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Drones Are Key to Winning Wars Now. The U.S. Makes Hardly Any

86 points by perihelions 1y ago

tromp 1y ago
https://archive.is/UHvzt https://archive.is/UHvzt
wkat4242 1y ago
What wars are actually being won with them? I see them mainly used (eg Ukraine war) to annoy the other party with many military insignificant attacks on civilians. Very sad but not something that actually wins wars.
- ramchip 1y ago
  > As the invasion enters a fourth summer, drones are currently thought to account for around 70 percent of all Russian and Ukrainian battlefield casualties. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/ukraines-drone-wall-is-europes-first-line-of-defense-against-russia/ https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/ukraines-...
  - wkat4242 1y ago
    Yeah but did they actually win a war? It looks like they just introduced another stalemate. I didn't know the role on the battlefield was this big though.
- michaeljohansen 1y ago
  "Drones are key to not losing wars".
- Eddy_Viscosity2 1y ago
  Wearing down your opponent with consistent (relatively) inexpensive attacks does in fact win wars. Attrition works.
- WJW 1y ago
  In the Ukraine war big troop concentrations have become almost impossible because the thousands of spotter drones in the air at any moment will spot them almost immediately, and provide accurate targeting information to (rocket) artillery within seconds. FPV drones with a hand grenade strapped to them will finish off any stragglers. Bigger version (with more explosives) also apparently quite effective against armored vehicles like IFVs and tanks, and can be used to deploy new minefields without having to risk soldiers out in the open. So perhaps they are not (yet) key to winning a war, but they are certainly already key to not losing. There's a very good reason Ukraine is ramping up drone production to several million per year. Convert that to drones deployed per day and use your imagination to come up with uses for 30000 kamikaze drones per day.
  - delusional 1y ago
    > Bigger version (with more explosives) also apparently quite effective against armored vehicles like IFVs and tanks At that point it seems like it's basically a very slow moving missile, except it's steerable by a human operator. I was under the impression that the value of these weapons was mostly in their simple construction from readily available parts (cheap ammunition and grenades instead of expensive purpose made javelins). Doesn't that kind of go away if you start to "innovate" with them? If Lockheed Martin starts selling the drones at $30k a pop, I don't understand why they'd be better than a missile.
    - bamboozled 1y ago
      Why would innovation mean more expensive? The fiber optic FPV drone was an innovation and it's extremely cheap to build? I don't think it's only been about cost, it's been about devastating effectiveness, they just happen to be much much cheaper than basically anything they destroy. Necessity is the mother of invention, Ukraine is developing these things and innovating for actual survival, we're not talking about engaging lockhead martin on a 20 billion dollar budget.
      - delusional 1y ago
        It wouldn't necessarily, but innovation would separate the product from the commoditized nature of regular consumer drones, which I postulate is what made them cheap. Suddenly you need a special military drone, and that could end up being a moat Lockheed would charge you 20 billion for. I suppose my concern is that missiles and bombs probably aren't any more expensive to produce than these drones are. There's just a huge markup for military equipment. We are trying to solve a problem of capitalism (or the military industrial complex i suppose) through technology, and that rarely works. It usually just creates a new layer of incumbents that want another 20 billion.
- guiriduro 1y ago
  They can be used to concurrently overwhelm air defences to improve the odds for more expensive cruise missiles. Ukraine has used small drones to decent effect tactically to disable vehicles, and vice versa (less effectively)
- bell-cot 1y ago
  You're correct about the "military insignificant attacks on civilians". The problem is that mainstream western news sources are not covering the daily reality of front-line fighting in Ukraine - where drones have become a whole new dimension of high-lethality micro-scale air power.
  - jakobnissen 1y ago
    You must be reading other mainstream media than I do, because drone warfare has been covered extensively in what I read. Namely DR (Danish national media), Zetland and The Atlantic.
- FpUser 1y ago
  Not sure about winning but drones are the major factor in Ukrainian war. Style of warfare did change completely. You should probably listen to interviews with the soldiers on both sides. An eye opener. As for attacking civilians being the goal: [1] - "At least two people were killed, including a 22-year-old police officer who was named by authorities as Maria Dziumaha, and more than a dozen were wounded in the attacks, according to authorities..." That is after more than 400 drones were used in the attack. [1] - https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/09/europe/russia-air-assault-ukraine-kyiv-intl-hnk https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/09/europe/russia-air-assault-ukr...
- Marazan 1y ago
  The majority of casualties on both sides are currently caused by drones. Yes, Russia is also using them to terrorise civilians but they clearly have huge battlefield implications and any military not immediately addressing this issue is going g to go into their next conflict at a massive disadvantage
- zihotki 1y ago
  Insignificant? Are destroyed strategic bombers insignificant? As well as huge amounts of armor vehicles so that now motocycles and other cheap vehicles are used instead. They pay significant role now, may be even more than artillery
- danmaz74 1y ago
  You're probably mostly thinking about Shahads and similar alternatives to cruise missiles, but what's much more significant in Ukraine is the use of FPV drones on the front lines to attack armor, transports, artillery and individual trenches. They account for the biggest part of inflicted losses nowadays.
