the absence of
manufacturer provided options the most
common answer to drones in Ukraine has
been electronic warfare you could say
that over the last 2 years the frequency
of electronic warfare in Ukraine has
constantly changed but I'm not sure we
could handle a dad joke that bad Jammers
have proliferated to the point where
we've seen them strung along fly lines
mounted on armored vehicles or even kept
in trench systems at the extreme end
recently we even got images of this
monster here where reportedly what the
Russians did was put a pallet on top of
a tank and strapped that pallet a
variety of Jammers and electronic
warfare equipment battery and Diesel
Generator while the reporting is purely
anecdotal it suggested the thing did
manage to bring down more than a few
fpvs but in the end as the image
suggests the boom box Jammer approach
ultimately wasn't enough to save the
vehicle and and while the balance
especially at the local level can swing
continuously between the Jammer and the
jam we have seen a variety of different
approaches used by drone and loitering
munition manufacturers to try and get
around at least some of the ew problem
one very strange solution we've seen is
actually a very low tech one this was a
Russian drone which was reportedly
captured which seems to have followed
the basic line of thought that if ew
systems inhibit your wirer signals how
about you just don't use wireless
signals Instead This drone had a reel of
fiber optic cable connected to it and
seems to have been intended to just
literally spool out a line as it flew in
order to maintain a connection to the
operator well that may sound promising
because no one's found a way to jam a
wire yet short of you know cutting it
and wire guided weapons very much are a
reality with some other systems like
atgms and Torpedoes there are some
pretty obvious drawbacks to try to
operate fpvs this way we've only seen
one example so far and it failed so we
may not see other producers raced to
emulate A system that shares
characteristics with kite and has a 0%
success rate instead what we've seen
more of is a constant shift in the
frequency that drone operators use
coupled with methods of guidance and
targeting that might be more Jam
resistant frequency selection
coordination and jamming can be major
factors in drone operations if you jam a
frequency your own guys are using you're
going to bring down your own Birds which
reportedly has often been a major
problem in Ukraine but is also one that
I think other militaries if given the
time and resources might find some
answers to you can also have cases where
systems might be redesigned to operate
on frequencies that are less frequently
jammed Ukrainian media for example
claims that the country has produced a
small counterd drone system that can
operate in the 850 to 940 MHz range
which is reportedly a pretty standard
range for a lot of fpvs but that same
article points out that there are
Russian kamakazi drones that can operate
on either lower or higher frequencies
those aren't really going to care about
this sort of system and only be
vulnerable to those that can hit the
wider range meanwhile if you want to
look at longer range oneway attack
systems that don't require constant user
control but instead use GPS so a global
navigation system of some kind we've
still seen a number of approaches being
used to protect those systems from just
being neutralized by jamming the Iranian
Shahed 136 for example presumably to
decrease its vulnerability to things
like GPS spoofing doesn't have one gns
receiver it has multiples and so if two
receivers say that it's approaching its
Target while one is convinced it's 100 m
off course the majority is going to
shout down the problem China fa then try
and continue to Target if gns is denied
entirely most longrange attack systems
include inertial navigation backup which
is usually going to be much less
accurate than gns but will function even
if the system is being jammed we're also
seeing some reporting now that things
like long range oneway attack drones
might be using other classical methods
of navigation these include terrain
recognition based approaches where
you're not reliant on receiving a
navigation signal instead you're using
your onboard sensors to look at the
terrain that you're flying over
comparing that to the database and
Mission plan that's been pre-loaded into
the system and using that to find out
where you currently are tomahawk
missiles from the Cold War era had this
sort of technology and obviously even
then you didn't need a GPS connection to
recognize a river a crossroad or a
mountain range while there are a lot of
old approaches to navigating in a
spectrum denied environment however the
thing we're seeing change now is the
degree to which new technology makes
these approaches cheaper and more
accessible the availability of
commercial satellite imagery for example
makes it much more practical to get a
picture of the terrain all the way
between your launch site and the Target
and memory computing power and good
cameras are all much cheaper more
miniaturized and more accessible than
they were in the 1980s this and other
alternative navigation options obviously
aren't perfect but they do point to the
risk of systems like oneway attack
drones becoming more and more resistance
to attempts to counter them using
electronic warfare that of course does
still leave the hard kill option of just
shooting down the incoming drones but
then you might run into issues like the
difficulty getting sufficient
geographical coverage or shot exchange
problems if you do it using longer range
missiles so in terms of the big picture
for the current war in Ukraine trying to
