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Counterpoint, the US has better other systems. Such as the 1st,2nd,3rd largest air forces in the world. Lots of Ukrainian commanders would happily trade FPV dr

by gonzo41 11mo ago

Counterpoint, the US has better other systems. Such as the 1st,2nd,3rd largest air forces in the world. Lots of Ukrainian commanders would happily trade FPV drones with grenades attached for mortar teams with lots of ammo and effective aircover. Modern militaries need drones, but the swarms that everyone gushes over aren't that effective when a 1000 pound gorilla like the US Army turns up to play.

defrost 11mo ago
A swarm of dirt cheap drones flying through the jet engines of a 10,000,000 dollar gorilla is an asymmetric answer.
- brandensilva 11mo ago
  Yeah I think people are underestimating drones here. There is a reason this administration is fast tracking drone production and easing up on procurement. Some stuff doesn't need super sophisticated systems with traditional processes to get off the ground quickly with a cheap swarm approach. It's probably the only thing I can agree with this administration on. With that said America would be doing both drone swarms and advanced missile systems where they are most effective.
- gonzo41 11mo ago
  Flak cannons are also really cheap to produce and use. But downing a modern fast jet with one is still hard to do. Especially when they can fire over the horizon. The war in Ukraine looks like it does because Ukraine has had to fight with constant equipment shortages. It's not really the future of warfare that modern militaries are prepping for.
- aviatobrainded 11mo ago
  Huh? Do you know how high and fast modern jets fly?
  - defrost 11mo ago
    Yes.
  - ceejayoz 11mo ago
    Which is why you do what the Ukranians did with the Russian bomber fleet - hit them at/near their bases.
radicalShrimpl 11mo ago
This is exactly correct. It's the same reason why US military doctrine worries very little about jamming. If something is jamming, the tactical response is to destroy the jammer. If someone is drone attacking you, the tactical response is to destroy the drone launches.
BLKNSLVR 11mo ago
Ultimately I think this is true, but you can't overlook any aspect, and it seems the US overlooked drone potential. Thus far it hasn't cost them. A disparate drone swarm taking out power distribution stations (I don't know what they're officially called) all over the country would be devastating. Lessons from https://cybersquirrel1.com/ https://cybersquirrel1.com/. (I think there's an 'imagination' and/or 'perspective' limitation when you're already the gorilla. You think like a gorilla, you're unable to think like a parasite)
- walletdrainer 11mo ago
  > A disparate drone swarm taking out power distribution stations (I don't know what they're officially called) all over the country would be devastating I believe the military term of art for this would be a “nothingburger”. This kind of stuff is not expected to have a meaningful impact on your ability to fight. Yes, it’s inconvenient for civilians. Has next to nothing to do with winning wars, much of WW2 was fought in much worse circumstances than “the electricity doesn’t work”. Focusing on things like this results in diverting resources from fighting wars, and results in losing them (or at least hinders your ability to win). The goal isn’t to preserve quality of life for civilians, but to at the very least preserve the integrity of the nation.
pas 11mo ago
> the swarms that everyone gushes over aren't that effective when a 1000 pound gorilla like the US Army turns up to play ... maybe. maybe not. the same army lost against stubborn Afghan shepherds. and before that against Vietnamese farmers.
- alex43578 11mo ago
  The US military didn't lose. They had overwhelming tactical and technological superiority, 20:1 kill ratios, and consistently inflicted heavy casualties whenever they engaged the enemy directly. Now that didn't translate into accomplishing the political war goals of nation-building, changing cultures, and counter-insurgency without massive troop presence; but that wasn't a failure of the armed forces. What's that line: the US doesn't lose wars, it gets tired of them?
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
  - lisdexan 11mo ago
    That's still losing. The enemy's simple and concise objective of "GTFO of my country" was achieved, and the U.S.'s vague idea of "something something stop commies/terrorists" wasn't. It's like the opposite of a Pyrrhic victory: you lost and squandered trillions while tarnishing your reputation, but your sheer economic and geopolitical power made it so you didn't feel pretty much anything, nor did you learn much. That might be okay if the national hobby is airlifting a BK to some forsaken land every 30 years. What happens when the technological gap is smaller and your opponents have access to a substantially higher manufacturing capacity? What happens when you have multiple conflicts and coincidentally suffer an economic slowdown? Being able to casually outspend your enemy is a nice luxury, not an advantage. I suppose in a sense you are right: superpowers never lose; they just get tired, and more tired until they become Russia or the UK.
