Thread by @TrentTelenko

The Drone Revolution in Military Affairs...visual proof...arriving.

Dyagilevo airfield, Russia - 2022

~600 km from Ukrainian border

h/t @wartranslated

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Khmeimim airbase, Syria - January 2018

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The common denominators here are smart people with cheap drones using global navigation satellite systems (GNSS).

They will absolutely kill unprotected aircraft without active electronic & anti-aircraft defenses designed to deal with attacking drones.

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defense-update.com/20180108_uav_a…

The only difference between the two events is that states with a computer adept STEM population & industry can build DIY assault drones/prop cruise missiles with 15 times the range of a non-state actor.

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A USMC air wing or the 101st Air Assault División's aviation brigade are in the same leaky boat.

The fundamental problem for Western military's is the lack of enough and appropriate air defense for expeditionary power projection against the assault drone threat to
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...their fuel.

Forward area refueling points and forward area operating bases necessary for US/Western style expeditionary warfare simply have no real air defenses commensurate with their value in the assault drone/prop cruise missile era.

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Air superiority with crewed jet fighters is simply inadequate with current generation air to air missiles.

Jet fighter munitions cost too much and are too few for the defensive counter-air mission against $20K to $90K each assault drones/prop cruise missiles.

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In a sense, we are coming full circle technologically to needing something like the F-89 Scorpion with an AESA radar, FLIR, laser designator & hoards of air-to-air 70 mm rockets in the APKWS class to deal with the assault drone threat in the expeditionary environment.
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To keep the flying hour costs low enough for the threat, this F-89ish plane is going to need to be uncrewed.

It is the five figure dollars per hour flight cost of 4th & 5th Gen jet fighters that prices them out of the defensive counter-air mission as much as the cost of their
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..air-to-air munitions.

Also, please note, no APKWS carrying capability on the F-35.

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21st century airpower is in a phase of rapid & disruptive technological innovation akin to the 1920's & 1930's with crewed jet fighters and bomber playing the role of the battleship to the aircraft carrier.

Crewed Jets aren't dead yet.

hbr.org/2015/12/what-i…
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Anymore than the battleship was obsolete in 1932.

Yet the same sort of advancing capability for the cost curve can be seen with drones versus jets today as happened 90 years ago.

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Today's drone boffins & wranglers have that same calculating "I can take you" glint in their eyes looking at the F-35 and the NGAD as US naval aviators flying torpedo planes and dive bombers in the 1930's had looking at battleships.

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And after Khmeimim, Engles & Dyagilevo airfields, can we really say those drone boffins & wranglers are wrong in the long run?

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