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Strategic depth is a factor. In the Israel/Iran war, Iran's Shahed drones weren't useful due to the large distance. They could be shot down at a leisurely pace.

Strategic depth is a factor. In the Israel/Iran war, Iran's Shahed drones weren't useful due to the large distance. They could be shot down at a leisurely pace. If Iran was fighting a nearby country like Iraq, it would be a very different story. On the other hand, Israel made use of surveillance drones inside Iran, but only due to methods employed to shrink the strategic depth, either by smuggling them into Iran, or doing a clandestine launch from allies like Azerbaijan. But obviously, such tactics are not durable in a war of attrition, and they're not applicable to high-volume Shahed-like suicide attacks. In the Pacific theatre, Taiwan is very close to China, so possibly, attack drones will be useful similar to the Ukraine/Russia war. There are also many different types of drones being employed. The short-range small quadcopters, all the way up to large Predator drones. Shaheds are kind of in the middle in terms of size. The boundary can be blurred too between loitering munitions (Switchblade) and drones. For the suicide quadcopter drones, there is a realization that Skynet is the next step in the arms race. Full edge autonomy over the kill chain. No need for data link (susceptible to electronic warfare) or trained pilots or added round-trip latency. Anti-drone tech is also changing. Interceptor drones, net-dropping drones, ground-based laser, electronic warfare, and small guided ground- or air-launched interceptors. Also have to consider the combined arms picture, none of this can be reasoned about in a vacuum. But I suppose my main takeaway is - no two theatres are the same, AND there is a diversity in drones. So to collectivize a takeaway around "drones" would be a reasoning error. One thing will be certain when it comes to wars between nearby countries. You need to knock out the enemy's industrial production quickly with bombers. Or have your own industrial production that can maintain pacing and avoid culmination in a war of attrition.

esseph 1y ago
I've been trying to judge this impact on doctrine and procurement but these things are hard to judge when it's happening. Hindsight is cheating ;) It's huge, though. Many tiers of equipment, doctrine, vehicles, product time to market improvements, RF equipment, radars, stealth tech, software, battle drills, and even new job specializations of various levels. It's intense, and a constant iteration cycle at a pace we haven't seen for at least a long time, but possibly forever.
- energy123 1y ago
  One possible future is that wartime casualties decrease because humans in the field are just completely useless. Accompanying this positive development will be the negative tail risk of exinction.
  - esseph 1y ago
    Somebody has to build the factories that build the robots, for at least a short time... All for a reduction in casualties, though I'm terrified of a nation not having a Cost To Pay for war that isn't just in slightly hire taxes.
maxglute 1y ago
My comment was more specific to the article, i.e. counter "SMALL" UAS / tactical / infantry battlefield scale. Pacific theater / operation/strategic scale, IMO bigger drones and traditional loitering munitions kind of just blend together. A shaheed is just a poor man's cruise missile. Iran didn't have #s or ability to coordinate / mass #s for any strategic effect. I think Israel has like magazine depth of ~800 interceptors for low tier / subsonic threats and 1000s in stockpile. Iran was (E: *NOT) capable of saturating that. Depending on relative size / force balance, can still drag on war of attrition after factories turn with sufficient stockpiles. I'm kind of thinking nation state actors, the hedge is really storing a few 10-100,000 loitering munition tier drones in tunnels to ensure some sort of conventional MAD with neighbours. But really that's for... competent / connected nation state actors who has backup ISR, i.e. piggy off US/ eventually PRC global ISR for targeting. I imagine a resourced nation can build out shaheed tier manufacturing underground. Incidentally, we had news earlier this year that PRC/Polytech is acquiring 1M, as in 1,000,000 loitering drones. Presuming shaheed tier (2000km sky moped) since Polytech has show shaheed clones in past. That's enough to easily saturate all defenses in first island chain even if US+co prepositions every piece of interception hardware ever made or plan to acquire in next 10+ years. That's strategic level shaheed spam. My main takeaway is cheap loitering munition/drones can reasonable replace potentially short range fires (~2000km), if there's enough of them to casually bleed interceptors, AND if there's survivable theater level kill chain. Last part is really... what separates Ukraine, Iran... maybe Russia's current... hobbyist tier efforts. RU launching 500+ salvos are still trying to evade anti air, with many interceptions because they don't have ISR / killchain to eliminate antiair. It's easy to build a lot of shooters, it's hard to build out the sensors to hit important things. In a highend fight, at least one side (and possibly both) side is going has the ISR and magazine depth to ensure antiair becomes irrelevant and then it will be matter of munitions + concrete attrition math
- whizzter 1y ago
  I'm fully agreeing with your assessment (see my squad-level-airpower comment beside here), however I think there'll probably be cheap-enough counter-measures, like the latest CV-90 variation that has anti-drone munitions and built-in sensors to detect them at close quarters. I think we're due to a cambrian explosion of drone types and counter-measures in the coming decade, in your mass-drone scenario I think smaller drones will probably be possible to counter with cheap "technical"-like vechicles armed with cheap enough sensors/radars and automatic-/machine- shotguns (there has always been experiments but no pressing use for them in the past).
whizzter 1y ago
I think because drones impact at the time is because it's filling an previously untapped niche with a cheap and ridiculously useful alternative. In my mind I'm calling it "squad-level-airpower" , regular airpower started with spotters, then fighters and CAS in WW1. By WW2 it had expanded the role to achieve operation and theater levels goals, and finally with nukes also a strategic level, and still remains required to achieve goals on larger levels. However with air-defences creeping down to MANPADS, CAS became more problematic and adding then the cost of planes and pilots made it far from universally useful in a close war. Drones being man-luggable and -operatable and cheap with hardly any infrastructure more or less flooded a that useful niche, and it's not like that niche was unsurprising, just not successfully exploited previously as the US army tried with the VZ-1 and HZ-1. Like you mentioned with the Iran conflict, classic air superiority still holds the crown to achieve larger goals on strategic levels (even if drones helped out on an tactical level). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiller_VZ-1_Pawnee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiller_VZ-1_Pawnee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Lackner_HZ-1_Aerocycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Lackner_HZ-1_Aerocycle
BobaFloutist 1y ago
>Full edge autonomy over the kill chain. I wonder how susceptible these would be to Potemkin targets (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dummy_tank https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dummy_tank) Things could get very MGS V very fast.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]

