Why are we not seeing many drones in UKR war?
A few quick answers:
1) Equipment/Acquisitions: Neither side has woven significant numbers of armed UAS into their armies yet in major way
2) Air Defenses: Both have em, still active, all the way down to MANPADS.
A few quick answers:
1) Equipment/Acquisitions: Neither side has woven significant numbers of armed UAS into their armies yet in major way
2) Air Defenses: Both have em, still active, all the way down to MANPADS.
Also both sides still flying fighters. Back to above, the drones they do have are highly vulnerable to that. Gotta take down both to get the value of current generation of slow UAS
3) and most significant: Operations/Strategy:
Russian strategy so far was assumption they could collapse UKR govt from inside with sabotage and SOF, combined with a few missile strikes and quick thunder run convoys into the cities. All in 1 day. It didn't work.
Russian strategy so far was assumption they could collapse UKR govt from inside with sabotage and SOF, combined with a few missile strikes and quick thunder run convoys into the cities. All in 1 day. It didn't work.
Now we likely see RU try to suppress air defenses completely, pummel cities with artillery/missiles/air strikes, and, if no ceasefire, take cities with armor+infantry (with UKR trying to make that a painful urban fight).
In that next potential stage, UKR UAS likely unable to fly and/or shot down/nonfactor , as just not at any scale yet, while Russian UAS would be used to support, especially in ISR for the ground ops.
But again, the two sides just dont have same numbers/armed UAS capability as US did in our urban COIN fights in Iraq cities nor it seems yet the Turk quasi conventional doctrine model from Libya/Azerbaijan, etc down yet. If an insurgency, UAS shift back to the role seen before
Interesting thing to watch for will be whether UKR civilians start to use civilian small drones in much the way ISIS and then Taliban etc did, to observe and harass and even jury-rig them to bomb Russians.
For example, you see all sorts of reports of UKR civilians now making Molotov Cocktails, to use in an urban fight. But that is 1939 resistance tech.
If this goes further, I expect to see a "Drone Molotov Cocktail" video go viral at some point.
If this goes further, I expect to see a "Drone Molotov Cocktail" video go viral at some point.
In turn, as far as we've seen, Russians don't have a lot of anti-small drone gear (what our military had to quickly buy last few years)
They do seem to be bringing in a lot of cell-phone jamming equipment (the white trucks that you see in the convoy video), so likely turn to that
They do seem to be bringing in a lot of cell-phone jamming equipment (the white trucks that you see in the convoy video), so likely turn to that
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