- bamboozled 1y ago
  The title is, "Drones are the key to wining wars", not "Drones have won wars". Read the article.
- coffinbirth 1y ago
  [flagged]
aaron695 1y ago
[dead]
timmg 1y ago
I'm pretty intrigued by companies like Anduril. I don't know much about them. But the idea that we apply more "tech startup" business models to defense doesn't seem like a bad idea to me. My sense is that the existing defense contractors are old, slow and expensive (and conditioned to take huge sums from the government for developing future tech.) In fairness, I'm not at all knowledgable about the industry. Just my impression of things. But it is hard to not be happy to see new entrants to any important market.
- 9dev 1y ago
  What’s it with all the LOTR nerds founding Defense startups by the way?
  - glimshe 1y ago
    LOTR is fundamentally a war epic.
    - causal 1y ago
      Kinda missing the point though if you're finding strength in industry
  - quotemstr 1y ago
    The nerds are the ones bored with B2B SaaS.
  - anton-c 1y ago
    Tolkien having s tier names helps, they're just cool
  - threatofrain 1y ago
    It's just Peter Thiel's companies. All these companies have an agreement with the Tolkien estate.
tomComb 1y ago
If not now, soon. The US is making a big mistake giving up on the EV chain. In doing so it is ceding drones and robots, which are key to future wars and economies. The countries that it is currently waging economic war against should instead be engaged in creating an alternative to the Chinese supply chain. For example, it is currently disassembling the automotive supply chain that included Canada and low-cost Mexico, but it should be doubling down on that.
- amelius 1y ago
  Also, if we keep buying Chinese EVs then in a possible war with China all they will have to do is turn on some power-mosfets in the battery circuit and they turn entire cities into smoke.
  - chgs 1y ago
    You think that wouldn’t escalate to nuclear exchange in days?
    - rightbyte 1y ago
      Don't ruin the dreams of the militaria romantics.
    - Incipient 1y ago
      Probably not. Nuclear deterrent is just that, a deterrent. Once it's used, it's done. I don't think either side would use it on a "that's not fair" play - they'd really be reserved to respond/prevent/equalise some event/situation that would cause them to lose a war.
      - chgs 1y ago
        China killing millions of Americans as they cook in their batteries is different to a nuclear bomb or a biological weapon? Hell it’s more attributable.
- dzhiurgis 1y ago
clvx 1y ago
Unless autonomous drones happen, Russia has proved fiber drones are the way to go. Not saying jammers wouldn’t be needed, but Russia had a lot of success using fiber drones to retake Kursk.
- bamboozled 1y ago
  Are you implying Ukraine left Kurst because of fiber optic drones? Because I can assure you, that's got nothing to do with it. I can also assure you that Ukraine using fiber topic, semi and fully autonomous drones with great effectiveness against the invaders.
  - pydry 1y ago
    It had a lot to do with it. Kursk was a heavily forested area where the Ukrainians largely had small troop deployments hiding under tree cover where fiber optic drones would hunt them down. There are thousands of videos of this in Kursk alone. Ukraine are able to set up "shielded corridors" to protect critical supply roads from fiber optic drone attack behind the front lines in the donbass but in kursk they were exposed and defenseless.
  - clvx 1y ago
    I’m not implying that but it was one of the first places where they used it extensively.
    - kranke155 1y ago
      Fiber optic is just an adaptation. The war has been full of them. The logical end step seems to be autonomy. There is nothing special about fiber optic, it’s just a way to avoid EW.
- topspin 1y ago
  > Unless autonomous drones happen Autonomous drones are an inevitability. Enormous force multiplication is available with autonomy. We're talking about a few people, or perhaps one person, defeating battalions. The truth is autonomous weapons have been in use for a long time now. Mark 60 CAPTOR anti-submarine mines (circa 1979) autonomously identified enemies and launched a torpedo to destroy submarines.
amelius 1y ago
Wars are mostly about who has the largest manufacturing capability. China will win this anytime.
- rapsey 1y ago
  They supply both sides of the ukraine/russia conflict and massively arming themselves at the same time. Some time in the near future the west is in for a very rude awakening.
- Kinrany 1y ago
  Wars can be won on technological sophistication alone.
  - pydry 1y ago
    which wars were won where one side had the greater manufacturing capability and the other side achieved a decisive win with technological advantage? I cant think of any.
    - Kinrany 1y ago
      The First Opium War is the best example I could find: a small expeditionary force ran circles around a peer country's army for more than a year and crippled it thanks to total naval superiority and qualitatively better artillery and rifles. The conquest of Aztecs is another example: Spain annihilated a country with twice the population. Though they cheated with bioweapons of course.
      - pydry 1y ago
        These wars predate the industrial revolution and manufacturing.
        IAmBroom 1y ago
        Moving the goalposts.
throw8394i4484 1y ago
US hardly makes anything. Ukraine desperately needs air defense missiles, perhaps they may get some next year. The same with munition, armored vehicles, jets...
rich_sasha 1y ago
Drones are massively key in a very unusual conflict between Russia and Ukraine. I wonder if other wars would find them useful. For example, a recent article shared on HN highlighted that the cheap drones become useless once there is any signal jamming going on. Russia can't jam too aggressively as their own comms are not good enough to be useful in such an environment. But what about NATO? Would they just jam the EM spectrum to oblivion and render all these drones useless? Not a great point of comparison, but Israel v Gaza seems to use next to no drones (certainly not the small cheap variety), and the little that is known of Israel v Iran also focused on big expensive manned and unmanned aircraft. Plus massive, enormous, eye-wateringly-expensive bombs. Not converted Mavic drones. To the extent that Iran used drones, reportedly they gave no tactical benefit, as they were all shot down long before they reached Israel.
