[Goose]

The AI "attack" drones coupled with FPV reconnaissance drones using fiber optic cables eliminate most of the disadvantages of the current "commercial" FPV drones used in Ukraine. The main issues will be cost and production capacity. Right now Ukraine is talking about requiring a production rate of four million(!) drones per year. This very high demand is mostly due to the very high attrition caused by EW. That won't be true of the new attack drone designs because they do not transmit. That said, the new designs need to be cost-effective. The US hasn't been good at doing that. It is essential we  overcome that problem or all the "clever" AI in the world won't help.

 

Ukraine and Russia have greatly benefited from the fact that a significant commercial market led to mass production of drone designs that could be adapted to military use. That adaptation was however very sub-optimal. The "next generation" military drones will not have anywhere near the quantity of production commercial drones offer. Commercial drones will however provide a very useful set of mechanical parts and assemblies that should be used in the military drones going forward. The electronics provided with commercial drones will be much less useful, although the fiber-optic reconnaissance drones can probable use a lot of it. Once again, anything COTS that can be used should be used. We can't afford the ultimate, gold-plated mil-spec products that our military-industrial complex wants to produce.

 

The US will need a large quantity of drones going forward. It will also need a large quantity of other munitions as well. Right now we are not capable of meeting demand that a major war would require. Up to about 1970-1980 the US probably had enough manufacturing capacity we could repurpose our domestic manufacturing to meet our needs. That is no longer the case. This is a big problem for drone production as well.

 

In summary, the way ahead in drone warfare as I see it has been presented in these posts. Again, predicting the future is at best very inexact. While gathering the information to attempt this, I have run across many contradictions in the same documents. The real "data" is pretty questionable. I am now going to descend into some minutia that I thinks illustrates some procedural and organizational problems with drone use in Ukraine. IMO some of this illustrates "immutable truths" that are often ignored in Ukraine. They are ignored for various reasons. One of the reasons is that both sides in Ukraine aren't fighting the way they "want to" but rather the way they have to. Sometimes the reasons they "have to" are questionable.

---

Here is one example from [Ref 4]. Quoting the reference

"If enemy infantry approaches our positions, our [soldiers] open fire with machine guns and the enemy lies down, they no longer pay attention to our drones, and then we finish them off, we kill them," Pip says, describing one of the tactics commonly in use by his men.

IMO using drones to deal with pinned-down infantry is silly. A Ukrainian "heavy" drone can typically carry 8 or fewer 60 mm mortar shell sized "bombs". A drone launching team located directly behind the machine gun will require about two minutes of "transit time" to arrive at the target. If the launch point is further away than this "best case" it will take proportionally longer.  In US usage, the company of which the machine gun is part has three 60 mm mortars. A single mortar can deliver 30 round per minute for "awhile" and 20 round per minute thereafter until it is out of ammunition. The flight time is a matter of seconds.

 

The mortar is clearly the weapon of choice. This has been true since WW I. Both Russia and Ukraine have mortars. The problem is they are not organic to infantry companies. They are attached to battalion or higher levels. Their use is subject to all kinds of communication delays. The Russians know there is problem. From [CB-1]

The attachment of artillery formations to combined arms units is also discussed in Russian military journals covering the war. One article relates a case of an officer skipping the artillery commander altogether and sending his requests directly to battery commanders. This has resulted in articles explaining how a commander should designate and report targets directly to a battery commander. Another example reportedly involved ‘improvised mortar platoons’, which were temporary mortar teams established by a mechanised commander from regular infantry. This methodology provided immediately available fire support from three mortars that did not require additional clearance or process to fire.

I wonder where he got that idea?

 

Both Russia and Ukraine have elected to attach their "drone warfare" special units at the battalion level and control them like they do artillery. Ukraine is undoubtedly more flexible than Russia is but both suffer from organizational delays. In US service the FIST operating at the company level executes the requests to the battery commanders. It is much faster than the "Russian" way. As previously stated I hope the command and control of drones in US service is pushed to the company level. Battalion will have its own dedicated units under its direct control, as it does with artillery.