assess where the status quo is in the
race between countermeasures and
countermeasure resistance is harder than
in some of the other areas we've looked
at we know that approaches and
Technologies used are constantly
shifting and we have some examples of
new Jammers succeeding or failing but
getting good at least semi-complete
information on success rates is very
difficult and it would be quickly
outdated even if it was available but
one Trend that does stand out because it
might have wider implications is the
reportedly greater application even in
the case of relatively cheap one-way
attack drones of navigation methods that
might not have an easy electronic
warfare based answer a Defender isn't
going to be able to move mountains
Crossroads and river systems just to fo
a navigation system and so the trend in
2024 and Beyond might be towards more
one-way attack drones with greater
resistance to existing ew
countermeasures and greater pressures
for countries to reconsider how their
air defense systems might be configured
to deal with exhaustion or saturation
based threats from affordable longrange
attack options and touching on the
possibility of saturation or exhaustion
based tactics brings us to another
section a key element to what is making
drones so dangerous in Ukraine which has
nothing to do with the capability of the
drones themselves and while this may be
my bias talking one of those key factors
is production ultimately sketches CAD
files and project plans don't destroy
tanks physical weapons do and so if you
have a system or technology that's well
suited for quickly moving from that
design to production to the turret
popping phase that's potentially going
to add to its utility as a weapon system
when you're a country in the midst of a
war and from that perspective drones
have massive advantages and have
benefited from changing design and
production processes in 2022 and early
20123 for example for a lot of drone
operators on both sides of the war in
Ukraine the most common approach for
getting your hands on a lot of small U
quickly was just to go and find a
commercially available civilian system
buy it in significant numbers and if
necessary Tinker with and modify it as
you'll see on screen there I've
tentatively called this the adapted cots
phase cot stands for commercial offthe
shelf and this approach was behind the
massive surge of commercially available
quad rotor drones in particular that we
saw move into Ukraine and later Russia
the production and scaling model is
really simple because you're not doing
much production domestically instead you
have some Avid drone enthusiasts in
Estonia or Poland hypothetically calling
up retailers wholesalers or producers
and saying that their drone Club really
needs you know a couple of thousand
extra mavic 3s the bit where the local
production comes in is in the adaptation
part and these are changes to the fully
assembled drone that are necessary to
make it more suitable for Battlefield
use in a basic observation role fewer
modifications are likely to be necessary
but if you're talking about making the
Drone suitable as a weapon system in its
own right more modifications might be
required for example for some reason the
DJI mavic 3 doesn't come with a bomb
carriage and release mechanism as an
optional extra the advantage of this
model is you might be able to get a lot
of drones relatively cheaply have small
organizations or field workshops make
the necessary field modifications and be
relatively confident the Russians aren't
exactly going to bomb the factories in
China the disadvantages however are that
you are reliant on a foreign supply
chain and also on a civilian design
civilian quad rotors have been used in
war but they weren't designed for it and
so particularly when you're talking
about fpvs and also to an extent the
heavier quad and octocopter bomber
drones we've seen increased Reliance
placed on a new model this is where we
are building drones that are purpose
built for military environment but we're
doing it mostly using commercial
off-the-shelf components metaphorically
we are no longer going to Toys R Us
buying a complete drone and figuring out
a way to duct tape and munition to it
instead you're going and buying critical
components batteries Motors flight
controllers and now often in a slightly
larger Workshop what you are doing is
assembling those components into a
design that you have come up with
yourself potentially with some
custombuilt local components
the frame of the Drone for example might
be locally manufactured to make sure you
can fit your chosen bit of ordinance to
it the advantage of this model is you're
still able to leverage someone else
often China's productive capacity and
cost base but now you're not as limited
by the design of the underlying drone in
question you can mix and match
components and Technical features design
with a purpose in mind and still
hopefully keep your system pretty cheap
also because in industrial terms a lot
of the work here is relatively basic
it's still something that a relatively
small team in a volunteer organization
or small company might be able to do inh
house if you want an imperfect analogy
it takes a lot less skill in Capital
Equipment to modify a car than it does
to build one from scratch down to its
base components the next potential
evolutionary step that we've seen some
of an Ukraine and almost inevitably will
see basically everywhere on the global
market is various drone manufacturers
moving from just assembling various
commercial off the-shelf components to
designing and arranging the production
of their own in some cases this might be
just out of a desire to vertically