- mnky9800n 1y ago
  Many drones use fiber optic cables to control them. Autonomous drones would solve this problem as well.
  - rich_sasha 1y ago
    Fibre optical drones have their own challenges. Can't easily loiter or backtrack due to issues with snagging, and their range is more limited. Autonomous drones, likewise, have their own issues. Mostly they can't be equally dirt cheap, as they need to have all the electronics that make regular weaponry expensive.
    - ExoticPearTree 1y ago
      I think we are 1-3 years away from a capable autonomous drone with some AI capabilities built-in that can take matters into its own hands.
- breve 1y ago
  > Russia can't jam too aggressively as their own comms are not good enough to be useful in such an environment. Russia makes use of fibre optic cable with some drones: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2024/03/08/russian-fiber-optic-drone-can-beat-any-jammer/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2024/03/08/russia... Ukraine has developed countermeasures: https://www.twz.com/news-features/ukraine-discloses-new-method-to-defeat-russian-fiber-optic-controlled-fpv-drones https://www.twz.com/news-features/ukraine-discloses-new-meth...
anovikov 1y ago
We shouldn't arrive to conclusions on the future of warfare based on what we see in Ukraine. It works there the way it does only because neither side has a viable air force. If one of them had, it could win the war simply by theatre isolation and no drones could help. Manned aircraft are only things immune to drones because they fly higher and faster than cheap drones can. Thus, drone proliferation increases US dominance in future wars, because drones greatly diminish value of eveything else except manned aircraft - which is precisely the field in which US dominates by the highest margin of all. Especially funny was to observe how both sides stopped using tanks because their survivability - even that of "tracked garden shed" or "tortoise" varieties - is now nil. Where are the active protection systems pioneered by Soviet Union and propagandised all the way until today? Trajectory of an FVP is linear in the final second or so, and it is twice slower and a lot more fragile than an RPG round which was what active protection systems were supposed to protect from. Now suddenly, no one remembers of them anymore. Sounds like they were a scam all the way.
- amelius 1y ago
  > neither side has a viable air force. If one of them had, it could win the war simply by theatre isolation Ok, why isn't EU/NATO helping Ukraine with an airforce then?
  - anovikov 1y ago
    Because with air force, critical asset is both people and planes. Just planes is not enough. You can't train pilots not having planes yes, but when you got planes, hard part starts, not ends. It will take many years to have prepared Ukrainian pilots to go into hostile airspace SEAD missions. No one except USAF can do it today. It requires very complex collaboration of many different assets in a manner that is incredibly lengthy and expensive to train for. This is why America leads in it: it has time, space, and cash. There's no way to shortcut it. This is also why Russia concentrates on ground-based SAMs and it's air force is shit: because training SAM operators is cheap and quick. They provide good defence. Ukraine has the same, for same reason. So they are stuck hitting each other with drones because none can do an air offensive.
lesuorac 1y ago
idk, using such long and dragged out conflicts as proof of drones superiority seems to me like going to a U8 soccer tournament and deciding that the best way to win a soccer game is have your entire team form a death ball. Drones are a low cost, low intensity projectile. Similar to a missile. It has utility. But as we can see, you don't win a war with just projectiles otherwise these conflicts would've been long over.
- sorcerer-mar 1y ago
  I think the point is that if one side hadn't adopted drones, they'd have already lost.
- lukan 1y ago
  Well, since both sides are using drones heavily, why should one side have already won? In any case, drones and artillery are responsible for most kills. But to hold the land you still need boots and tanks on the ground. But they can also be soon replaced by drones. Or rather, there will be more and more of them and fewer humans with the main job of controlling and directing them.
  - lesuorac 1y ago
    > drones and artillery are responsible for most kills. Because that's what they have. This situation is effective survivership bias, you need to consider what modes of war they don't have access to. Take the first gulf war for reference. A coalition force bombed the shit out Iraq and then the ground forces were able to occupy territory relatively unimpeded. Russia and Ukraine cannot use the bomb the opposing military into oblivion because they just don't have those weapons. The US should not look to emulate a long drawn out drone war. It should look to incorporate drones as a cheaper alternative to where it would've used a missile but if you rewind the clock to the gulf war you're still going to see a bombing campaign first and then maybe some drone strikes from the ground offense.
    - lukan 1y ago
      You know what russia also used? Lots of tanks and lots of bombers. But they stopped doing so aggressivly and rather use them from the second line, because the tanks got obliterated by drones and the bombers by anti air missile because Ukraine had modern antinaircraft missiles unlike Iraq..
dkga 1y ago
