As a person who operates the MQ-9 I greatly appreciate the depth of the conversation of the differences between different types of “drones”. This video is fantastic and I look forward to others coming in the future.
@Alpha_Wave - There are estimated over 250,000 medical malpractice deaths each year in the US alone. Shall I be looking for your comments on healthcare videos as well, or are you more of just a niche complainer when it suits your worldview?
@Alpha_Wave - Also, looking at your page, and what you seem to support, it’s no wonder you hate UAVs. Considering how bad the TB2 Bayraktar is giving it to your side in Ukraine.
I think the one aspect you didn’t really touch on was the other increasing need for smaller scale and more numerous anti-UAV weapons. It’s both not cost efficient and operationally disadvantagous to have to use a Patriot or S-400 to schwack something the size of a TB-2 or even a Scan Eagle. At the same time many IR seeking MANPADS, can’t easily detect and engage small battery powered drones. What is seriously need to achieve the sort of system counter system parity will be a system that enable a force to engage large numbers of small UAV’s both quickly and efficiently.
No, actually it's very cost efficient to use a patriot or an S-400 to destroy a TB-2. If you don't destroy it, it is likely that it will destroy you. So instead of using a single s-400 or a single patriot missile, you lose a whole battery.
The cost of the system is important if the value of what they are protecting is relatively low or the success rate is low enough. This is the value-add of UAVs themselves: they are cheaper than the target often enough. This drove the development of Iron Dome’s trajectory-tracking system. Let the mortar round fall in the empty field, engage the one with a high probability of hitting a population.
@@xXrandomryzeXx You are thinking tactically not strategically mate. Yes you'd use an expensive missile to destroy an inexpensive drone if you have to on the day. If you have to do this repeatedly then over time you will be at a serious loss in terms of attrition
Rather than the dronestrikes, I got the impression that drone guided artillerie strikes are gamechanging. You miss every shoot you dont take, and with artillery there sure is not lack of rounds and guns, but accurate targeting data at the end decides if thouse assets get used or not. Seeing a little quadcopter means for the modern soldier that he can expect 155mm rounds coming in at any moment.
@@cedriceric9730 You'll see alright. I saw a drone hovering over a race I was watching yesterday. But what are you going to do about something that tiny that can move quickly, hovering 150 or so meters away? Unless we're bringing back WW2 flak with proximity fuses there's nothing that can reliably and economically take out a small drone. Small arms won't really work because it lacks precisions and you'll pump out a lot of ammo, while a manpads missile is not economical.
Well, they are. You have an artillery spotter, that in some cases can have GPS coordinated integrated into their camera, that you can't really shoot at like you can shoot a human observer, and even if you bring it down it doesn't really matter and a well-supplied force can replace cheap spotting drones at an alarming rate. Shoot a human observer and that's months of training lost plus a fatality. Shoot a drone and it's as little as a couple hundred quid while factories churn them out at a rate of hundreds a week. I mean, the only one I ever helped operate was phased out after just a few years because it was a pretty crappy prototype (you couldn't even land them outside of crashing) but even that with just a bunch of cameras on board, was already a game changer. We could see them at nearly all times, while there was nothing the insurgents could realistically do about it. And that was a pretty primitive machine compared to even civilian off-the-shelf stuff.
@@nvelsen1975 not really. if you mount small caliber on stable platform and it uses sensors to target it is very accurate. such things might be developed fast... there are small vehicle already being developed to help infantry with cargo you could easily mount machine gun on it for AA against small drones. or... toyota hilux platform.
Quadcopters are too noisy and have short range. The real hero is polish Flyeye - electric glider with unjammable datalink that is indistingushible from birds on radar.
19:00 I think that it would be good to note that even though reconnaissance doesn't get the lime light of other direct attacks, we have seen the switch from using UAVs/RPAs in the Russo-Ukraine conflict from a direct attack role into a more spotter role. There are plenty of videos showing Ukrainians using small UAVs as forward observers and using them to walk int artillery shots and I believe this is one aspect that you should have touched more on as its a very visual way of showing this move towards reconnaissance with these cheap and deep penetration missions by artillery teams and the seeming proliferation of them if internet reports/complaints from Russians are to be believed.
important note: RPAs have been used in this role since at least the 1960s. The US Iowa class had a dedicated RPA for fire spotting that was brought back with them in the 1980s.
@@nco_gets_it you don't have to be new to reach a critical point of adoption. In contrast: nearly every big invention had a time without a big rate of adoption (smartphone before iPhone, cars before modelT ...). The UAV are here in mass. And here to stay. In 5-10 years, nearly no Frontline-platoon without an UAV. Nearly no Artillerie without digital connection to an UAV.
Yes, I see reconnaissance for local units as a game changer. A UAV that is big enough to have a range of up to a couple miles, small enough to better avoid small arms fire, and cheap enough to be relatively disposable. In eastern Ukraine, there are large fields that may be up to a mile long and a half mile wide that are surrounded by a sort of hedgerow. The small UAV allows you to check the next hedgerow before you expose yourself crossing the field. If the UAV takes small arms fire, the the enemy reveals one of their positions. I think that in the future and advancing armored group of thee platoons will have at least one UAV scouting a mile or two ahead and on the flanks. Probably some autonomy so the unit would fly an erratic route while maintaining position relative to the advancing armored group.
I think this (and the fact that they have apparently been so effective in a near-peer conflict) is what has put such focus on them. Spotting is one thing, but when a networked drone can send target data to all nearby artillery and armed UAVs, prioritize the best placed weapon to target, and have a computer aim (and one day even fire) that weapon in seconds, then the advantage is huge.
One factor making things like Bayraktar TB2 useful for strike attempts, even when vulnerable to air defense systems, is if/when the missile salvo to shoot it down costs much more than the "drone". Of course, that cost may be short term justified as the cost of the target being destroyed may be even larger, but replacements for expensive missiles can be hard to source in sufficient quantities, given limited resources for producing advanced precision systems.
