Drones are just beginning to change warfare in Ukraine

I explain the difference between a strategic and tactical approach using the example of military FPV drones.

Currently, there is a tendency to improve the efficiency of these drones by increasing the range and weight of the ammunition they carry. But this automatically leads to an increase in the size of the drone and its visibility, making it more vulnerable. Nevertheless, these are the conditions of positional combat, and tactics dictate.

But the strategic development of such drones is likely to follow the opposite path that science fiction writers have long predicted – the path of maximum miniaturization. That is, a combat drone will shrink to the size of an insect, a biting bee. A smaller dose of poison means that the enemy soldier is paralyzed, i.e., neutralized for a certain period of time. A larger dose – the enemy soldier is killed.

A whole swarm of cyber bees will be delivered to the enemy’s positions by an artillery shell or missile. These bees will hide and not move to save energy, and when a target is detected, they will attack. The swarm will be controlled by artificial intelligence, which will be in touch with a human operator.

Electronic warfare against a swarm with miniature drones is unlikely to be effective because the drones will be highly autonomous. Therefore, the EW system will require such an electromagnetic field power that it may be harmful to the people to be protected.

The only reliable defense against microdrones will be either fully sealed bunkers and combat vehicles or combat suits with an exoskeleton like a space one (and the price of a tank). In other words, there will be no infantry in the war of the future as we know it today. And in general, how many soldiers will the under-empire be able to mobilize, even among prisoners, if everyone knows that they will be killed in the war? Not possible, but guaranteed.

And the biggest military secret then will be the AI algorithms that control the swarm of killer drones. And such algorithms will no longer be smuggled around sanctions, like chips are now, but will have to be developed by each country.

We know what the tactics of drone development are for us and the enemy. Is anyone here already working on the strategic perspective of these drones? In China and the United States, yes. And we still have to. It is better to be first than to catch up.

Alexandr Kochetkov

Ukraine Front Lines