Thread by @TrentTelenko

This Warzone article is an example of one of the things that has been driving me bug house nuts watching the US Military deal with drones.

Recognizing the utter collapse of analytical rigor compared to the "Big Five"
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...procurement programs and the MLRS artillery rocket system in the late 1970's-to-early 1980's.

The post 1973 Arab Israeli War US Army understood the idea of "the logistical costs of a stowed kill."
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The US Army kept the 105mm on the M1 in production so long because the depleted uranium (DU) 105mm "Long Rod" APFSDS could kill a early T-72 and you could carry 55 rounds versus 40 rounds for a 120mm gun firing a tungsten APDS or early DU APFSDS round.

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A single "Army 1985" 27 launcher battalion of MLRS with its boxed rocket pods could deliver the same volume of cluster munitions fire as sixteen 12 tube 203mm howitzer battalions.

The infographic below shows the manpower/shipping advantages the US Army was looking at.

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To date, no one has done a real logistical, cost effectiveness & weapon effect/lethality numerical evaluation of FPV drones versus conventional weapons systems.

This thread will address this by starting with this Bradley/Abrams/GMLRS in Iraq video.



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In order to get the weapon effect of the 25mm chain gun, 120mm cannon and GMLRS rocket you just saw in Iraq, a 35-ton, 70 ton or 17-ton vehicle respectively have to be moved by sea halfway across the planet to Iraq.

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Now compare all those US Army weapons to the impact of this Mammoth FPV drone with a 4 kg warhead.

It is competitive in weapon effect. And in terms of cost and logistics to move it to target, it's superior.

Drones are 'disintermediated' from classic military weapons platforms.
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Heck, you can move dozens of FPV on an airline seat.

Meanwhile those M1/M2/HIMARS loaded merchant ships will have to deal with a gauntlet of Houthi/Iranian anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBM), anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCM) or Boat-Drones to get there.

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Please also note, each 14 of such vehicles there will be one M1070 HET, and either a M88 Hercules tracked ARV or one HEMTT wrecker.

In addition to that, there will be a huge logistical tail of fuelers and ammo trucks running the same Houthi missile/boat-drone gauntlet.

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Now compare all those US Army weapons to the impact of this Mammoth FPV drone with a 4 kg warhead. 

It is competitive in weapon effect, and in terms of precision, cost and logistics to move it to target, it's far superior.

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By my count there are at least 4 or 5 overlapping revolutions in military affairs that are downstream from FPV drones. off the top of my head:

1. Kinetic effectiveness
2. Logistical effectiveness
3. Cost effectiveness
4. Lowered barriers to entry
5. Con't
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5. The triumph of mass/cheap over the few/expensive.

Let's start with a weapon effectiveness metric that is well known.

During World War II it was estimated that 45,000 rounds of small arms ammunition was fired to kill one enemy soldier.

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In Vietnam, Americans fired an estimated 50,000 rounds of ammunition for every enemy killed.

In Jan 2011, the GAO estimated 250,000 rounds were needed to kill one Taliban insurgent.



13/jonathanturley.org/2011/01/10/gao…

A single 5.56mm round costs $0.63. One box of 1,000 rounds of 5.56mm rounds masses out at 15.4 kg (33.88 lbs).

50,000 rounds is 770 kg (1,694 lbs).

250,000 rounds is 3,850 kg,(8,470 lbs).

Fifty thousand 5.56mm rounds cost $31,500 & 250,000 5.56mm costs $157,500.

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1st Generation Ukrainian FPV drones massed at about 15 lbs (~6.8 kg), cost $300-to-$500, and hit only one time in 10 (AKA 10%).

This is a 1,694/150= 11.29 to 1, or 8,470/150= 54.46 to 1 FPV logistical effectiveness advantage

So the logistical impact of an FPV kill is 10 * 15 = 150 lbs for a cost of $7,500 @ $500 ea.

$31,500/$7,500= 4.2 to 1 or $157,500/$7,500= 21 to 1 FPV cost advantages.

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A 5.56mm rifle has an effective range of ~300 meters compared to 5 km for a 7" FOV drone frame adapted as a 1st Gen. FPV weapon.

When you run the area formula of a circle, (π)r^2, where the effective range is "R," you find:

5.56mm Rifle = 282,743 sq meters.
FPV Drone = 78,539,816 sq meters

That 0.28 square km versus 78.53 square km, a 54.46 to 1 FPV area denial engagement advantage.