  - hollerith 11mo ago
    By that logic, Britain never lost the American revolution.
  - 11mo ago
alex43578 11mo ago
Agreed. The military will certainly need smaller drones to support squads or platoons, and to perform a variety of functions on the battlefield. But, I think drawing too many and too specific of lessons from Ukraine/Russia is bad. It's tough to imagine a scenario where the US is so bogged down on a front line that a few miles of range on a Ukraine style FPV drone is going to be a critical weapon, especially if this scenario also requires that the US not be able to perform SEAD, destroy GPS jamming, or hit the target with JDAM/Hellfires/ETC. Having a Mavic or Mini drone that can perform recon, a small drone capable of delivering a grenade sized payload to hit entrenched targets, a larger drone that can offer BDA and recon for artillery/MLRS, or the "Loyal Wingman" airforce drones are all reasonable ideas. But I just don't see the US standing up a dedicated FPV regiment - it doesn't align with the rest of the force's composition or likely missions. Essentially it's this dichotomy: If we need to project force overseas, it's existing at the end of a massive chain of logistics, air/sea power and lift capability, and a lot of dollars. Whether the drone costs 500, 1000, or 10,000 doesn't really matter at that point because the soldier operating it and the logistics to get him there has already cost hundreds of thousands, and even a $50K drone-bomb is cheaper than the cost of the JDAM, F-35 flight time, pilot, and carrier that would otherwise be used to hit the target. If instead we are fighting on the homefront, battling over tens of miles of heartland and building drones from parts scavenged from a bombed out Best Buy or imported from some imaginary, untouched part of the world (because what would the world's supply chain look like in this scenario??), all assumptions go out the window and the idea of mass-producing any armament at all is impossible.
cyberax 11mo ago
Russia is dominating Ukraine in air forces by about 10-to-1. Yet Russia is using aviation only to lob guided bombs from far beyond the front line. Apparently, air defense is good enough to make the aviation use too expensive too quickly. It's possible that the US can saturate the air defense by the sheer number of airplanes, accepting heavy casualties in return. But what if it fails?
kragen 11mo ago
Both Ukraine and Russia have more combat aircraft than the US, if you count drones. Of course the US has a far larger air force if you count by dollars rather than by airframe count, but if that's because they're buying US$10k milspec chips when US$1 parking meter chips would work just as well, that and a fiver will get you a cup of coffee. An F-16 costs US$200 million and can be destroyed by a US$500 FPV drone with a grenade attached, as Operation Spiderweb demonstrated with Russia's strategic bomber force. Surely you are correct that commanders would happily trade one FPV drone for one properly equipped F-16, even without the mortars. But it isn't clear that they would trade 400,000 FPV drones for the F-16, and that's the trade actually on offer. The US Army has never fought drone swarms, because they have never been fielded in any war, probably because they don't work very well yet; that's why the Ukrainians are dinking around with FPV. The US Army has never faced even the kind of FPV drone war we're seeing in Ukraine. Their materiel has, though, since they shipped a lot of it to the Ukrainians, and it doesn't seem to be doing very well. Both the Russians and the Ukrainians are trying to keep their tanks off the front lines when they can, and the vast majority of casualties on both sides are from drones.
- gonzo41 11mo ago
  Think about mortars more. If you can be close enough for a drone 1-2km, then mortars should be what you're thinking about. Mix a targeting drone with a vehicle mounted mortar team and they can have faster rounds on target and get of the X quicker than drone teams. And nets don't stop mortars. 200M will by a lot of that and can be fielded in a very flexible way.
  - kragen 11mo ago
    Mortars miss; suicide drones don't. And even the crappiest combat FPVs outrange mortars at 10+ km. The second drone gets through the net. And I wouldn't be surprised if US mortar rounds cost more than Ukrainian drones. But certainly they are synergistic, and tanks and IFVs are also widely fielded on both sides of the war. The obvious thing to do is to guide your mortar rounds with canards mounted slightly forward of the center of gravity, but the distance between "obvious" and done has a lot of rotting corpses in it.
SanjayMehta 11mo ago
> 1000 pound gorilla like the US Army turns up to play. Afghanistan proves your point.
postingawayonhn 11mo ago
Yeah, I think it will be important to continue improving drone technology and have a plan to scale manufacturing in the event of a major conflict, but the lack of conventional air superiority is what has really brought this war to a stalemate.