One thing missing here is the difference between losing an RPA and losing a crewed aircraft. Of course a TB-2 or an MQ-9 is nowhere as capable as an F-15, but they're also much cheaper and there is no human loss. So for very risky (or one-way) missions, an RPA can offer significant advantages and might enable strikes that were considered unfeasible previously. This is also an aspect driving 'loyal wingman' development, like the MQ-28 (although these tend to go more in the UCAV direction with increased autonomy). In some situations, sacrificing an aircraft can give you a tactical or strategic advantage.
I'm Canadian, and we have Russian Arctic Divisions reactivating old abandoned Cold War-era Arctic Stations. There is just no way our tiny air force can man patrol flights on the scale we need to monitor our northern boarder, and I see high endurance RPA/UAS systems are the best available solution to this very specific potential and for me, deeply ominous saber rattling. I do not believe in states achieving their goals through violence, but I also do not think shutting our eyes and hoping it's all just strutting is the correct approach. We need the capability to monitor, and if pushed to do so, protect our territorial soverignty and integrity. I do not want war or violence, and UAS options maximize potential capability and minimize danger for our military service members.
@@johnzach2057 That's genuinely all I hope any Canadian UCAV or similar platform program ever becomes. I am not some "bleeding heart liberal" that tries to say that nations don't have the right to defend their soverignty, but that doesn't mean I want to see anyone harmed. Sun Tzu explained ~2500 years ago that knowledge of your opponents actions wins battles before they ever need to be joined. That's my highest hope.
Expert analysis as always, Chris! Your explanation of the difference between UAV, RPA, and UCAV was very easy to understand. This stuff is very new to a lot of us so I suspect it will take some time until the terms click and everything stops being just called a "drone".
Some time ago I read an interview with the current Chief of Staff of the French Navy. According to their doctrine, they are using drones to cover the down time of their pilots when they rest and so on. I thought that was an interesting view. I think this was in the Indo-Pacific context as well. So the great empty distances matter there too.
I remember you had a guest from the Royal Institute that said that he opposes the use of UCAV (unmanned combat aerial vehicle) because what we have today is not nearly capable enough for combat. It can be shot down too easily and doesn't have enough firepower.
Very good video as always. There is an intermediate level of autonomy with UAVs/RPVs that was kind of glossed over, but is important to understand as it indicates the level of operator training required for certain classes of UAVs. You have certain RPVs, such as the MQ-1 Predator, which have an autopilot on board. The operator uses the autopilot for most of the flight, but takeoffs and landings are done manually by someone with special training. Historically, this was done by a rated aviator. As you mentioned, on the opposite end of the spectrum you have UCAVs which have such a high degree of automation that multiple aircraft could potentially be managed by one operator simultaneously. However, most NATO Class II and III tactical UAVs, such as the RQ-7 Shadow and the MQ-27 Scan Eagle, have a basic autopilot similar to that on the MQ-1, but lack the Predator's capability for fully manual control. Launch and recovery are usually accomplished with specialized ground equipment and automation. This obliviates the need for specialized training in this aspect of flight and reduces training time.
Where normally I find your videos very interesting and I admire your analysis and detail, I tend to not agree with much of this presentation. Please accept the following criticism as being constructive as is my intent. First - I feel the exhaustive effort to classify these 'devices' (I won't say drones) was largely wasteful both due to the dynamics of their development and deployment and also to the wide range of design amongst them. If we were to draw a Venn diagram of all devices, there would be considerable overlap to the point in which precise classification is meaningless. I see you attempted to delineate between devices that operate as an entity and those which are part of a 'system.' Again, there is only a very fuzzy line between those differences. The man behind the controller is now the system. If he has a cell phone and is passing on targeting coordinates to an artillery director, there again we have a 'system.' Who is to say this is less of a system than an automated computer network with satellite links? Second - One cannot deny that these devices are 'Game Changers.' They have most assuredly changed the landscape of both offensive and defensive battlefield tactics, have they not? Simply because they are vulnerable to air-defense, does not change that fact. If an enemy must now divert some percentage of their air-defense systems to UAVs, that is, by definition that is a game changer. I can draw an analog to WWII when the US attacked Tokyo using B-25 bombers. In no way can that attack be considered effective, yet it was, in every respect, a game changer in that it modified Japan's defensive landscape for the remainder of the war and diverted considerable resources in doing so. I understand that all of this is just my observation, but I felt compelled to discuss it given how great your channel is and how much I enjoy watching you.
Well stated. And the other factor clearly highlighted by this war is the psychological effect. Simply hearing or seeing a drone causes immediate panic. It is not unlike knowing a sniper is out there.
Cost of procurement and maintenance are the game changing factor of RPAs compared to manned A and F type planes. The cost per destroyed enemy asset is a critical factor in an attrition war.
The effectiveness of TB2 in Ukraine is much bigger than what's shared. Ukraine is in a war of survival, so the first week it was necessary to boost morale by sharing/leaking many drone strikes. Since their morale is already sky high, it's better to limit sharing operation footage to make the Russians wonder what keeps hitting them. There was a TB2 footage almost every day until the end of March which is also when the battle of Kyiv was won. Which is another advantage of drones: footage boosts morale of army and the people. Turkey (producer of TB2) was probably also afraid of Russian sanctions. It's likely that Turkey asked Ukraine to not share too many Turkish made TB2 drone videos to not anger Russia too much since Turkey has a bad economy.
I disagree. Just because countermeasures are being conceived does not mean that drones are no game changers. The airforce was a game changer in war. The game changing aspect is the capability of acquiring information about the enemy in real time at a very low risk and cost for the operator. Knowing where the enemy is and what he is doing is a game changer in war, it is most often decisive for the outcome of a battle.
I think you misunderstand what I mean with it not being a game changer. That was in reference to RPAs being used to conduct strike. The latter part of the video makes it clear that the main value of UAVs and RPAs is ISR.