integrate remove Reliance on Supply
chains you don't control and potentially
bring down cost but in other cases it's
because the underlying civilian product
may not align with what you want the
military system to be able to do to give
one example a lot of the commercially
available Motors you might use to power
an fpv or a larger loitering munition
have a significant problem they're too
good a drone hobbyist probably doesn't
want their new toy to give up the ghost
after 10 hours of service and if you're
a military or civilian organization
using a larger ISR drone you might want
to get thousands upon thousands of
flight hours out of that thing but if
you're talking about a one-way attack
drone that thing has a Destiny the
moment it takes off and the destiny in
question is very likely to either be
detonation the dirt or both so in that
context it makes no bloody sense to fit
the thing with motors that are rated for
hundreds or thousands of hours instead
what you care about is short run
performance and price there are plenty
of other components that also benefit
from being custom built for a military
context but hopefully you get the
picture there is is a difference in some
cases and the introduction of these more
customized systems alongside continuing
purchases it must be said of those
commercial off-the-shelf drones from
before is part of the reason why we've
been able to see such a growth in scale
on one hand but also the development of
new capabilities on the other reflecting
that it has to be said that the
production methods used by Russia and
Ukraine for small uas have changed over
time in Russia a lot of the effort has
been in true command economy style a top
down effort which has the advantage of
being able to throw a lot of resources
at at a Consolidated number of systems
and designs and get them produced in
quantity Russia for example has sunk a
lot of effort into scaling Shahed 136
production lanet production and some
lighter systems as well the weakness of
that system that's sometimes complained
about in Russian language sources is it
can be a little bit slow to adapt to
changing Battlefield demands which is a
situation where you can see volunteer
organizations small workshops and field
modifications still really proving their
worth the Ukrainian model by contrast is
more fragmented orbe it with some
unifying efforts you have a mixture of
all sorts of startups foreign suppliers
volunteer organizations small field
workshops right down to individuals who
just happen to own a 3D printer and
produce drone accessories Ukraine to an
extent has been able to standardize
things like pricing for systems like
fpvs but they haven't yet chosen to
standardize around particular producers
or models instead you have a lot of
producers making a lot of designs in a
fairly artisanal fashion and as some
drop out a business or can't keep up
they and all their workforces are often
Consolidated into those firms that
remain as going concerns in raw economic
terms this model has the potential to be
less efficient than a Russian one where
a lot of physical capital is thrown at a
particular problem but it does allow for
some pretty freewheeling Innovation and
provides a sort of natural push to a
more distributed production Network that
all else being equal is probably going
to be more resistant to missile attack
than concentrated production in one or
two megafactories which is of course a
relevant factor for you Ukraine and
maybe even for Russia because ultimately
this is 2024 and you never know when
someone's going to slam a remote
controlled Cessna strapped with a bunch
of explosives into your production
facility but one way or the other in
both Russia and Ukraine a lot of
resources have been invested in ramping
up drone production and the results has
been a massive increase in the scale of
just how many of these systems both
sides have available in May 2023 Russy
estimated that Ukraine was expending
about 10,000 uavs per month that was
already a very high number and probably
meant that even at that Point small
drones were the most commonly used
Precision weapon system on the Ukrainian
Battlefield by the end of 2023 however I
was suggesting that number was probably
outdated and potentially several times
too low and now in 2024 we've had
multiple reports from Ukraine the
country is aiming to manufacture at
least a million drones domestically this
year is on track to do so and aims to
import potentially a million more
obviously the starting point for any
claim like this is to take it with a
grain of salt but it may give a good
indication of the sort of numbers that
are now being aimed for even taking a
lower end of those two combined figures
at 1.2 million per year that's not
10,000 drones a month it's 100,000
essentially marking the transition from
Ukraine using a metric [ __ ] ton of
drones to a metric Decat ton only a year
later and while a lot of that volume and
the Russian equivalent is likely to be
in the smallest and cheapest systems the
fpvs some of the stated goals we've seen
for long-range strike systems are also
incredibly ambitious just one
manufacturer of of one Ukrainian
longrange strike drone for example has
publicly said that they can go from
producing 100 a month to 4 or 500 a
month in relatively short order provided
one assumes contracts and resources are
forthcoming and amidst all these figures
I think there might be a key takeaway
for Ukraine and to a lesser extent also
for Russia the availability of systems
and Munitions is a challenge air defense
systems like Patriot and the missiles to
fire from it are in very short supply as
is artillery ammunition artillery
barrels armored vehicles and just about
anything else you care to name small