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The worse case for FPV drones versus 5.56mm kills are as follows

11.29 to 1 FPV logistical effectiveness advantage.
4.2 to 1 FPV cost effectiveness advantage.
54.46 to 1 FPV engagement envelope advantage.

Cumulatively, that is a 70 to 1 advantage for FPV drones versus 5.56mm rifles.

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When you look at a Bradley's 25mm round's 2.2 km max range and Tow Missile 4.5 km max range compared to 5 km of a 1st Gen FPV, you have to take into account the concept of dead ground.

FPV can penetrate cover and overfly obstacles to the back side of hills by maneuver. While the Bradley's ballistic shells and line-of-sight missile cannot.

There is no such thing as cover or dead ground for infantry to hide from FPV's.

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For comparison:

1st Gen. FPV Drone = 78,539,816 sq meters & close to 100% of coverage of targets

25mm = (π)2.2 km^2 = 15,205,308.44 sq meters at ~50% coverage 7.6 Sq km

Tow Missile = (π)4.5 km^2 = 63,617,251.23 sq meters at ~50% coverage 32.1 Sq km
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Nor do you need big centralized fire direction centers like ballistic artillery.  

Small FPV drones can use "ground loiter" near the front lines, communicated via antennas with long cables to where the FPV operators are located under cover & concealment, to do the Artillery fire support role faster.

20/forbes.com/sites/davidaxe…

If Russia had 200 FPV drones at Azovstal Steel plant in Early 2022, the battle there would have been over in days rather than weeks.

Simply because FPV's drones have the ability to fly through holes in the Azovstal Steel plant roof to hunt Ukrainian soldiers within.

That is a fundamental shift in the way wars are fought.
dailyone.co.uk/heres-what-the…
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The heart of that shift is that FPV can engage infantry in high explosive close quarters battle in restricted terrain.  

Upshot:  

FPV fires can take ground from infantry, by eliminating enemy infantry.  Ballistic fires can't.

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That is only the beginning of this shift.

The logistical facts are that the FM-MAG machine gun, the 60 mm & 81mm mortars, LAWS, Javelins, any infantry crew served weapon you care to name are all going to be most to fully replaced with drones and drone operators, because of the logistical leverage drones represent on the battlefield.

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In Vietnam, Korea, and WWII it took between 50,000 and 100,000 rifle bullets to inflict a casualty, and that casualty was almost by definition at a maximum depth of 300m or so.

  That’s between $5000 and $10000 at 0.10 per round against targets within a range of 300m. 

Let’s say $5000 for argument’s sake. Let’s also say a FPV costs $500, and use Ukrainian statements that only 10% of missions succeed.  
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Again we arrive at $5000 per successful hit HOWEVER, they’re hitting out to roughly 5KM, not sub 300M.

If we assume that the effective range is a hemisphere facing the enemy, the measure of the effectiveness of the system is the area of that hemisphere less, dead ground.

Rifle = 282,743 sq meters.
FPV = 78,539,816 sq meters

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So a FPV drone is about the same cost per hit, but will do it over 278 times the amount of ground compared to rifle fire. 

It will also deal with a variety of targets that rifle fire can’t. It is capable of killing light vehicles (even MBTs depending on the warhead), and capable of inflicting multiple casualties per hit.

Ten drones at around 15 pounds per drone/warhead is 150 pounds of logistical burden.

Fifty 1000-round cases of ammo at 30 pounds per case is 1500 pounds of logistical burden.

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5km ranged FPV have a 70 to 1 combat advantage over M-16's and 40 or 50 to one over every infantry carried crew served weapon imaginable when logistics, cost effectiveness and engagement envelope are looked at holistically.

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Looking at these factors and trying to consider range (access to more targets) capability (effectiveness against more types of targets) and area effect (more targets serviced per hit) FPV drones are probably TWO or THREE orders of magnitude more cost-effective than rifle-fire at producing casualties.

It pays to use FPV's against anything and everything, so long as they can be supplied in quantity.

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Tanks and self propelled artillery inherently require enormous amounts of fuel and ammo.

The fuel & ammo delivery vehicles cannot operate in drone-infested areas.