One aspect of drone wars that I have been observing also is the importance of naval drones. For example, Ukraine successfully used it to scare away the bulk of the Black Sea Fleet; now drug lords in Colombia are already using them to send drugs to Europe.[0] A plausible next step would be, if not already done, to have a fleet of small but powerful naval drones that act as sea buoys to sweep the sea for submarines - this would have the potential to complete change submarine deployment strategy. Especially for countries with massive borders, including maritime borders, a fleet of aerial and naval drones will seem indispensable if nothing else for deterrence. [0]: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/drone-narco-sub-seized-first-time-caribbean-colombia/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/drone-narco-sub-seized-first-ti...
- arresin 1y ago
  If they’re that deep then they need to be autonomous because I don’t think there’s any way to reliably get a signal sub marine.
  - exDM69 1y ago
    Long distance communication with submarines is difficult but not impossible, there are four extra low frequency transmitters in the world to send signals in nuclear doomsday scenarios. For shorter distances, there are acoustic and optical devices, and near surface some low frequency radios can be used. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_with_submarines https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_with_submarine...
    - mikestew 1y ago
      “Communication” does not mean “can be used for command of a remote device”. The bandwidth is so low as to make it impractical (bytes per second or minute (in the case of ELF)), in addition to being one-way comm. You’re not remotely driving a boat with that.
      - esseph 1y ago
        You'd be amazed to learn what we do with spaceships then!
weego 1y ago
The US makes small volumes of incredibly expensive drones because it suits how their suppliers want to guarantee contracts for big budgets. What this conflict has shown is you need constantly supplies of basically garage-band single use drones that can be carried en-mass on the battlefield, which is a big change in the model.
christkv 1y ago
Drones don’t make as much sense if you have air superiority. Somebody like the US can carve holes in any frontline at will and create space for maneuver warfare. Drones only became important in the Ukraine war because neither side is able to establish air supremacy.
- _1tem 1y ago
  Very big if. The US is unlikely to have air superiority against a neer peer adversary. And even with air superiority, the US hasn’t been able to win a single war since WW2 except 1991 Gulf. Currently the US and Israel are failing to oust the Houthis from Yemen and Hamas from Gaza even with a massive multi year sustained bombing campaign from the air. Planes have never won a war.
  - christkv 1y ago
    Asymmetrical warfare against insurgents is not the same as going toe to toe against a conventional army. I'm talking about the later scenario.
    - _1tem 1y ago
      If manned aircraft can’t defeat insurgents like the Houthis and failed in conventional conflicts like Vietnam, and air superiority is unlikely against a near peer adversary with strong air defenses and nuclear retribution, then what is manned aircraft good for? Football game flyovers and chest thumping.
- AnimalMuppet 1y ago
  True until the day that dispersed drones behind the frontlines can stop an armored cavalry breakthrough. (I don't know if that day will ever come, but it may.)
  - christkv 1y ago
    I suspect we will see airborne EMP weapons before that happens.
ironyman 1y ago
The Pentagon has recently recognized small drones as 'consumable commodities' like bullets and grenades so there is a role for them to play but U.S. military isn't about to pivot to a strategy of winning wars with swarms of cheap quadcopters. The core of American military power is firmly rooted in long-range kill chains, which is about finding a target to take out (often far in advance of the operation) and then precisely killing it from far away.
- chgs 1y ago
  How many years did it take to take out bin laden?
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
dmix 1y ago
Even if we ignore the more controversial debate around Aircraft Carriers vs masses of Chinese road mobile antiship missile systems, doubling down in 2025 on high end cruise missiles that cost $2-4M each is probably the first thing that will look like a dumb choice when we look back in a decade.
more_corn 1y ago
And certainly doesn’t make the components. The moment China cuts off electronics shipments to the US we’re going to see a drastic hiccup in the supply chain for high tech weapons. It’s probably a good strategy to tear the bandaid off ourselves and see what stops.
instagib 1y ago
I do not think they are a key and war hasn’t been won with them yet. More of a tool in a toolbox assortment of weapons in war. They bring up Ukraine and Russia but that war is ongoing so merely battle wins. There are plenty of gps denial areas the military uses for training from small to over multiple states worth of area. “The Archer sells for about $2,000 each, making it one of the most affordable models. But Neros produces only about 1,500 Archers per month in a factory where 15 workers assemble them by hand.”
- IAmBroom 1y ago
  GPS denial is a minor design obstacle, especially in an age of AI. A killbot can know as little as an infantry soldier without a radio, and still do the soldier's job far cheaper. And Neros is only limited by their market size. If someone needs 150,000 a month, there are known ways to speed up assembly.
amai 1y ago
Drones will have a hard time in the future: https://kyivindependent.com/impeccable-results-new-skynex-video-shows-ukrainian-forces-destroying-russian-drones/amp/ https://kyivindependent.com/impeccable-results-new-skynex-vi...
maxglute 1y ago
Delivering smart munitions at relevant scale is key to winning wars, news at 11. "Drones" are just that proliferated to squad level. I suppose it does represent completing the smart munitions onion, but ultimately it's about using better munitions at standoff distances, i.e. being on the outer layer to asymmetrically bleed your adversary. If you're fighting on the same layer, i.e. symmetrically, be prepared bleed.