@@MilitaryAviationHistory Im not so sure, listening to most of your analytics tend to say every weapon sucks. It comes down to training and so far No ome of our p2p enemies have it and wont have it. It dosnt matter of Russia have ultimate AA system when they are drunk.
I do think more focus on loitering munitions aka Kamikaze Drones warrants more focus. I think in the next decade they will be the most important evolution of drone tech. Platoons could theoretically launch them and take out an opposing platoon a few meters away, down a hill, etc.
Personally, I would like to point out that we have already seem a host of home brew drones designed to carry anti personnel charges a terrorist could appreciate. A pound of comp B coated in ceramic fragments is quite the rudimentary weapon.
if you really think about it, all cruise missiles are UCAVs already. So we have deployed this technology since at least the 1970s at the strategic and operational levels of war for a long time. When you think of systems like Tomahawk, you are thinking of UCAV. As for weapons to "take out" a platoon a few meters away, that is what MGs and mortars are for.
even a cheap DJI drone is going to be easy to hear and shoot down. It's hard to imagine that attacking a platoon nearby with a cheap UCAV is more economical than a grenade or a mortar.
@@davedoe6445 you might be surprised just how cheaply made those DJIs are. Or just what the DoD spends on disposable items. Besides that flying bomb only needs to last long enough to get close. Were not talking about a stand off weapon here.
The tactic of using a relatively large amount of cheap kamikaze and decoy drones are extremely effective when it comes to overwhelming enemy air defense systems simply because they have a limited number of more expensive rockets and need time to reload. This tactic was used in both Syria and Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020. Currently there is no widely adopted countermeasures for such tactic. Classic electronic warfare systems use radio jamming of a wide spectrum of frequencies thus interfering with your own communications.
@@DJ1573 I'm familiar with this systems existence. And yet it is not a widely adopted system. As far as I know is is only adopted by Germany and a few other countries in a naval CIWS form.
The Drones used in Karabakh were Turkish TB-2‘s and Israeli Horon Drones both are not kamikaze or decoy drones so could you explain exactly which type of drone you think was used?
not to be harsh, but honestly there's quite a few things missed out on here. one thing that wasn't really touched upon is the use of drones in a SEAD/DEAD context. UAVs/RPAs/whatever have been used very extensively as decoys to fake out IADS pretty much since the Yom Kippur War. and newer developments like the anti-radiation IAI Harpy and Harop are very promising as DEAD weapons too. consider the fact that they can be more easily expended to attack SAMs or radars in areas that would otherwise be too risky for the expensive jet bombers (Harop has been successfully used in this context in Syria and Karabakh against modern SAMs). suicide attacks just aren't an option for manned aircraft, unless you're in Imperial Japan. likewise, UCAVs have a lot of potential as the new order of CAS aircraft. maybe it isn't wise to fly a TB2 into airspace covered by S400 and Pantsir batteries. but once those have been dealt with by jets and/or loiter munitions on SEAD missions, then it makes a lot of sense to use UCAVs to blast away the heavy support weapons of defending enemy troops (this is what Ukraine has been doing since they received AGM-88s). sure, you can have helicopters or jet bombers do this, but you risk an expensive pilot in the process. and with UCAVs, you can potentially have much smaller systems that can be used with a lot less infrastructure like runways, crews, etc.. a lot of UCAVs coming out of Iran for example are launched from trucks using RATO and then land using parachutes, or there's the example of Ukrainian quadcopters with grenades (which admittedly aren't super effective, but they have a lot of R&D potential seeing how PGMs could be developed specifically for them). so you could in the very near future have ground troops able to provide themselves with real-time tactical CAS and ISR with UCAVs perhaps even down to the platoon level.
An aspect, which was not really completely adressed in the video is the combined operation of armed drones with other weapon systems. Especially in the Russo-Ukrainian war, we receive more and more hints, that the combination of SEAD missions (with AGM-88 HARM) and TB-2 seems to be very effective. I would even say, if Russia is not be able to establish a counter for this combination and the Ukrainians are able to support those missions in large numbers, this would be a decisive factor for the outcome of the whole war for sure.
Because of my age I remember when "drone" meant an unmanned aircraft that was semi-autonomous in that it could take-off, land and loiter without input. This distinguished it from a remote-controlled aircraft which was 100% controlled. Modern drones are partly controlled and partly GPS programmed to fly without control. An observation drone doesn't necessarily need any pilot input.
Some of the harassing strikes by small drones seem to have the potential for large impacts. Some of these appear to have grenades or small shaped charge explosives. While the impact of a single or few explosive devices may seem small at first, combined with the loitering and guidance ability of a small drone it can be applied where the impact is maximized. For example, some of these may have been used at river crossings to interrupt movement by bridge, mobile bridges, or ferries and thereby impair resupply and reinforcement of forces on the other side. This then can impact on large numbers of forces within an area by exploiting such a point of logistical vulnerability. Another example is attacks by drones directly on artillery operators or their munitions stockpiled nearby in the open. This not only harasses artillery units to degrade effectiveness but also impacts the way in which they can operate and what is required to provide adequate protection. Much more frequent movement of artillery assets or use of armored artillery and supply vehicles for example could inform future force structures and choice of types of artillery to employ in order to counter such harassment by drones on a large scale. The design and assets included to defend air bases or naval vessels also could be impacted by these small drones. More gun or laser based anti air systems for example, instead of heavy reliance on large expensive missiles. More attention may also be paid to basic passive protections, such as armored covers or full hangars for aircraft instead of being parked in the open. Naval vessels may also need more overhead cover in port and more extensive close range air defense systems and some systems specifically to counter drones.
