Thread by @MarkUrban01

Big military lessons coming out of the #Karabakh fighting between Armenia & Azerbaijan: firstly, it calls into question the future of manned combat aircraft since drones can take on exacting tasks such as the destruction of concealed or moving armour 1/

Azerbaijan invested in unpiloted aircraft - not just the big ones like Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drone but also much smaller Israeli Orbiter & Harop that circle over the battlefield, costing a fraction of what they destroy let lone a fighter jet 2/

https://twitter.com/ArmeniaMODTeam/status/1311600599167897600

Armenia nor Azerbaijan only have a few crewed combat jets, around 10 & 20 serviceable respectively. So drones show the way to smaller or emerging military powers to gain control of the skies by knocking out enemy air defences without risking pilots 3/

So the 2nd big lesson is that you need many layers of troop air defence which is a big problem for Nato, which has been stinting on this for years. Drones can be shot down, but apart from a few successes the Armenian defences have been overwhelmed 4/

https://twitter.com/ArmenianUnified/status/1310903766615547905

If you want to hold on to your country or indeed recapture bits you've lost, your army need armoured protection. You cannot do it on foot unprotected - the results from artillery strikes or indeed drones will be horrible (GRAPHIC VIDEO) 5/ mod.gov.az/en/news/video-…

These have been constants since WW2, allowing the enemy to gain control of the skies will result in your rapid destruction. Just like Iraqis in 1991 Kuwait, Armenian forces have abandoned their tanks in working order due to fear of the air threat 6/

But you cannot *not* give armoured protection to your infantry - and as Azeri forces move forward to gain ground they are deploying some quite modern vehicles to do so 7/

https://twitter.com/imp_navigator/status/1314251584122032135

There's one final takeaway - which is in the importance of mass or numbers. Whether it's recovery from initial setbacks, lost tanks or air defence, or indeed continuing to fire guided weapons / loitering munitions day after day, you need LOTS of them. 8/

Most Nato forces, including those of the UK, have bought small numbers of high value jets or tanks, have little air defence, and very low stocks of precision weapons. They are ill equipped for war on this pattern. 9/9