86 points by perihelions 1y ago

https://archive.is/UHvzt https://archive.is/UHvzt

What wars are actually being won with them? I see them mainly used (eg Ukraine war) to annoy the other party with many military insignificant attacks on civilians. Very sad but not something that actually wins wars.

ramchip 1y ago
> As the invasion enters a fourth summer, drones are currently thought to account for around 70 percent of all Russian and Ukrainian battlefield casualties. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/ukraines-drone-wall-is-europes-first-line-of-defense-against-russia/ https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/ukraines-...
- wkat4242 1y ago
  Yeah but did they actually win a war? It looks like they just introduced another stalemate. I didn't know the role on the battlefield was this big though.
michaeljohansen 1y ago
"Drones are key to not losing wars".
Eddy_Viscosity2 1y ago
Wearing down your opponent with consistent (relatively) inexpensive attacks does in fact win wars. Attrition works.
WJW 1y ago
In the Ukraine war big troop concentrations have become almost impossible because the thousands of spotter drones in the air at any moment will spot them almost immediately, and provide accurate targeting information to (rocket) artillery within seconds. FPV drones with a hand grenade strapped to them will finish off any stragglers. Bigger version (with more explosives) also apparently quite effective against armored vehicles like IFVs and tanks, and can be used to deploy new minefields without having to risk soldiers out in the open. So perhaps they are not (yet) key to winning a war, but they are certainly already key to not losing. There's a very good reason Ukraine is ramping up drone production to several million per year. Convert that to drones deployed per day and use your imagination to come up with uses for 30000 kamikaze drones per day.
- delusional 1y ago
  > Bigger version (with more explosives) also apparently quite effective against armored vehicles like IFVs and tanks At that point it seems like it's basically a very slow moving missile, except it's steerable by a human operator. I was under the impression that the value of these weapons was mostly in their simple construction from readily available parts (cheap ammunition and grenades instead of expensive purpose made javelins). Doesn't that kind of go away if you start to "innovate" with them? If Lockheed Martin starts selling the drones at $30k a pop, I don't understand why they'd be better than a missile.
  - bamboozled 1y ago
    Why would innovation mean more expensive? The fiber optic FPV drone was an innovation and it's extremely cheap to build? I don't think it's only been about cost, it's been about devastating effectiveness, they just happen to be much much cheaper than basically anything they destroy. Necessity is the mother of invention, Ukraine is developing these things and innovating for actual survival, we're not talking about engaging lockhead martin on a 20 billion dollar budget.
    - delusional 1y ago
      It wouldn't necessarily, but innovation would separate the product from the commoditized nature of regular consumer drones, which I postulate is what made them cheap. Suddenly you need a special military drone, and that could end up being a moat Lockheed would charge you 20 billion for. I suppose my concern is that missiles and bombs probably aren't any more expensive to produce than these drones are. There's just a huge markup for military equipment. We are trying to solve a problem of capitalism (or the military industrial complex i suppose) through technology, and that rarely works. It usually just creates a new layer of incumbents that want another 20 billion.
guiriduro 1y ago
They can be used to concurrently overwhelm air defences to improve the odds for more expensive cruise missiles. Ukraine has used small drones to decent effect tactically to disable vehicles, and vice versa (less effectively)
bell-cot 1y ago
You're correct about the "military insignificant attacks on civilians". The problem is that mainstream western news sources are not covering the daily reality of front-line fighting in Ukraine - where drones have become a whole new dimension of high-lethality micro-scale air power.
- jakobnissen 1y ago
  You must be reading other mainstream media than I do, because drone warfare has been covered extensively in what I read. Namely DR (Danish national media), Zetland and The Atlantic.
FpUser 1y ago
Not sure about winning but drones are the major factor in Ukrainian war. Style of warfare did change completely. You should probably listen to interviews with the soldiers on both sides. An eye opener. As for attacking civilians being the goal: [1] - "At least two people were killed, including a 22-year-old police officer who was named by authorities as Maria Dziumaha, and more than a dozen were wounded in the attacks, according to authorities..." That is after more than 400 drones were used in the attack. [1] - https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/09/europe/russia-air-assault-ukraine-kyiv-intl-hnk https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/09/europe/russia-air-assault-ukr...
Marazan 1y ago
The majority of casualties on both sides are currently caused by drones. Yes, Russia is also using them to terrorise civilians but they clearly have huge battlefield implications and any military not immediately addressing this issue is going g to go into their next conflict at a massive disadvantage
zihotki 1y ago
Insignificant? Are destroyed strategic bombers insignificant? As well as huge amounts of armor vehicles so that now motocycles and other cheap vehicles are used instead. They pay significant role now, may be even more than artillery
danmaz74 1y ago
You're probably mostly thinking about Shahads and similar alternatives to cruise missiles, but what's much more significant in Ukraine is the use of FPV drones on the front lines to attack armor, transports, artillery and individual trenches. They account for the biggest part of inflicted losses nowadays.
bamboozled 1y ago
The title is, "Drones are the key to wining wars", not "Drones have won wars". Read the article.
coffinbirth 1y ago
[flagged]

aaron695 1y ago

[dead]

timmg 1y ago

I'm pretty intrigued by companies like Anduril. I don't know much about them. But the idea that we apply more "tech startup" business models to defense doesn't seem like a bad idea to me. My sense is that the existing defense contractors are old, slow and expensive (and conditioned to take huge sums from the government for developing future tech.) In fairness, I'm not at all knowledgable about the industry. Just my impression of things. But it is hard to not be happy to see new entrants to any important market.