Game changer: maybe! The cost of the systems is the game changer in allowing the speed at which changes in tactics, modifications to “drone”systems and the ability to make mistakes and just give it a go. The prohibitive costs of new manned aircraft are allowing cheap commercial “drones” to be used for targeting, reconnaissance or even mini strikes. A manned aircraft can not respond fast enough, or cheap enough, in making modifications to the aircraft, avionics or ordinance to changes in the battle. In a pier to near pier conflict the Bayracktar may still be very useful. It could be used to draw SAM systems to target it. The comparison in cost between the Bayracktar and an expensive S300, S400 or other may be a good trade off. Using the Baktar as bait for enemy SAMs. It would be very easy to add some lowly ECM, such as old fashion chafe, or co ordination with a manned aircraft launching AGM 88 HARM anti radiation missiles. The point is it is easy & relatively cheap to use unmanned systems to attack the enemy and fast to make changes in the field to see what works.
Small quadcopters with explosive charges aren't a game changer YET, mainly because you have to pilot them manually using very limited sensor data (single camera stream). But i am sure that completely autonomous types of kamikaze-drones, which do not have to rely on GPS and control links aren't that far off. Just take a look at the current research landscape with respect to depth estimation, object recognition and location mapping from video. The basic bulding blocks are all there and are getting better each day. We will get to the point where small drones can be used as basically homing grenades that you just have to send in the general direction of the enemy. How are you going to deploy countermeasures against something that zips through forests or buildings with 40-80 km/h and has no radio signature?
While not a game changer, I would be at least a little nervous if I was a Russian soldier about quadcopters dropping grenades after seeing the many videos put out over the last few months.
The thing you will hear about in a couple decades isn't just that, but quadcopters or winged drones acting as a first stage for a MANPAD or an anti tank rocket. All of a sudden, it would mean that aircraft can't escape manpads by flying at 10 km, and that top attack against tanks from long range becomes a lot easier. And it means you can no longer look for the smoke trail to see where it was fired from. On top of that they get loitering capability as in they can hover over an area and take out any tank or aircraft that enters it. The other arguably even more important one is anti-radiation loitering munitions that directly target enemy radar systems.
As an armchair strategist, I think drones in two distinct ways: Traditional- recon, strike, screening and decoy. Logistical- gross weight, payload, range, speed, takeoff and landing, maintenance and repair, manning and training, doctrine, shipping and storage AND, most important, numbers vs price vs battle space.
The main value of drones is not support roles as this video claims. As TB2s have shown, the real value of drones is cost effectiveness. It's a true advantage when the drone costs comparative prices with the missile that takes it down. You can buy 60 TB2s for 1 S-400 system. Ukraine doesn't have enough TB2s to saturate the Russian AA capabilities. If they did, the war would have gone differently. Saturation attacks happened in Nagorno-Karabakh. Drone systems have further potential when multitudes of them can be effectively used as a swarm by a single operator. Cost effectiveness becomes even more critical in conflicts between countries of symmetric capabilities. A future is possible where many AA drones equal to cost of a 5th gen fighter can potentially rival the jet. Unmanned vehicles are the future of air power and aviation.
just because it's cheap doesnt make it any more faster to build, it still takes a lot of time to build 1 tb2 than to manufacture ONE s400 missiles (not to mention they are cheaper too) the true game changer of this was is HIMARS, probably did the most damages and enabling more option for ukrainian military than any weapoen that has been sent to ukraine, these system will be the game changer not the drones (maybe UCAV in the future, who knows) , why do you think they are less and less TB2 footage that the end of the war
I think it is funny people freak out about suicide drones but "drones" have been around for almost a century. We call them guided weapons. ATGMs. TV guided missiles... But wait...radio controlled tanks, air craft and ships! 😁
I really do appreciate your (typically German) attempt of clearly defining the different terms for drones. There is just one problem and one big mistake you're making while doing so. Your personal definitions and your own use sometimes go against long established use and definitions of some of these terms. The term UAV for example is long established and it simply defines an unmanned aerial vehicle of any type. You could argue this term could potentially even include a simple paper plane, but it certainly includes remote controlled and semi-autonomous and autonomous aerial vehicles, as long as they carry no human. An RPA on the other hand is simply a remotely piloted aircraft and this can potentially certainly include manned remotely piloted aircraft, such as air taxis or potentially (temporarily) remotely controlled airliners (with or without pilot on board). Theoretically any manned aircraft that was remotely piloted by someone, even if just temporarily in an emergency situation, would qualify as RPA. Instead of attempting to redefine long established terms, even though they may often be interchangeable and may not always be clearly outlined or sufficiently precise, I suggest and recommend using - or introducing - other more suitable terms. What you personally (re-)defined as a "UCAV", I would recommend you call an "AAV" or "ACAV", an "Autonomous Aerial Vehicle" or an "Autonomous Combat Aerial Vehicle", or if only semi-autonomous then maybe also as ""SAAV", or "SACAV" for Semi-Autonomous Aerial Vehicle and Semi-Autonomous Combat Aerial Vehicle. These terms AAV, ACAV or SAAV and SACAV may not (yet) be widely used, but they are easily understandable, and they are clearly defined, and they do not break with long standing definitions and common use of already long existing terms. Other than that, a great video by the way!
I disagree that I personally redefined them. The way I classed them is essentially the approach most NATO countries take, including the US. It could have been shortened though, that's for sure.
One interesting though I had is how drones might cause the return of the idea of Total War. If operating drones or other types on remote weapon systems becomes as simplified as a video game, it could allow much more recruitment compared to a regular armed forces where there are certain requirements to qualification as well as time needed to train soldiers.
i doubt you can supply enough of those. sure cheaper than jet fighters but still not cheap enough. also if one is lost you can use another one so easily one operator can use few so you dont need so many operators
great analysis; another interessting thought is quantity vs quality: drones are much less capable than fighter jets, but can be cheaper. So you can field more of them, and cover an increased area or over longer timespans.