esseph 1y ago

I've been trying to judge this impact on doctrine and procurement but these things are hard to judge when it's happening. Hindsight is cheating ;) It's huge, though. Many tiers of equipment, doctrine, vehicles, product time to market improvements, RF equipment, radars, stealth tech, software, battle drills, and even new job specializations of various levels. It's intense, and a constant iteration cycle at a pace we haven't seen for at least a long time, but possibly forever.

energy123 1y ago
One possible future is that wartime casualties decrease because humans in the field are just completely useless. Accompanying this positive development will be the negative tail risk of exinction.
- esseph 1y ago
  Somebody has to build the factories that build the robots, for at least a short time... All for a reduction in casualties, though I'm terrified of a nation not having a Cost To Pay for war that isn't just in slightly hire taxes.

maxglute 1y ago

My comment was more specific to the article, i.e. counter "SMALL" UAS / tactical / infantry battlefield scale. Pacific theater / operation/strategic scale, IMO bigger drones and traditional loitering munitions kind of just blend together. A shaheed is just a poor man's cruise missile. Iran didn't have #s or ability to coordinate / mass #s for any strategic effect. I think Israel has like magazine depth of ~800 interceptors for low tier / subsonic threats and 1000s in stockpile. Iran was (E: *NOT) capable of saturating that. Depending on relative size / force balance, can still drag on war of attrition after factories turn with sufficient stockpiles. I'm kind of thinking nation state actors, the hedge is really storing a few 10-100,000 loitering munition tier drones in tunnels to ensure some sort of conventional MAD with neighbours. But really that's for... competent / connected nation state actors who has backup ISR, i.e. piggy off US/ eventually PRC global ISR for targeting. I imagine a resourced nation can build out shaheed tier manufacturing underground. Incidentally, we had news earlier this year that PRC/Polytech is acquiring 1M, as in 1,000,000 loitering drones. Presuming shaheed tier (2000km sky moped) since Polytech has show shaheed clones in past. That's enough to easily saturate all defenses in first island chain even if US+co prepositions every piece of interception hardware ever made or plan to acquire in next 10+ years. That's strategic level shaheed spam. My main takeaway is cheap loitering munition/drones can reasonable replace potentially short range fires (~2000km), if there's enough of them to casually bleed interceptors, AND if there's survivable theater level kill chain. Last part is really... what separates Ukraine, Iran... maybe Russia's current... hobbyist tier efforts. RU launching 500+ salvos are still trying to evade anti air, with many interceptions because they don't have ISR / killchain to eliminate antiair. It's easy to build a lot of shooters, it's hard to build out the sensors to hit important things. In a highend fight, at least one side (and possibly both) side is going has the ISR and magazine depth to ensure antiair becomes irrelevant and then it will be matter of munitions + concrete attrition math

whizzter 1y ago
I'm fully agreeing with your assessment (see my squad-level-airpower comment beside here), however I think there'll probably be cheap-enough counter-measures, like the latest CV-90 variation that has anti-drone munitions and built-in sensors to detect them at close quarters. I think we're due to a cambrian explosion of drone types and counter-measures in the coming decade, in your mass-drone scenario I think smaller drones will probably be possible to counter with cheap "technical"-like vechicles armed with cheap enough sensors/radars and automatic-/machine- shotguns (there has always been experiments but no pressing use for them in the past).

whizzter 1y ago

I think because drones impact at the time is because it's filling an previously untapped niche with a cheap and ridiculously useful alternative. In my mind I'm calling it "squad-level-airpower" , regular airpower started with spotters, then fighters and CAS in WW1. By WW2 it had expanded the role to achieve operation and theater levels goals, and finally with nukes also a strategic level, and still remains required to achieve goals on larger levels. However with air-defences creeping down to MANPADS, CAS became more problematic and adding then the cost of planes and pilots made it far from universally useful in a close war. Drones being man-luggable and -operatable and cheap with hardly any infrastructure more or less flooded a that useful niche, and it's not like that niche was unsurprising, just not successfully exploited previously as the US army tried with the VZ-1 and HZ-1. Like you mentioned with the Iran conflict, classic air superiority still holds the crown to achieve larger goals on strategic levels (even if drones helped out on an tactical level). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiller_VZ-1_Pawnee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiller_VZ-1_Pawnee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Lackner_HZ-1_Aerocycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Lackner_HZ-1_Aerocycle

BobaFloutist 1y ago

>Full edge autonomy over the kill chain. I wonder how susceptible these would be to Potemkin targets (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dummy_tank https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dummy_tank) Things could get very MGS V very fast.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]