---

Quoting once again from [Ref 4]

But he also says it's clear remote controlled weapons won't be enough to stop the much larger Russian army entirely.
"We try to take out as many [Russians] as we can before they reach our positions," Yuri says. "But sometimes they're just too many. It's impossible to hold."

This fact is an immutable consequence of commercial drones inability to deliver an adequate "weight of fire". In a notional conflict between two forces of company size initially 3 km apart, one armed only with drones and another that is "regular infantry", the infantry will win every time, quickly. In "real life" no such battle will ever be fought, but the point must be understood. My future prediction is that the lack of mass problem for drones will be addressed as much as possible. However, in many cases drones aren't the best way to deliver massed fires. That isn't their "thing". 

---

Thanks to BC for his gifted article. [NYT-1]  has lots of interesting information. One very interesting quote

The proliferation of drones inevitably gave rise to widespread electronic warfare — tools to jam the radio signals that most drones need to fly.
Tens of thousands of jammers have been littered across Ukraine’s front lines to disable drones, cluttering the electromagnetic spectrum that also enables GPS, military communications, navigation, radar and surveillance.

If we are conservative and and accept that there are 10,000 total jammers littered across the front lines of Ukraine then 5000 of them are Ukrainian. The line of contact in Ukraine is about 1,300 km long. Therefore there is one jammer every 260 meters. To be fair, they are not all drone jammers and they are not uniformly distributed. However, the clearly puts to bed any notion that both sides lack the ability to jam along the entire line of contact, confirming what was previously conjectured in these posts.

---

From the same article

Ukrainian engineers have built drones and robots with “frequency hoppers,” automatically switching from one radio signal to another to evade jammers.

As we know, all the commercially available drones are "frequency hoppers". We also know that that is ineffective against jamming in Ukraine. The frequency range is small enough barrage noise is possible, although I suspect multi-tone is being used because the channel center frequencies are known. The statement IMO reflects a serious lack of understanding. What Ukraine HAS done is modify the hopping frequencies. They have also developed a "rota" for moving frequency bands between 2.4, 5.8, and the 5.2 bands. That is all the commercial drones can do.

---

That is all I have. Well, not really. I have many very interesting links. I am however out of gas and this is way too long already

[Goose]

The AI "attack" drones coupled with FPV reconnaissance drones using fiber optic cables eliminate most of the disadvantages of the current "commercial" FPV drones used in Ukraine. The main issues will be cost and production capacity. Right now Ukraine is talking about requiring a production rate of four million(!) drones per year. This very high demand is mostly due to the very high attrition caused by EW. That won't be true of the new attack drone designs because they do not transmit. That said, the new designs need to be cost-effective. The US hasn't been good at doing that. It is essential we  overcome that problem or all the "clever" AI in the world won't help.

 

Ukraine and Russia have greatly benefited from the fact that a significant commercial market led to mass production of drone designs that could be adapted to military use. That adaptation was however very sub-optimal. The "next generation" military drones will not have anywhere near the quantity of production commercial drones offer. Commercial drones will however provide a very useful set of mechanical parts and assemblies that should be used in the military drones going forward. The electronics provided with commercial drones will be much less useful, although the fiber-optic reconnaissance drones can probable use a lot of it. Once again, anything COTS that can be used should be used. We can't afford the ultimate, gold-plated mil-spec products that our military-industrial complex wants to produce.

 

The US will need a large quantity of drones going forward. It will also need a large quantity of other munitions as well. Right now we are not capable of meeting demand that a major war would require. Up to about 1970-1980 the US probably had enough manufacturing capacity we could repurpose our domestic manufacturing to meet our needs. That is no longer the case. This is a big problem for drone production as well.

 

In summary, the way ahead in drone warfare as I see it has been presented in these posts. Again, predicting the future is at best very inexact. While gathering the information to attempt this, I have run across many contradictions in the same documents. The real "data" is pretty questionable. I am now going to descend into some minutia that I thinks illustrates some procedural and organizational problems with drone use in Ukraine. IMO some of this illustrates "immutable truths" that are often ignored in Ukraine. They are ignored for various reasons. One of the reasons is that both sides in Ukraine aren't fighting the way they "want to" but rather the way they have to. Sometimes the reasons they "have to" are questionable.