@Ex Bismarck, Yop, Unrelated to that precise video, but maybe of interest to you if you don't already know about it. I mostly enjoy your content, despite some sparks of insanity here and then ( "Airbus is a german company !" ), but one thing that shows you can't be completely evil -for a german, is your taste in "what plane would i get". When i asked myself that question my answer was "a PBY-5A catalina or comparable, to cruise around the world, land either at sea or on landing strips". Was delighted to see that was also your idea. Turns out, there was a man in the 1950s, at a time where a surplus of aircraft made them quite affordable, and had the same kind of ideas. His name was Glenn Odekirk, and he transformed a few maritime patrol aircraft, namely Catalinas, into flying yachts. A few photos are easy to find. So if you already knew about it, sorry for the bother, if not, hope it was of interest. In any case, good luck carrying on.
It's very ironic you'd make this video as I myself was thinking about making a video analyzing how the utility of drones may be overhyped. It's easy to think the current conflict in Ukraine means that drones are going to dominate the future like they are in this current conflict but once you dig deeper it's clear that their domination has been due to the incompetence of the enemy. Even now there's a video of a Russian drone being hacked, but more practically they can be jammed/shot at. I don't see them going away, they offer too much utility, but even saying that I do think they're overhyped currently.
But... At the moment EVERYONE is more or less 'incompetent'. You don't fire a manpad on a 500g UAV. You don't jamm a 4000km front 7/24/365 - AND they will become more independent and hardened. And you don't have a radar behind every tree to spot a small UAV.
@@Krusesensei I mean, I can send you down a rabbit hole but usually when I get comments written like this it's usually someone talking AT me instead of WITH me so uh, I'll just leave it.
@@SogenOkami okay... Then why do you answer at all? PS: drones will not dominate the warfare. It's just 'another' tool in your box. But a important one .
A lot of the drones used today are living on borrowed time. Counters are becoming cheaper, more ubiquitous, and more effective every day. There will always be uses. But aside from small semi-expendable camera platforms, loitering munitions, and maybe high-risk resupply, drones will trend towards acting as an extension of manned platforms. Having an HMG armed UGV than can roll off a JLTVs bed and roll with ground troops. Longshot/Gunslinger weapons pods that can detach from fighters and act as loyal wingmen. HuntIR or similar micro drones that a scout can use to get a better view of his surroundings. These will stick around. Quad rotors and slow props that aren't kamikazes, will, like actual WWII strike aircraft, take higher losses for less effect on target than suicide craft.
And do not forget the power of cluster-drones, as observation drones or attack drones, making relaying signals back, not be hampered if several drones are knocked out. The drones can even automaticaly move in to cover an area, that was covered by a lost drone.
Imagine a apache or a viper launch loitering drones with them as the heavy hitters when the targets pops out somewhere and the loitering munition be the initial executory attack or the final attack covering the exfill of the strikers/ambushers
he didn't touch much on other eölectronic counter measseures, for one because not much is known about it because the german company world leading in this is not talking about how they do it
Cheap commercial drones without any weapons could also be used to create noise in an air defense system. The defenses may not be able to tell as easily which of the sensor contacts is carrying a package of weapons, sensors, or electronics with combat utility and which are just cheap decoys providing a large number of contacts to track.
Nice distinction! UAVs and RPAs are ISR, but also precision strike and force multiplier when there is poor AA, because battlefield awarness is the key to a future battlefield. Next gen autonomous vehicle as selwarms and etc. with AI will be the game-changer on the field. In the future integrated AA will be the defense tool against all aircraft and will be cheaper to have. As a small country Bulgaria should buy and develop integrated AA, get RPAs and VLOs and autonomous systems.
Drones are 100% a gamechanger. There no need to overblow the importance of drones, but theres no need to down play it in response like you are here. Drone losses are cheap in cost and in life when compared to any other CAS platform. They basically make all other CAS platforms irrelevant. That is huge!
I think it's very reductionist and also quite snobbish to say that drones aren't game changers. It's absolutely what they are doing which is diversifying Battlefield threats and opening up new opportunities. Usage in Ukraine and Nagorno-Karabakh is only a precursor to mass usage which will be seen in the future. Its blinkered to write these off as isolated successes which wouldn't have occurred if not for asymmetric opponents. The TB-2 is now once again seeing strike usage where threats have been suppressed around Kherson. A larger military could use drones with abandon, overwhelming air defences with sheer numbers. Also small tacrical drones are totally useful for dropping small munitions. Pinpoint disruption of enemy forces using difficult to counter assets which are incredibly cheap, immediately deployable, easy to use and expendable? Which military doesn't want systems like that? Even when defense systems and countermeasures are used these often cost more to employ than the drones they shoot down. Again a system diversifying threats and opening new opportunities again game changing.
Just for a fleeting moment I thought you said you had a disco were you all meet up! given the context I thought what a nice way to meet other like minded drone enthusiasts.
A better term for UAV with your definition I've used for a while and seen used like 10 years ago is Micro UAV. And those the size of a Manned aircraft is a UAV instead of UCAV which only makes sense to me if it is armed... So a Micro UCAV, RPCA, and UCAV would be better I think. Edit: And like armored combat vehicle describes tanks, APCs, IFVs, Armored cars etc Drone could be used as a catch all for any and all unmanned systems.
is there any information about "drone on drone" warfare? So far they all seem to target ground targets, but can they be adapted to also engage other aircraft? aerial dominance is more important than ever
Very 2D thinking. The terminology lags way behind the applications and as such is really makes no sense to get so hung up on it. A platform of any size may exhibit any or all of these features potentially within a single mission. The idea that a MQ9 pilot has the same skills as a light aircraft is just not true. While both need to understand the airspace and deconflict with other aircraft etc, only one is really a pilot, the other is a director. The real deal on counter drone is economics, i.e. How much does it cost to neutralise a system vs that systems cost and the ability of the opposition to replenish. As I think you alude, the tech to take down a Mig is likely to work against a the, but the economics is not even close
The main thing is RPAs and UAVs don't *need* to be "effective" in the traditional sense to be very important battlefield assets. Even if a tank's attached reconnaissance vehicle is destroyed five minutes into the battle, the fact that it detected that an enemy was in the area may have saved it. If an RPA is shot down by enemy air defense, that's air defense not firing at manned vehicles. They still have expense, yes, but the lack of pilots put in harm's way is an economy in human capital other materiel simply doesn't have. Will they replace systems? Probably not. Will they be heavily used to supplement existing units? Absolutely. In a way, they're like MANPADS, which while unlikely to kill fixed-wing aircraft, are so cheap that aborting a mission is still a win. Being a new technology, we haven't seen them get to their full potential either, and as countermeasures develop, so will the "drones". Only time will tell.