drones are about the only thing that
both Ukraine and Russia have a lot more
of now than they did a year ago and
against that backdrop against that
context of a shortage in a range of
other systems and Munitions you can see
why there might be more and more
Reliance placed on drones to fill
certain Battlefield roles in the end you
fight with the systems you have which
brings us to the end of the discussion
on the technical changes and gets us to
the final question based on all of these
changes we've seen and expect to
continue seeing how impactful are drones
in Ukraine today and how influential are
they likely to be going forward if you
just track through a lot of the videos
interviews and reports that come out of
Ukraine it's probably fairly easy to
argue that drones have helped make the
battlefield incredibly transparent and
extremely dangerous moving or
concentrating forces is going to be
difficult when both sides have so many
eyes in the sky the already dangerous
artillery systems on both sides have
probably benefited from having drones to
spot targets and correct fire and the
threat posed by things like fpvs and
drop drones is such that if you are in a
defensive position that doesn't have
adequate overhead cover or concealment
nor adequate ew cover somewhere where
your opponent has skilled drone
operators present then the threat is
probably constant and growing but at the
same time there are still arguments
playing out over just how impactful
drones have actually been recently for
example there was an article in the
conversation by Paul lenko an assistant
professor and director of Special
Operations at the US Army war college
and he essentially argues among other
things that while drones have delivered
some tactical and operational success
for both Ukraine and Russia
they've been strategically ineffective
to quote directly from the article
drones have not and are not likely to
shape the outcome of the war in Ukraine
they have not allowed Ukraine to break
its stalemate with Russia nor have they
encouraged Russia to end its occupation
of Ukraine he also says quote the lesson
from Ukraine is that while drones have
some value at the Tactical and
operational levels of War they are
strategically inconsequential they are
not a Magic Bullet offering a
gamechanging capability to decide the
fate of Nations instead countries must
rely on time tested combined arms
maneuver wherein they integrate
personnel and weapon systems at a
particular time and place to achieve a
particular goal against an adversaries
end quote one wonders it that means that
almost no weapon system can be
considered strategically consequential
because they have to be used together in
Combined arms for maximum effect and
even an extreme case like a nuclear
warhead realistically requires a
delivery system it also I think arguably
undere explores the potential impact of
drones both on how combined arms
operations are conducted and also how
viable they are the article acknowledges
for example the role of Ukrainian drone
operators in stopping the Russian
Advance on keev saying that Ukrainian
air reconnaissance units quote use
drones to interdict and block a massive
Russian Convoy traveling from Chernobyl
to keev a month after Russia's February
24 2022 invasion of Ukraine it did so by
destroying slow moving vehicles that
stretch nearly 50 mil causing Russia to
abandon its Advance end quote I don't
think drones deserve sole credit for
that but let's go with it for a moment I
think you could argue that halting
Russian columns moving towards ke were
exactly the kind of tactical actions
that could be aggregated together to
have operational and strategic
significance enough Russian tactical
successes that enabled an operation to
take keave successfully May potentially
have ended up having all sorts of
strategic significance taking a capital
is no small thing and it's difficult to
assess what the full ramifications that
would have been for the stability of the
Ukrainian government foreign support or
a range of other macro factors as I said
I'll link the article in the description
and it's probably not the only one of
its kind but for what it's worth from my
perspective when you have an argument
that a weapon system isn't strategically
decisive because the conflict it's being
used in is a balanced one without a
decisive result I think that's falling
into the Trap of looking at the outcome
of a conflict as opposed to the impact
of a system which among other things
ignores the fact that a stalemate might
in fact be a strategically significant
result if one side would have lost a
conflict but then because it deploys a
new system is able to score a draw I'd
argue that's still a pretty significant
impact and if both sides deploy a new
techn techology keeping them in a sort
of balance I don't think that takes away
from the impact and value that system
has this is one reason why I tentatively
suggest if you're trying to determine
just how impactful a new system or
technology is the best test might not be
to look at how the conflicts that system
was used and played out but instead what
would have happened if the decision to
invest in that technology or system
wasn't made by one or both sides for
example if you take a passage from the
article and swap around a few words you
could end up with something that could
have been written in 1916 the despite
these tactical effects and limited
operational gains artillery is
strategically ineffective artillery has
not and is not likely to shape the
outcome of the war in Europe they have
not allowed the onon to break its
stalemate with Germany nor has it
encouraged Germany to end its occupation
