Military drones - Lessons from the Ukraine War

[caltrek]

Russia Launches Largest Mass Drone Attack On Ukraine Yet
by Thomas Newdick
November 25, 2023

Introduction:

(The Drive) Russia overnight launched what Ukrainian officials describe as the largest drone attack on their country so far, with 75 one-way attack drones being launched, mainly against the capital, Kyiv, and the surrounding region. The drone assault has been seen as the opening salvo in Russia’s expected winter campaign attacking Ukrainian energy infrastructure, to inflict maximum disruption on its civilian population as the winter weather begins to bite.

Conclusion:

Ukraine has clearly been making significant efforts to make itself more resilient against Russian drone attacks this winter. However, no air defense system is perfect and the challenges of protecting infrastructure across Europe’s largest country are obvious. At the same time, the conflict has so far shown that, while attrition may be high, mass drone strikes are always likely to cause at least some level of damage and destruction, and that they always have the potential to be deadly to the civilian population.

Read more here: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone ... raine-yet

[caltrek]

The article below has already been cited in another thread concerning drones, but the cited sentences caught my eye as they very much apply to this thread.

Indian Army’s Drone Use: Lessons Taken from Observation of the Conflict Between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and the Russia Ukraine War
by Kartik Bommakanti
December 5, 2023

Extract:

(Observer Research Foundation) As the wars between Azerbaijan and Armenia and especially the Russia-Ukraine conflict have visibly and incontrovertibly demonstrated, electronic jamming is amongst the deadliest forms of attack against ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) UAVs. Spoofing is another form of attack, which involves feeding false signals by way of simulating the GPS signal of the enemy and capturing the adversary’s receiver thereby diminishing the accuracy of munitions.

Read more here: https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak ... rone-use

[funkervogt]

Imagine a big bomber flying over an enemy city. The belly opens and what look like large bombs fall out. However, they lack explosives, and at 10,000 ft in altitude, they open, releasing a swarm of 50,000 mini-drones, each equipped with a grenade-sized bomblet. They all have highly advanced sensors and targeting computers, made cheap by Moore's Law. Some of them fly into electrical substations and power lines, blacking out the whole city, while others with incendiary loads crash through windows and ignite inside buildings, causing fires all over the city. Others target police cars, ambulances and fire trucks to cripple the emergency response force, while others kill random people across the city to spread terror by making sure everyone sees or knows someone who is killed, regardless of what neighborhood they live in. AI and robotics will make conventional warfare as deadly as nuclear warfare again, and give us another means to exterminate our own species.

Looks like the video game Modern Warfare 3 has copied my idea (or just researched the same military tech trends that I have?). A feature called "Swarm Killstrek" involves a cargo plane dropping small suicide drones over the fighting arena.


I think the only inaccuracies are 1) the plane would be flying at higher altitude to avoid ground fire, 2) most of the drones would already know what their targets were from the moment they were dropped, so they would dive directly into them without stopping to hover, and 3) the drones that did stop to hover to search for targets would be impossible to shoot down with a rifle.

[raklian]

This is where high-energy laser defense becomes crucial. For it to mount a successful defense, it needs to fire high-energy beams rapidly without overheating for long periods.

[funkervogt]

This is where high-energy laser defense becomes crucial. For it to mount a successful defense, it needs to fire high-energy beams rapidly without overheating for long periods.

The drones could spot the laser and overwhelm it with dive attacks.

[raklian]

This is where high-energy laser defense becomes crucial. For it to mount a successful defense, it needs to fire high-energy beams rapidly without overheating for long periods.

The drones could spot the laser and overwhelm it with dive attacks.

A sensible battle commander wouldn't deploy a lone unit for the purpose of destroying those drones.

[funkervogt]

This is where high-energy laser defense becomes crucial. For it to mount a successful defense, it needs to fire high-energy beams rapidly without overheating for long periods.

The drones could spot the laser and overwhelm it with dive attacks.

A sensible battle commander wouldn't deploy a lone unit for the purpose of destroying those drones.

How would the commander know in advance where the drone attack was going to happen?

[raklian]

The drones could spot the laser and overwhelm it with dive attacks.

A sensible battle commander wouldn't deploy a lone unit for the purpose of destroying those drones.

How would the commander know in advance where the drone attack was going to happen?

They don't need to guess. They just need field multiple laser defense units commensurate for the size of the formation being deployed.

[weatheriscool]

Silent Arrow to develop motorized, disposable, heavy transport drone
By David Szondy
December 27, 2023


https://newatlas.com/military/silent-ar ... ble-drone/

Aerospace company Silent Arrow has been awarded a contract by the Air Force Research Laboratory's innovation arm AFWERX to develop a heavy payload, long-range motorized version of its GD-2000 glider drone capable of flying 300 nm (350 mi, 560 km).

Silent Arrow has made a name for itself by developing a series of military and civilian autonomous glider drones capable of carrying up to 1,500 lb (680 kg). These drones are designed to be carried by transport aircraft or helicopters, dropped, spread their wings, and then glide to their destination in disaster or combat zones. They are also designed to be cheap enough to be expendable.

It's an interesting design, but what it lacks is range. The GD-200, for example, can only travel about 35 nm (40 miles, 65 km) after being dropped from a Lockheed Martin C-130, Boeing C-17, or Airbus A400M transport aircraft. The CLS-300 hopes to increase this range by a factor of 10 using a motorized pusher propeller to move the boxy aircraft along.