I wonder if Taiwan is looking into these boat-drones considering their successes. Could be extremely useful in keeping any Chinese ships from ever landing.
Every single military in the world will be watching the usage of all sorts of drones in this conflict. Even if you're America or China you need to learn how to defeat them cost-effectively
Even simple unarmed $300 drones with an IR camera are proving to be extremely effective. The level of live battlefield information and situational awareness they are bringing to commanders on the ground is at least equivalent to what a platoon of recon troops can offer.
Next up are the drones capable of carrying light loads like air dropped grenades or explosives than can take our expensive vehicles like aircraft. The return on investment for these systems are insane.
The US Army literally just cancelled its FARA Helicopter program because of drones.
““We are learning from the battlefield – especially Ukraine – that aerial reconnaissance has fundamentally changed,” Army Chief of Staff General Randy George said in a press release.”
Because we don’t need multiple versions of helicopters to do the same thing. Most of our recent Apache use is against people using AKs and RPGs then running into caves - ironically enough, probably the same level as its main use-case in 1975.
But attack helis just seem so fragile. They’re relatively easy targets and don’t add all that much extra. Transport heli’s are way more useful. Hell, even in civilization games heli’s are weak.
For few hundred $ you get capability that formerly was only provided by ATGMs, and it’s several times lighter as well, not to mention increased situational awareness. Every military worth their salt will have to study it and countermeasures
for comparison Stugna-P costs $20k per missile, entire system is 100kg but in return it gets to target much faster and has enough penetration to drill through frontal armour of most tanks, basically guaranteeing mission kill in single hit. drones get to the target in minutes, not seconds and have to find weak spots, but greater maneuverability allows for this
I think drones overwhelming advantage is the range and terrain they are effective in. The ability to find and destroy a target that is moving behind cover is a huge advantage.
How many videos have we seen of assaults moving up behind a tree line for cover. Artillery can stop these but hitting a moving target from miles away takes a lot of shells. Air support can take them out but they are vulnerable on today’s battlefield. Weapons like the Stugna-P require line-of-sight on the ground so they have to let them get closer.
I'm pretty opinionated, and some of them aren't popular. I'm fairly certain I get a few accounts down voting everything I put out there.
Good news, is that I see evidence from other instances, but not a lot on my home.
For sure, hasnt the whole world learned that heavy expensive vehicles can be countered by relatively cheap munitions?
Even without air superiority Ukraine has made MBT’s basically useless.
To be fair, the fact that so many MBTs are still being lost suggests that they are still useful enough to be used. However, some militaries have been trialled lasers as a sort of lightweight CIWS to protect such vehicles from the likes of incoming missiles, and while that's expensive to add on in the first place the cost per shot is virtually nothing. Turkiye has supposedly already tried one out in live combat, and against UAVs no less
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