Much of the direct firepower tanks and indirect tube artillery deliver can be delivered by drones.

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The artillery heavy, but more analytically inclined, ROK Army is seriously thinking about "Crossing the Drone Logistical Cost Effectiveness Rubicon" versus ballistic shells by converting its battalion mortars into drone units.

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the300.mt.co.kr/newsView.html?…

I suspect another reason ROK is looking hard at drones is they are 'disintermediated' from any existing military combat platform to deliver their 100% precision guided firepower.

I don't need a Javelin missile launcher, or AFVs to deliver 25mm, 120mm or 155mm tube firepower.  

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I just need the drones and a commercial off the shelf controllers that thousands of children and teenagers are growing up with.

Where the Small/Cheap/Many beats the Big/Expensive/Few paradigm is that societies with a large drone using nerd/geek middle class can deliver...
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...lots of 'military weapons systems capable' manpower.

Drone controllers are universal.

The skills sets required for M2's, M1A2, AH-64's or F-35's are hard to gain, expensive to maintain, and those weapons systems are simply much harder to move on a theater/global scale.

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The issue of the disadvantage of ballistic weapon dead ground versus Drone's powered advantage is the traditional crewed close air support orbiting a battlefield with rockets and 500lb bombs, but smaller & cheaper.


34/ theaviationgeekclub.com/a-10-pilot-exp…

Drones, with 1.5 kg precision guided warheads that hit between 20% & 70% of the time, have a "granularity" due to their three to four figure dollar cost that can effectively engage single infantrymen in a trench.

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Drones of the FPV class are getting better & longer ranged at an impressive rate.

10-inch FOV frame FPV drones with cheap Chinese thermal sensors reach 16 km for $1,500.

Ukraine's lawn mower engine powered FPV drones are reaching 35 km and likely cost around ~$4,500 each.

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This SPC chart I did of Russian Army artillery tube losses in December 2023 is, I think, the first statistical look at FPV drones' real battlefield impact in Ukraine.

Between Dec 9th & Dec 16th 2023 there was some combination of 155mm shell shortages, a lot of bad weather, Russian drone jamming and/or Russian tubes & MLRS being pulled out of Ukrainian FPV drone & artillery range.

[When I computed the lower limit for Russian artillery tube losses, it was a nonsensical -15 point something. So I simply put in the value of Zero.]
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A general lack of FPV drones in Dec 2023 would have put the Ukrainians at the  May 2022 situation ala Siever Donetsk.  

This is an defense analyst comment on the SPC chart (above) that I shared in mid-January 2024:
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Not long after that, made the following observation on the patterns of casualties from FPV and other drones in the Russo-Ukrainian War.

39/ Strategpage.com

Now imagine moving an M109A6 Paladin and its wrecker/fuel truck/ammo truck logistical slice by ship 1/2 way around the world, fighting past Houthi missiles, only to see thirty $4.5K lawn mower engine powered FPV drones sweep the lot and do most of the artillery mission besides.

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It is thinking through the strategic logistical realities of the lowered barriers to entry for drone combat power that the bottom drops out for all the current US Military power projection organizations, platforms and missile paradigms.

41/rand.org/pubs/commentar…

We are seeing $50K to $100K drones operated by a technologically unsophisticated Houthi culture now demonstrating that new reality in the Red Sea

Burke class warships are shooting their VLS tubes dry of $1.2M SM-2 or $4.3M SM-6 missile that can't currently be reloaded

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...outside of a port more than 1,500km from Yemen, AKA the extreme range of the Houthi/Iranian assault drones.

There needs to be a new class of DD tenders for the US Navy capable of high speed underway replenishment of missiles to prevent Burke class block obsolescence.
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This new class of DD Tenders will have to be heavily armed combatants in their own right, with Navy crews and a lot of automation, to survive in the peer to peer drone/ASBM/ASCM envelope to replenish carrier battle groups.

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Until the US Navy gets these self-defending "combat auxiliaries," the ability of the USA to project power is now like Great Britain in the age of sails.

Given the reality of massed drones & ASBM's, we have returned to the Nelsonian age of "A Ship's a Fool to Fight a Fort"
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...because the US cannot afford to combat drones with its current missile technology.

Plus, franky, the post-Cold War US Military staff lacks the analytical rigor to recognize the logistical/cost effectiveness issues involved.

45/45 End

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