of Belgium to the extent artillery
batteries have been strategically
consequential the implications have been
psychological and you could make that
argument at the time because the Western
Front despite enormous quantities of
artillery being used was a stalemate
which would have ignored the fact that
artillery was part of the stalemate and
that if either the onon or Central
Powers had entirely failed to invest in
their artillery then I'd argue the war
probably would have swung massively and
potentially strategically decisively
against them so I'd suggest we then look
at drone deployment through that same
sort of butt for lens what would happen
if the investments in drone systems
hadn't been made if not for the
investments in drones the battlefield in
Ukraine would be so much less
transparent it would presumably be
easier to move and concentrate forces
and supplies spotting targets for
indirect fires would be more difficult
as would be correcting those fires and
in a situation like that where it might
be safer to concentrate forces and
defending fires might be less responsive
especially against Dynamic targets it
might be that the balance between
attacker and defender in that scenario
would look a little bit different from
the war in Ukraine that we see today but
for the range and accessible Precision
that drones and Laing Munitions provide
lot more of the Ukrainian battle space
would be under considerably less threat
there would be a lot of things out there
destroyed by systems like Lancet or
spotted by drones and then engaged by
longer range fire options that might
have survived artillery tactics probably
wouldn't have to be optimized against a
threat that didn't exist and the forces
might have been able to skip certain
tactical and operational adaptations
that do come with a cost in that sense
you might see parallels to the arguments
around whether or not high Mars was
actually effective You could argue High
Mars and its gimler missiles weren't
particularly decisive because Russian
forces were able to disperse their
ammunition storages or pull back their
Depots but reframe that you could argue
that gimler was impactful because it
forced Russia to disperse its storages
and P back its Depots the costs imposed
on an enemy can be holistic they don't
have to take the form of a burning piece
of equipment and to that I'd add if
we're trying to predict potential impact
on future conflicts we need to keep the
scale in mind here when high Mars first
reached Ukraine it was a handful of
launchers some NATO countries are
looking at building up arsenals of
hundreds when you're talking about drone
systems in Ukraine a lot of these
Technologies were relatively embryonic
in 2022 and the numbers we're seeing now
are still in many cases driven by
relatively basic production chains so so
when you are trying to assess the
potential impact on future battlefields
it might be worth asking not just how
many drones can Ukraine produce in 2023
or 2024 but rather how many could
countries like China the United States
or the various EU members produce if
they really focused on it but even in
the limited numbers available to Russia
and Ukraine I'd argue that things like
one-way attack drones have had
operational and strategic impacts and
not merely psychological ones if not for
systems like Shahed 136 and Ukraine's
various longrange attack drones neither
side would need to dedicate Manpower
equipment and Munitions to forming
things like drone Hunter and drone
defense teams behind the lines to defend
critical infrastructure government
facilities Depots air bases ports
industrial facilities the list goes on
those resources could instead be
dedicated to getting more effect at the
front line if not Fisher head 136
Ukraine's arsenal of air defense
interceptors would not be under the
stress it is and it might be safe to
assume that more launchers and Munitions
could then be dedicated for jobs like
being pushed close to the front line to
hunt Russian Glide bombers and as a side
note while that might not in itself make
Ukrainian combined arms operations
viable I would argue it would dim
further the prospect of Russia ever
doing the same because Russia's
prospects of ever achieving the sort of
air superiority that are usually
associated with successful combined
operations or at least successful
combined arms operations on a larger
scale is intrinsically tied to the
capabilities and endurance of the
Ukrainian air defense system the one
that shahad 136 is so critical and
pressuring meanwhile if not for
longrange Ukrainian attack drones Russia
would not be having to distribute
electronic warfare and air defense
assets against thousands of square kilm
of Russian territory because even
relatively small numbers of simple
attack drones were capable of
threatening targets like air bases and
oil refineries with significant damage
without investment in drones is's also a
question of what could possibly have
replaced them because one of the most
significant aspects of a lot of these
systems particularly things like fpvs is
just how simple they are to access
manufacture and deploy It's relatively
simple to say that both Ukraine and
Russia might benefit from having all
sorts of additional capabilities that
help enable combined arms maneuver the
Russian Air Force could have been much
better equipped and trained for
suppressing or destroying enemy air
defenses Ukraine might really want
additional air power of its own things
like F-16 or gun either in a ground
attack role or to contest the Russian
Air Force but as we have seen even with
a lot of resources pledged that can be
very difficult to do at scale and
quickly over the time scale it has taken
Ukraine to go from flying 0 f-16s to 0