9dev 1y ago
What’s it with all the LOTR nerds founding Defense startups by the way?
- glimshe 1y ago
  LOTR is fundamentally a war epic.
  - causal 1y ago
    Kinda missing the point though if you're finding strength in industry
- quotemstr 1y ago
  The nerds are the ones bored with B2B SaaS.
- anton-c 1y ago
  Tolkien having s tier names helps, they're just cool
- threatofrain 1y ago
  It's just Peter Thiel's companies. All these companies have an agreement with the Tolkien estate.

tomComb 1y ago

If not now, soon. The US is making a big mistake giving up on the EV chain. In doing so it is ceding drones and robots, which are key to future wars and economies. The countries that it is currently waging economic war against should instead be engaged in creating an alternative to the Chinese supply chain. For example, it is currently disassembling the automotive supply chain that included Canada and low-cost Mexico, but it should be doubling down on that.

amelius 1y ago
Also, if we keep buying Chinese EVs then in a possible war with China all they will have to do is turn on some power-mosfets in the battery circuit and they turn entire cities into smoke.
- chgs 1y ago
  You think that wouldn’t escalate to nuclear exchange in days?
  - rightbyte 1y ago
    Don't ruin the dreams of the militaria romantics.
  - Incipient 1y ago
    Probably not. Nuclear deterrent is just that, a deterrent. Once it's used, it's done. I don't think either side would use it on a "that's not fair" play - they'd really be reserved to respond/prevent/equalise some event/situation that would cause them to lose a war.
    - chgs 1y ago
      China killing millions of Americans as they cook in their batteries is different to a nuclear bomb or a biological weapon? Hell it’s more attributable.
dzhiurgis 1y ago

clvx 1y ago

Unless autonomous drones happen, Russia has proved fiber drones are the way to go. Not saying jammers wouldn’t be needed, but Russia had a lot of success using fiber drones to retake Kursk.

bamboozled 1y ago
Are you implying Ukraine left Kurst because of fiber optic drones? Because I can assure you, that's got nothing to do with it. I can also assure you that Ukraine using fiber topic, semi and fully autonomous drones with great effectiveness against the invaders.
- pydry 1y ago
  It had a lot to do with it. Kursk was a heavily forested area where the Ukrainians largely had small troop deployments hiding under tree cover where fiber optic drones would hunt them down. There are thousands of videos of this in Kursk alone. Ukraine are able to set up "shielded corridors" to protect critical supply roads from fiber optic drone attack behind the front lines in the donbass but in kursk they were exposed and defenseless.
- clvx 1y ago
  I’m not implying that but it was one of the first places where they used it extensively.
  - kranke155 1y ago
    Fiber optic is just an adaptation. The war has been full of them. The logical end step seems to be autonomy. There is nothing special about fiber optic, it’s just a way to avoid EW.
topspin 1y ago
> Unless autonomous drones happen Autonomous drones are an inevitability. Enormous force multiplication is available with autonomy. We're talking about a few people, or perhaps one person, defeating battalions. The truth is autonomous weapons have been in use for a long time now. Mark 60 CAPTOR anti-submarine mines (circa 1979) autonomously identified enemies and launched a torpedo to destroy submarines.

amelius 1y ago

Wars are mostly about who has the largest manufacturing capability. China will win this anytime.

rapsey 1y ago
They supply both sides of the ukraine/russia conflict and massively arming themselves at the same time. Some time in the near future the west is in for a very rude awakening.
Kinrany 1y ago
Wars can be won on technological sophistication alone.
- pydry 1y ago
  which wars were won where one side had the greater manufacturing capability and the other side achieved a decisive win with technological advantage? I cant think of any.
  - Kinrany 1y ago
    The First Opium War is the best example I could find: a small expeditionary force ran circles around a peer country's army for more than a year and crippled it thanks to total naval superiority and qualitatively better artillery and rifles. The conquest of Aztecs is another example: Spain annihilated a country with twice the population. Though they cheated with bioweapons of course.
    - pydry 1y ago
      These wars predate the industrial revolution and manufacturing.
      - IAmBroom 1y ago
        Moving the goalposts.

throw8394i4484 1y ago

US hardly makes anything. Ukraine desperately needs air defense missiles, perhaps they may get some next year. The same with munition, armored vehicles, jets...