The most important difference between an RPA and a U(C)AV is software, and maybe some electronics. Even a couple home-built vehicles have autonomy (like the open-source Ardupilot). Upgrading an old system against a near-peer enemy should be relatively cheap if necessary. Ukraine probably did that with their old Tupolev Tu-141 machines, because a digital camera and a handful of microcontrollers are a lot cheaper than a jet plane.
Just to make it clear for those of us who associate controlling light air craft with needing to adjust the control surfaces to steer a plane. I.E. to turn you use your ailerons to bank and then use your elevators to follow through on the turn. You aren't talking about that when bringing up training for RPAs right?
The game won't change until standard countermeasures can't deter "drones" (to just use the generalizing term). This may involve stealth technology, but might as well involve radar-evasive systems able to autonomously navigate below tree-top level. Right now, "drones" are useful because they are cheaper than airplanes meant for the same task, easier to deploy, in some cases easier to control, and more expendable than a human life (at least, more expendable than a human life playing for your own team). But, development never stops, and at some point, enough technologies will mature and become available to put "drones" to another level. Artificial intelligence and pathfinding technology will have a huge effect. Improvements in propulsion for higher speed and range will also affect what drones can do. Even the UN isn't sure what to think of them right now. Even if they decided to place a ban on LAWs, countries can't help but research them because they will still want to protect themselves against them from either rogue nations or rogue organizations, because that's how close the technology is to public knowledge. The vehicles are openly available, private companies are already researching artificial intelligence, automatic guidance or autopilot functionality, facial (and object) recognition, improved propulsion, improved energy storage. All of this non-governmental technology will at some point reach viability for fully automated warfare. And all countries in the world will want countermeasures against that threat yesterday. And if the UN allows, they want the technology itself in their ranks as well.
One area that doesn't show up in "losses" is Ukrainian drones forced Russia to provide expensive air defenses when their plans were not to bother. The drones forced Russia to operate differently, limiting their combat capabilities.
For old microprose gamers, this speaks to the return of ZSU-23-4 type AA guns. Definitely higher $/$ return on investment for close air defense for troop columns (or maybe the Russian Tunguska)
Also the German Gepard. There are still many Leopard 1 tanks around that could potentially all be converted into Gepards. Greece has hundreds of them for example.
I have to wonder if the psychological effect of having a grenade dropped from a small drone is worth it. By dropping the grenade, the enemy is aware they are under surveillance and can take appropriate counter measures. By staying undetected it should be of more benefit to call in heavy artillery or missile strikes on unsuspecting troops. In theory front line troops should assume they are always under surveillance but fatigue and boredom often come into play.
Great video Chris. I enjoyed your look into the definitions that make "drones" different in use. If you were to build upon the terms "UAV", "RPA", "UCAV" and "UAS", would you be fine with using a new term to differentiate who is the "combatant"; human or machine? I mean to say, since the RPA isn't making the decisions like movement and probably engagement like the UCAV, could we say the "Unmanned Combat Aircraft System" or UCAS is the combatant "manned/automatic drone" while the UCAV itself is the combatant "machine/autonomous drone"? So a UCAS makes combat decisions on the system level with humans involved, employing an RPA, while a UCAV can make combat decisions on-vehicle, employing its own software, sensors and armament. Therefore the term "UAV" in military has two sub-branches, UCASs and UCAVs-- or Combat Systems and Combat Vehicles. I'm mostly interested in this from a legal-political perspective, since the question of "who is the combatant" is looking to be an important discussion in international relations regarding law and warfare.... war crimes in short.
According to this German News real, Russian drones purchased from Iran managed to outwitt the ukrainian air defences due to their very small size and radar cross section and managed to bombard a strategic target in the centre of Odessa, the command centre of the southern army of ukraine. I do think that Drones are game changers in warfare. I think you should reconsider your assessment.
I'm no expert on military matters. However, it's obvious that anything flying is very useful for ISR duties, whether with crew on board, remotely controlled, autonomous, etc., at suitable levels. Information is an important factor for any military action. 1 useful aspect of drones (air, water, ground) is that human operator could be in a relatively safe place.
I would think RPA's could fulfill a similar role as light attack craft. At the end of the day having air superiority only protects your people on the ground if you dont have ground strike capabilities. Aircraft have many factors going into them. Cost per flight hour, the age of the frame, the amount of sorties you can fly per day/week, the weapons it can carry. But also the height at which they fly, as most modern jets that fly low severely reduce the lifespan of the airframe, increase the cost per flight hour and increase the maintenance time which means less sorties flown. On top of all that any aircraft loaded for a ground mission is both less able to avoid anything fired at it and wont have as much firepower to deal with other aircraft. But what if you minimize the amount of ground sorties your jets need to fly? It means more sorties against enemy aircraft, less chance you cannot answer an enemy aircraft attack and less costs overall (also better chance of SEAD capabilities still available when you need it). If your RPA's can supplement the ground strike capabilities it would help you be more ready. It also means that the aircraft originally supposed to do the ground strike can now either be ready on the ground, get maintenance, do a patrol or protect an airspace from aircraft.
I think you need to define "game changer". Any new technology changes the game, but that doesn't mean it will dominate the battlefield. In this respect "drones" are game changers.