by gonzo41 11mo ago

defrost 11mo ago

A swarm of dirt cheap drones flying through the jet engines of a 10,000,000 dollar gorilla is an asymmetric answer.

brandensilva 11mo ago
Yeah I think people are underestimating drones here. There is a reason this administration is fast tracking drone production and easing up on procurement. Some stuff doesn't need super sophisticated systems with traditional processes to get off the ground quickly with a cheap swarm approach. It's probably the only thing I can agree with this administration on. With that said America would be doing both drone swarms and advanced missile systems where they are most effective.
gonzo41 11mo ago
Flak cannons are also really cheap to produce and use. But downing a modern fast jet with one is still hard to do. Especially when they can fire over the horizon. The war in Ukraine looks like it does because Ukraine has had to fight with constant equipment shortages. It's not really the future of warfare that modern militaries are prepping for.
aviatobrainded 11mo ago
Huh? Do you know how high and fast modern jets fly?
- defrost 11mo ago
  Yes.
- ceejayoz 11mo ago
  Which is why you do what the Ukranians did with the Russian bomber fleet - hit them at/near their bases.

radicalShrimpl 11mo ago

This is exactly correct. It's the same reason why US military doctrine worries very little about jamming. If something is jamming, the tactical response is to destroy the jammer. If someone is drone attacking you, the tactical response is to destroy the drone launches.

BLKNSLVR 11mo ago

Ultimately I think this is true, but you can't overlook any aspect, and it seems the US overlooked drone potential. Thus far it hasn't cost them. A disparate drone swarm taking out power distribution stations (I don't know what they're officially called) all over the country would be devastating. Lessons from https://cybersquirrel1.com/ https://cybersquirrel1.com/. (I think there's an 'imagination' and/or 'perspective' limitation when you're already the gorilla. You think like a gorilla, you're unable to think like a parasite)

walletdrainer 11mo ago
> A disparate drone swarm taking out power distribution stations (I don't know what they're officially called) all over the country would be devastating I believe the military term of art for this would be a “nothingburger”. This kind of stuff is not expected to have a meaningful impact on your ability to fight. Yes, it’s inconvenient for civilians. Has next to nothing to do with winning wars, much of WW2 was fought in much worse circumstances than “the electricity doesn’t work”. Focusing on things like this results in diverting resources from fighting wars, and results in losing them (or at least hinders your ability to win). The goal isn’t to preserve quality of life for civilians, but to at the very least preserve the integrity of the nation.

pas 11mo ago

> the swarms that everyone gushes over aren't that effective when a 1000 pound gorilla like the US Army turns up to play ... maybe. maybe not. the same army lost against stubborn Afghan shepherds. and before that against Vietnamese farmers.

alex43578 11mo ago
The US military didn't lose. They had overwhelming tactical and technological superiority, 20:1 kill ratios, and consistently inflicted heavy casualties whenever they engaged the enemy directly. Now that didn't translate into accomplishing the political war goals of nation-building, changing cultures, and counter-insurgency without massive troop presence; but that wasn't a failure of the armed forces. What's that line: the US doesn't lose wars, it gets tired of them?
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- lisdexan 11mo ago
  That's still losing. The enemy's simple and concise objective of "GTFO of my country" was achieved, and the U.S.'s vague idea of "something something stop commies/terrorists" wasn't. It's like the opposite of a Pyrrhic victory: you lost and squandered trillions while tarnishing your reputation, but your sheer economic and geopolitical power made it so you didn't feel pretty much anything, nor did you learn much. That might be okay if the national hobby is airlifting a BK to some forsaken land every 30 years. What happens when the technological gap is smaller and your opponents have access to a substantially higher manufacturing capacity? What happens when you have multiple conflicts and coincidentally suffer an economic slowdown? Being able to casually outspend your enemy is a nice luxury, not an advantage. I suppose in a sense you are right: superpowers never lose; they just get tired, and more tired until they become Russia or the UK.
- hollerith 11mo ago
  By that logic, Britain never lost the American revolution.
- 11mo ago