rich_sasha 1y ago

Drones are massively key in a very unusual conflict between Russia and Ukraine. I wonder if other wars would find them useful. For example, a recent article shared on HN highlighted that the cheap drones become useless once there is any signal jamming going on. Russia can't jam too aggressively as their own comms are not good enough to be useful in such an environment. But what about NATO? Would they just jam the EM spectrum to oblivion and render all these drones useless? Not a great point of comparison, but Israel v Gaza seems to use next to no drones (certainly not the small cheap variety), and the little that is known of Israel v Iran also focused on big expensive manned and unmanned aircraft. Plus massive, enormous, eye-wateringly-expensive bombs. Not converted Mavic drones. To the extent that Iran used drones, reportedly they gave no tactical benefit, as they were all shot down long before they reached Israel.

mnky9800n 1y ago
Many drones use fiber optic cables to control them. Autonomous drones would solve this problem as well.
- rich_sasha 1y ago
  Fibre optical drones have their own challenges. Can't easily loiter or backtrack due to issues with snagging, and their range is more limited. Autonomous drones, likewise, have their own issues. Mostly they can't be equally dirt cheap, as they need to have all the electronics that make regular weaponry expensive.
  - ExoticPearTree 1y ago
    I think we are 1-3 years away from a capable autonomous drone with some AI capabilities built-in that can take matters into its own hands.
breve 1y ago
> Russia can't jam too aggressively as their own comms are not good enough to be useful in such an environment. Russia makes use of fibre optic cable with some drones: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2024/03/08/russian-fiber-optic-drone-can-beat-any-jammer/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2024/03/08/russia... Ukraine has developed countermeasures: https://www.twz.com/news-features/ukraine-discloses-new-method-to-defeat-russian-fiber-optic-controlled-fpv-drones https://www.twz.com/news-features/ukraine-discloses-new-meth...

anovikov 1y ago

We shouldn't arrive to conclusions on the future of warfare based on what we see in Ukraine. It works there the way it does only because neither side has a viable air force. If one of them had, it could win the war simply by theatre isolation and no drones could help. Manned aircraft are only things immune to drones because they fly higher and faster than cheap drones can. Thus, drone proliferation increases US dominance in future wars, because drones greatly diminish value of eveything else except manned aircraft - which is precisely the field in which US dominates by the highest margin of all. Especially funny was to observe how both sides stopped using tanks because their survivability - even that of "tracked garden shed" or "tortoise" varieties - is now nil. Where are the active protection systems pioneered by Soviet Union and propagandised all the way until today? Trajectory of an FVP is linear in the final second or so, and it is twice slower and a lot more fragile than an RPG round which was what active protection systems were supposed to protect from. Now suddenly, no one remembers of them anymore. Sounds like they were a scam all the way.

amelius 1y ago
> neither side has a viable air force. If one of them had, it could win the war simply by theatre isolation Ok, why isn't EU/NATO helping Ukraine with an airforce then?
- anovikov 1y ago
  Because with air force, critical asset is both people and planes. Just planes is not enough. You can't train pilots not having planes yes, but when you got planes, hard part starts, not ends. It will take many years to have prepared Ukrainian pilots to go into hostile airspace SEAD missions. No one except USAF can do it today. It requires very complex collaboration of many different assets in a manner that is incredibly lengthy and expensive to train for. This is why America leads in it: it has time, space, and cash. There's no way to shortcut it. This is also why Russia concentrates on ground-based SAMs and it's air force is shit: because training SAM operators is cheap and quick. They provide good defence. Ukraine has the same, for same reason. So they are stuck hitting each other with drones because none can do an air offensive.

lesuorac 1y ago

idk, using such long and dragged out conflicts as proof of drones superiority seems to me like going to a U8 soccer tournament and deciding that the best way to win a soccer game is have your entire team form a death ball. Drones are a low cost, low intensity projectile. Similar to a missile. It has utility. But as we can see, you don't win a war with just projectiles otherwise these conflicts would've been long over.

sorcerer-mar 1y ago
I think the point is that if one side hadn't adopted drones, they'd have already lost.
lukan 1y ago
Well, since both sides are using drones heavily, why should one side have already won? In any case, drones and artillery are responsible for most kills. But to hold the land you still need boots and tanks on the ground. But they can also be soon replaced by drones. Or rather, there will be more and more of them and fewer humans with the main job of controlling and directing them.
- lesuorac 1y ago
  > drones and artillery are responsible for most kills. Because that's what they have. This situation is effective survivership bias, you need to consider what modes of war they don't have access to. Take the first gulf war for reference. A coalition force bombed the shit out Iraq and then the ground forces were able to occupy territory relatively unimpeded. Russia and Ukraine cannot use the bomb the opposing military into oblivion because they just don't have those weapons. The US should not look to emulate a long drawn out drone war. It should look to incorporate drones as a cheaper alternative to where it would've used a missile but if you rewind the clock to the gulf war you're still going to see a bombing campaign first and then maybe some drone strikes from the ground offense.
  - lukan 1y ago
    You know what russia also used? Lots of tanks and lots of bombers. But they stopped doing so aggressivly and rather use them from the second line, because the tanks got obliterated by drones and the bombers by anti air missile because Ukraine had modern antinaircraft missiles unlike Iraq..