f16s fpvs have gone from being a rare
novelty to the most common Precision
weapon on the battlefield and implicit
in that is that in a lot of times in a
lot of places where Ukrainian or Russian
forces are under immense pressure and
Supply constraints while drones may not
have been a perfect answer to the
challenges they faced they were often an
answer the battlefield drones of the
future even the fpv analoges may not be
as cheap as the ones we've seen in
Ukraine so far there is some Rousy
research out there for example that
indicates that in order to have a good
chance of knocking out an armored
vehicle an fpv probably needs some
Advanced features like some of the
things we've covered here Jam resistant
Communications the ability to carry a
higher payload infrared or night vision
sensors but you're still talking about
systems that are going to be
considerably cheaper and more accessible
than things like atgms or even some of
the relatively fancy unguided artillery
shells out there in Ukraine I'd argue
that's probably mattered if for no other
reason then it's pretty difficult for
hobby work shops and volunteer
organizations to manufacture Javelin
missiles if you brwn out the arguments
to include sea drones the arguments
could probably go further there you
could argue that for a relatively small
investment Ukrainian Naval drones have
been able to fundamentally change how
the Russian Black Sea Fleet can operate
and I've explored some of the details of
that theater and the role Naval drones
have played in it in a previous episode
but by now hopefully you get the
argument yes the war in Ukraine is
relatively static and attritional no
drones haven't won the war by themselves
and combining arms together including
infantry armor artillery and air defense
assets just to name a few obviously
remains absolutely Central but I don't
think that should concealed just how
impactful drones have been and the
disruptive potential they have for both
sides drones represent a small minority
of the total resources invested and with
them both investing there's a sort of
symmetry although the scale of advantage
to one side of the other does change
somewhat over time but if tomorrow you
Thanos snapped all of Ukraine or all of
Russia's drones out of existence then
and while it's obviously difficult to
prove a hypothetical I think the
evidence suggests that would have a
pretty Major Impact on the war for
hardpressed Ukrainian Defenders it would
strip them of situational awareness and
a critical weapon system while for
Russia it would significantly reduce
their ability to leverage their
advantage in longrange Firepower drones
may not have won the war in Ukraine for
either side but it's hard to come up
with many systems that have been as
costeffective in shaping it and going
forward in the short and medium term I
think the technology and its Battlefield
potential may only grow tanks and arery
are fairly mature Technologies
militaries have had a long time to
figure out how to improve them and use
them but the technology and tactics of
these sort of Battlefield drone systems
is in many ways evolving in real time
we've seen hints of the potential pre
2022 but the war in Ukraine has put the
pace of development into overdrive and
so however scary and impactful you think
these systems might be now when it comes
to their future capabilities we may not
have seen anything yet and that fact may
put militaries around the world in a
difficult position if you stock up on
systems now they may be quickly
overtaken by Future countermeasures and
new more capable systems but if you wait
too long you run the risk of an opponent
gaining a potentially significant
Advantage for a relatively modest
investment the same sort of timing
imperatives apply when you're talking
about the imperative of Defending
against these systems do you wait for
example for directed Energy Systems to
mature or do you go all in on the
technologies that are available now
whatever decisions are made however I
think the reality is this technology
can't be put back in Pandora's Box the
lessons being learned can't be unlearned
and the supply chains and production
facilities that are springing up to
sustain the war in Ukraine aren't just
going to suddenly disappear even if the
war ends indeed you may even see a
scenario where countries like Ukraine
become major suppliers of these systems
because ultimately they and the Russians
are probably going to be the most
experienced experts with some of the
hottest production lines but for now
it's probably enough to observe just how
important these systems have become in
the war in Ukraine to note just how
quickly they've evolved and to wonder
just what sort of changes we're going to
see in
2024 and all right brief Channel update
to close out firstly I know this topic
want to poll a couple of weeks back but
thank you for giving me just a few more
weeks to massage the content a bit one
of the challenges making a video like
this is just how expansive the
underlying topic can be but hopefully
you're happy with what I ultimately
chose to cover going forward the patron
topic poll is starting to wind down so
I'll start to finalize the results from
that in the coming week and once that's
done I'll start releasing some of the
results in future Channel updates
finally for those of you who are
interested in the per and gaming side of
things I am told the new PC has now been
shipped so hopefully we see some return
to that sort of content in the coming
week or two thank you as always for your
ongoing engagement interest and support
and I hope to see you all again next
week
5.0 / 5 (0 votes)
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