alex43578 11mo ago

Agreed. The military will certainly need smaller drones to support squads or platoons, and to perform a variety of functions on the battlefield. But, I think drawing too many and too specific of lessons from Ukraine/Russia is bad. It's tough to imagine a scenario where the US is so bogged down on a front line that a few miles of range on a Ukraine style FPV drone is going to be a critical weapon, especially if this scenario also requires that the US not be able to perform SEAD, destroy GPS jamming, or hit the target with JDAM/Hellfires/ETC. Having a Mavic or Mini drone that can perform recon, a small drone capable of delivering a grenade sized payload to hit entrenched targets, a larger drone that can offer BDA and recon for artillery/MLRS, or the "Loyal Wingman" airforce drones are all reasonable ideas. But I just don't see the US standing up a dedicated FPV regiment - it doesn't align with the rest of the force's composition or likely missions. Essentially it's this dichotomy: If we need to project force overseas, it's existing at the end of a massive chain of logistics, air/sea power and lift capability, and a lot of dollars. Whether the drone costs 500, 1000, or 10,000 doesn't really matter at that point because the soldier operating it and the logistics to get him there has already cost hundreds of thousands, and even a $50K drone-bomb is cheaper than the cost of the JDAM, F-35 flight time, pilot, and carrier that would otherwise be used to hit the target. If instead we are fighting on the homefront, battling over tens of miles of heartland and building drones from parts scavenged from a bombed out Best Buy or imported from some imaginary, untouched part of the world (because what would the world's supply chain look like in this scenario??), all assumptions go out the window and the idea of mass-producing any armament at all is impossible.

cyberax 11mo ago

Russia is dominating Ukraine in air forces by about 10-to-1. Yet Russia is using aviation only to lob guided bombs from far beyond the front line. Apparently, air defense is good enough to make the aviation use too expensive too quickly. It's possible that the US can saturate the air defense by the sheer number of airplanes, accepting heavy casualties in return. But what if it fails?

kragen 11mo ago

Both Ukraine and Russia have more combat aircraft than the US, if you count drones. Of course the US has a far larger air force if you count by dollars rather than by airframe count, but if that's because they're buying US$10k milspec chips when US$1 parking meter chips would work just as well, that and a fiver will get you a cup of coffee. An F-16 costs US$200 million and can be destroyed by a US$500 FPV drone with a grenade attached, as Operation Spiderweb demonstrated with Russia's strategic bomber force. Surely you are correct that commanders would happily trade one FPV drone for one properly equipped F-16, even without the mortars. But it isn't clear that they would trade 400,000 FPV drones for the F-16, and that's the trade actually on offer. The US Army has never fought drone swarms, because they have never been fielded in any war, probably because they don't work very well yet; that's why the Ukrainians are dinking around with FPV. The US Army has never faced even the kind of FPV drone war we're seeing in Ukraine. Their materiel has, though, since they shipped a lot of it to the Ukrainians, and it doesn't seem to be doing very well. Both the Russians and the Ukrainians are trying to keep their tanks off the front lines when they can, and the vast majority of casualties on both sides are from drones.

gonzo41 11mo ago
Think about mortars more. If you can be close enough for a drone 1-2km, then mortars should be what you're thinking about. Mix a targeting drone with a vehicle mounted mortar team and they can have faster rounds on target and get of the X quicker than drone teams. And nets don't stop mortars. 200M will by a lot of that and can be fielded in a very flexible way.
- kragen 11mo ago
  Mortars miss; suicide drones don't. And even the crappiest combat FPVs outrange mortars at 10+ km. The second drone gets through the net. And I wouldn't be surprised if US mortar rounds cost more than Ukrainian drones. But certainly they are synergistic, and tanks and IFVs are also widely fielded on both sides of the war. The obvious thing to do is to guide your mortar rounds with canards mounted slightly forward of the center of gravity, but the distance between "obvious" and done has a lot of rotting corpses in it.

SanjayMehta 11mo ago

> 1000 pound gorilla like the US Army turns up to play. Afghanistan proves your point.

postingawayonhn 11mo ago

Yeah, I think it will be important to continue improving drone technology and have a plan to scale manufacturing in the event of a major conflict, but the lack of conventional air superiority is what has really brought this war to a stalemate.