dkga 1y ago

One aspect of drone wars that I have been observing also is the importance of naval drones. For example, Ukraine successfully used it to scare away the bulk of the Black Sea Fleet; now drug lords in Colombia are already using them to send drugs to Europe.[0] A plausible next step would be, if not already done, to have a fleet of small but powerful naval drones that act as sea buoys to sweep the sea for submarines - this would have the potential to complete change submarine deployment strategy. Especially for countries with massive borders, including maritime borders, a fleet of aerial and naval drones will seem indispensable if nothing else for deterrence. [0]: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/drone-narco-sub-seized-first-time-caribbean-colombia/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/drone-narco-sub-seized-first-ti...

arresin 1y ago
If they’re that deep then they need to be autonomous because I don’t think there’s any way to reliably get a signal sub marine.
- exDM69 1y ago
  Long distance communication with submarines is difficult but not impossible, there are four extra low frequency transmitters in the world to send signals in nuclear doomsday scenarios. For shorter distances, there are acoustic and optical devices, and near surface some low frequency radios can be used. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_with_submarines https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_with_submarine...
  - mikestew 1y ago
    “Communication” does not mean “can be used for command of a remote device”. The bandwidth is so low as to make it impractical (bytes per second or minute (in the case of ELF)), in addition to being one-way comm. You’re not remotely driving a boat with that.
    - esseph 1y ago
      You'd be amazed to learn what we do with spaceships then!

weego 1y ago

The US makes small volumes of incredibly expensive drones because it suits how their suppliers want to guarantee contracts for big budgets. What this conflict has shown is you need constantly supplies of basically garage-band single use drones that can be carried en-mass on the battlefield, which is a big change in the model.

christkv 1y ago

Drones don’t make as much sense if you have air superiority. Somebody like the US can carve holes in any frontline at will and create space for maneuver warfare. Drones only became important in the Ukraine war because neither side is able to establish air supremacy.

_1tem 1y ago
Very big if. The US is unlikely to have air superiority against a neer peer adversary. And even with air superiority, the US hasn’t been able to win a single war since WW2 except 1991 Gulf. Currently the US and Israel are failing to oust the Houthis from Yemen and Hamas from Gaza even with a massive multi year sustained bombing campaign from the air. Planes have never won a war.
- christkv 1y ago
  Asymmetrical warfare against insurgents is not the same as going toe to toe against a conventional army. I'm talking about the later scenario.
  - _1tem 1y ago
    If manned aircraft can’t defeat insurgents like the Houthis and failed in conventional conflicts like Vietnam, and air superiority is unlikely against a near peer adversary with strong air defenses and nuclear retribution, then what is manned aircraft good for? Football game flyovers and chest thumping.
AnimalMuppet 1y ago
True until the day that dispersed drones behind the frontlines can stop an armored cavalry breakthrough. (I don't know if that day will ever come, but it may.)
- christkv 1y ago
  I suspect we will see airborne EMP weapons before that happens.

ironyman 1y ago

The Pentagon has recently recognized small drones as 'consumable commodities' like bullets and grenades so there is a role for them to play but U.S. military isn't about to pivot to a strategy of winning wars with swarms of cheap quadcopters. The core of American military power is firmly rooted in long-range kill chains, which is about finding a target to take out (often far in advance of the operation) and then precisely killing it from far away.

chgs 1y ago
How many years did it take to take out bin laden?

deleted 1y ago

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dmix 1y ago

Even if we ignore the more controversial debate around Aircraft Carriers vs masses of Chinese road mobile antiship missile systems, doubling down in 2025 on high end cruise missiles that cost $2-4M each is probably the first thing that will look like a dumb choice when we look back in a decade.

more_corn 1y ago

And certainly doesn’t make the components. The moment China cuts off electronics shipments to the US we’re going to see a drastic hiccup in the supply chain for high tech weapons. It’s probably a good strategy to tear the bandaid off ourselves and see what stops.

instagib 1y ago

I do not think they are a key and war hasn’t been won with them yet. More of a tool in a toolbox assortment of weapons in war. They bring up Ukraine and Russia but that war is ongoing so merely battle wins. There are plenty of gps denial areas the military uses for training from small to over multiple states worth of area. “The Archer sells for about $2,000 each, making it one of the most affordable models. But Neros produces only about 1,500 Archers per month in a factory where 15 workers assemble them by hand.”

IAmBroom 1y ago
GPS denial is a minor design obstacle, especially in an age of AI. A killbot can know as little as an infantry soldier without a radio, and still do the soldier's job far cheaper. And Neros is only limited by their market size. If someone needs 150,000 a month, there are known ways to speed up assembly.

amai 1y ago

Drones will have a hard time in the future: https://kyivindependent.com/impeccable-results-new-skynex-video-shows-ukrainian-forces-destroying-russian-drones/amp/ https://kyivindependent.com/impeccable-results-new-skynex-vi...

maxglute 1y ago

Delivering smart munitions at relevant scale is key to winning wars, news at 11. "Drones" are just that proliferated to squad level. I suppose it does represent completing the smart munitions onion, but ultimately it's about using better munitions at standoff distances, i.e. being on the outer layer to asymmetrically bleed your adversary. If you're fighting on the same layer, i.e. symmetrically, be prepared bleed.