---

Here is one example from [Ref 4]. Quoting the reference

"If enemy infantry approaches our positions, our [soldiers] open fire with machine guns and the enemy lies down, they no longer pay attention to our drones, and then we finish them off, we kill them," Pip says, describing one of the tactics commonly in use by his men.

IMO using drones to deal with pinned-down infantry is silly. A Ukrainian "heavy" drone can typically carry 8 or fewer 60 mm mortar shell sized "bombs". A drone launching team located directly behind the machine gun will require about two minutes of "transit time" to arrive at the target. If the launch point is further away than this "best case" it will take proportionally longer.  In US usage, the company of which the machine gun is part has three 60 mm mortars. A single mortar can deliver 30 round per minute for "awhile" and 20 round per minute thereafter until it is out of ammunition. The flight time is a matter of seconds.

 

The mortar is clearly the weapon of choice. This has been true since WW I. Both Russia and Ukraine have mortars. The problem is they are not organic to infantry companies. They are attached to battalion or higher levels. Their use is subject to all kinds of communication delays. The Russians know there is problem. From [CB-1]

The attachment of artillery formations to combined arms units is also discussed in Russian military journals covering the war. One article relates a case of an officer skipping the artillery commander altogether and sending his requests directly to battery commanders. This has resulted in articles explaining how a commander should designate and report targets directly to a battery commander. Another example reportedly involved ‘improvised mortar platoons’, which were temporary mortar teams established by a mechanised commander from regular infantry. This methodology provided immediately available fire support from three mortars that did not require additional clearance or process to fire.

I wonder where he got that idea?

 

Both Russia and Ukraine have elected to attach their "drone warfare" special units at the battalion level and control them like they do artillery. Ukraine is undoubtedly more flexible than Russia is but both suffer from organizational delays. In US service the FIST operating at the company level executes the requests to the battery commanders. It is much faster than the "Russian" way. As previously stated I hope the command and control of drones in US service is pushed to the company level. Battalion will have its own dedicated units under its direct control, as it does with artillery.

---

Quoting once again from [Ref 4]

But he also says it's clear remote controlled weapons won't be enough to stop the much larger Russian army entirely.
"We try to take out as many [Russians] as we can before they reach our positions," Yuri says. "But sometimes they're just too many. It's impossible to hold."

This fact is an immutable consequence of commercial drones inability to deliver an adequate "weight of fire". In a notional conflict between two forces of company size initially 3 km apart, one armed only with drones and another that is "regular infantry", the infantry will win every time, quickly. In "real life" no such battle will ever be fought, but the point must be understood. My future prediction is that the lack of mass problem for drones will be addressed as much as possible. However, in many cases drones aren't the best way to deliver massed fires. That isn't their "thing". 

---

Thanks to BC for his gifted article. [NYT-1]  has lots of interesting information. One very interesting quote

The proliferation of drones inevitably gave rise to widespread electronic warfare — tools to jam the radio signals that most drones need to fly.
Tens of thousands of jammers have been littered across Ukraine’s front lines to disable drones, cluttering the electromagnetic spectrum that also enables GPS, military communications, navigation, radar and surveillance.

If we are conservative and and accept that there are 10,000 total jammers littered across the front lines of Ukraine then 5000 of them are Ukrainian. The line of contact in Ukraine is about 1,300 km long. Therefore there is one jammer every 260 meters. To be fair, they are not all drone jammers and they are not uniformly distributed. However, the clearly puts to bed any notion that both sides lack the ability to jam along the entire line of contact, confirming what was previously conjectured in these posts.

---

From the same article

Ukrainian engineers have built drones and robots with “frequency hoppers,” automatically switching from one radio signal to another to evade jammers.

As we know, all the commercially available drones are "frequency hoppers". We also know that that is ineffective against jamming in Ukraine. The frequency range is small enough barrage noise is possible, although I suspect multi-tone is being used because the channel center frequencies are known. The statement IMO reflects a serious lack of understanding. What Ukraine HAS done is modify the hopping frequencies. They have also developed a "rota" for moving frequency bands between 2.4, 5.8, and the 5.2 bands. That is all the commercial drones can do.

---

That is all I have. Well, not really. I have many very interesting links. I am however out of gas and this is way too long already