Recalling the effectiveness of USNavy's SOSUS lines which were passive listening arrays that could detect the passage of Soviet submarines, and relay data to patrolling U.S.nuclear submarines. *•* I wouldn't be surprised if someone is developing various types of "swarming" insect-sized detectors equipped with (a) acoustic sensors, (b) electromagnetic sensors, (c) transmitters programmed to send "packets" of sampled signatures. *•* Such a system could have a hierarchical population: first, bunches of expendable worker bee data gathering bugs that do very little actual data processing, and broadcast brief "chirps" rather than continuous feed. *•* These could be picked up by silent monitoring beasties, with sufficient processing to identify aggressor/enemy movement from the accumulated chirps of brief intervals; *•* Digested intelligence estimates would be broadcast in microbursts in order to defeat surveillance. *•* Circling drones or sensitive low-orbit satellites would be able to capture the processed intelligence from the intermediate dronelettes, process them further to clarify theater-wide threat assessment to be sent to human analysts to determine tactical response for the 6th-gen stealth craft. *•* We can anticipate development of Electromagnetic Pulse Area Weapons to disable drones & passive monitors. They'll have to be hardened. I'm sure my musings are at least two decades behind the technologies. Maybe I should just practice my fiddle.
In a near peer conflict drones could be used to force enemy air defences to expend their missiles and reveal their locations. After that a traditional bombing campaign would be much easier
I think RPAs that are big enough where they possibly can be manned are going to fall by the wayside. SOCOM decided to arm a crop duster and use it as a stand in for the reaper anywhere that over boots on the ground can be found. And I think the USAF can just buy more A-29s or buy more trainers like the AT-6 to support any future counter insurgency. They may even buy a modernized OV-10 as has been discussed, as the civil mission of the Air National Guard and the Civil Air Patrol would be better served by the Bronco. You don't see the Predator or Reaper fighting fires either. The gains of remote operation are the weight and risk reduction at the cost of increased logistics, and the vulnerability of a command link. The only reason to use remotely piloted planes is to not have to deal with rescuing a downed pilot in places you don't already have troops on the ground. Fly an aircraft longer than a crew can sustain themselves in a cockpit, or for use as a parasite aircraft that can be dropped from a mother aircraft, stored in a cargo container and cat launched as needed, or strapped to a person's backpack.
One point about the usage of countermesures against "drones" is about cost. Sure, to protect your high vallue assets is vital, but a "quadcopter with a grenade" is dirt cheap (for military standarts), but a MANPAD missile is not. It becomes a matter of "do I risk the asset now, or do I burn this $5000 missile to destroy that $500 bomb risking running out af missiles if/when a bigger threat comes later". Coutermesures will eventually evolve into something more efficient, but, at least for now, they are a "positive loss": the enemy looses $500, you loose $5000, but you protected the $50000 thing from damage.
I'd love one of these T-shirts, if you ever decide to make them! 🙂 Because Context Matters everywhere, in any debate or analysis. It's a good catchphrase! Keep up the good work, thanks for sharing this! Regards, Thomas
I think the one thing Ukraine has taught us is that the smaller the drone, the better it is. Using them for spotting or dropping anti-tank grenades, seems to be where they shine now. A small drone may show up on radar, but getting a MANPAD or other SPAA system to gain a lock on a small DJI sized RPA will be close to impossible. The real danger is small arms fire from infantry, which is really not going to be effective against a seemingly unending supply of AT grenades and RPAs to carry them.
Tbh, I really appreciate drones, at the same time it’s sad because they are starting to replace manned systems, which are the legends of the bunch.I really don’t want them to replace everything we do with the manned feature, drone warfare can be hyped up a lot, but at the end of the day….I think manned is a bit better
As I understand it, none of the modern platforms you call RCPs require as much piloting as you say, with takeoff, landing, cruising, loitering being automated to varying degrees.
Drones will be as revolutionary to war, as guns were when they first came out. The firearm is not necessarily superior to a longbow especially in the early stages of development. But anybody can learn to use a gun quickly while longbow took enormous amount of training. Similarly, drones are cheap and expendable, while pilots are expensive and rare comparatively. Thus, if drones only have a 10% success rate, it may absolutely be worthwhile to use them in mass, while a 10% success rate is catastrophic when it comes to pilots.
In short Russia is not Ukraine's peer. Also Air Defense rely on active radar system which are vulnerable to Anti Radiation Missile or an Anti Radar Loitering Munition. A drone that patrols the sky hunting and destroying any radar system it detects.
I think this would be better presented as 3 separate video's, it would be easier to absorb the information. I love what you do Chris but for some reason your voice turns into white noise & I just tune out.
Hi @Military Aviation History do you have something planned on Iranian RPAs and by extension those used by the Houthis in Yemen? The Houthis claim to have used RPAs successfully against Saudi Arabia which is surprising given the Saudi Air Force and Air Defence investment is very good. Iran seems to have invested heavily in all kinds of RPAs as their air force updates in mainstream aircraft seem to be going slow. I am a bit confused by the number and variance of Iranian RPAs as they don't seem to be for different mission profiles. I was even more surprised that Russia wanted Iranian RPAs given that Russia should have better capabilities already and that the Ukranian forces might have good countermeasures of their own, seeing what has happened to TB -2s there. I know there is scant data but whatever you can dig up would be awesome.
![Megan Thee Stallion - Roc Steady (feat. Flo Milli) [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/HozPPyqW0dY/mqdefault.jpg)
As a person who operates the MQ-9 I greatly appreciate the depth of the conversation of the differences between different types of “drones”. This video is fantastic and I look forward to others coming in the future.
Thank you so much! That's really great to hear.
@Alpha_Wave clearly you don’t understand how things work. I sleep great at night.
@Alpha_Wave - There are estimated over 250,000 medical malpractice deaths each year in the US alone. Shall I be looking for your comments on healthcare videos as well, or are you more of just a niche complainer when it suits your worldview?
@Alpha_Wave - Also, looking at your page, and what you seem to support, it’s no wonder you hate UAVs. Considering how bad the TB2 Bayraktar is giving it to your side in Ukraine.
@Alpha_Wave What's it like being a dirty red? Your military is embarrassing.
I think the one aspect you didn’t really touch on was the other increasing need for smaller scale and more numerous anti-UAV weapons. It’s both not cost efficient and operationally disadvantagous to have to use a Patriot or S-400 to schwack something the size of a TB-2 or even a Scan Eagle. At the same time many IR seeking MANPADS, can’t easily detect and engage small battery powered drones. What is seriously need to achieve the sort of system counter system parity will be a system that enable a force to engage large numbers of small UAV’s both quickly and efficiently.
The US plans to use lasers mounted on vehicles to take out small drones
No, actually it's very cost efficient to use a patriot or an S-400 to destroy a TB-2. If you don't destroy it, it is likely that it will destroy you. So instead of using a single s-400 or a single patriot missile, you lose a whole battery.
The cost of the system is important if the value of what they are protecting is relatively low or the success rate is low enough. This is the value-add of UAVs themselves: they are cheaper than the target often enough.
This drove the development of Iron Dome’s trajectory-tracking system. Let the mortar round fall in the empty field, engage the one with a high probability of hitting a population.
@@xXrandomryzeXx You are thinking tactically not strategically mate.
Yes you'd use an expensive missile to destroy an inexpensive drone if you have to on the day. If you have to do this repeatedly then over time you will be at a serious loss in terms of attrition
@@KoIossov Pls look up the difference between effectivity and efficiency
Rather than the dronestrikes, I got the impression that drone guided artillerie strikes are gamechanging. You miss every shoot you dont take, and with artillery there sure is not lack of rounds and guns, but accurate targeting data at the end decides if thouse assets get used or not. Seeing a little quadcopter means for the modern soldier that he can expect 155mm rounds coming in at any moment.
You would not even see the small quadcopter 😂
It will illuminate you from a distance or detect your radio transmisions and Boom
@@cedriceric9730
You'll see alright. I saw a drone hovering over a race I was watching yesterday. But what are you going to do about something that tiny that can move quickly, hovering 150 or so meters away? Unless we're bringing back WW2 flak with proximity fuses there's nothing that can reliably and economically take out a small drone.
Small arms won't really work because it lacks precisions and you'll pump out a lot of ammo, while a manpads missile is not economical.
Well, they are. You have an artillery spotter, that in some cases can have GPS coordinated integrated into their camera, that you can't really shoot at like you can shoot a human observer, and even if you bring it down it doesn't really matter and a well-supplied force can replace cheap spotting drones at an alarming rate.
Shoot a human observer and that's months of training lost plus a fatality. Shoot a drone and it's as little as a couple hundred quid while factories churn them out at a rate of hundreds a week.
I mean, the only one I ever helped operate was phased out after just a few years because it was a pretty crappy prototype (you couldn't even land them outside of crashing) but even that with just a bunch of cameras on board, was already a game changer. We could see them at nearly all times, while there was nothing the insurgents could realistically do about it. And that was a pretty primitive machine compared to even civilian off-the-shelf stuff.
@@nvelsen1975 not really. if you mount small caliber on stable platform and it uses sensors to target it is very accurate. such things might be developed fast... there are small vehicle already being developed to help infantry with cargo you could easily mount machine gun on it for AA against small drones. or... toyota hilux platform.
Quadcopters are too noisy and have short range. The real hero is polish Flyeye - electric glider with unjammable datalink that is indistingushible from birds on radar.
19:00 I think that it would be good to note that even though reconnaissance doesn't get the lime light of other direct attacks, we have seen the switch from using UAVs/RPAs in the Russo-Ukraine conflict from a direct attack role into a more spotter role. There are plenty of videos showing Ukrainians using small UAVs as forward observers and using them to walk int artillery shots and I believe this is one aspect that you should have touched more on as its a very visual way of showing this move towards reconnaissance with these cheap and deep penetration missions by artillery teams and the seeming proliferation of them if internet reports/complaints from Russians are to be believed.
important note: RPAs have been used in this role since at least the 1960s. The US Iowa class had a dedicated RPA for fire spotting that was brought back with them in the 1980s.
@@nco_gets_it you don't have to be new to reach a critical point of adoption.
In contrast: nearly every big invention had a time without a big rate of adoption (smartphone before iPhone, cars before modelT ...).
The UAV are here in mass. And here to stay. In 5-10 years, nearly no Frontline-platoon without an UAV. Nearly no Artillerie without digital connection to an UAV.
Yes, I see reconnaissance for local units as a game changer. A UAV that is big enough to have a range of up to a couple miles, small enough to better avoid small arms fire, and cheap enough to be relatively disposable. In eastern Ukraine, there are large fields that may be up to a mile long and a half mile wide that are surrounded by a sort of hedgerow. The small UAV allows you to check the next hedgerow before you expose yourself crossing the field. If the UAV takes small arms fire, the the enemy reveals one of their positions. I think that in the future and advancing armored group of thee platoons will have at least one UAV scouting a mile or two ahead and on the flanks. Probably some autonomy so the unit would fly an erratic route while maintaining position relative to the advancing armored group.
I think this (and the fact that they have apparently been so effective in a near-peer conflict) is what has put such focus on them. Spotting is one thing, but when a networked drone can send target data to all nearby artillery and armed UAVs, prioritize the best placed weapon to target, and have a computer aim (and one day even fire) that weapon in seconds, then the advantage is huge.
Using UAVs to recon and spot for artillery is what they were designed to do. Attaching weapons to them came later.
One factor making things like Bayraktar TB2 useful for strike attempts, even when vulnerable to air defense systems, is if/when the missile salvo to shoot it down costs much more than the "drone". Of course, that cost may be short term justified as the cost of the target being destroyed may be even larger, but replacements for expensive missiles can be hard to source in sufficient quantities, given limited resources for producing advanced precision systems.
One thing missing here is the difference between losing an RPA and losing a crewed aircraft. Of course a TB-2 or an MQ-9 is nowhere as capable as an F-15, but they're also much cheaper and there is no human loss. So for very risky (or one-way) missions, an RPA can offer significant advantages and might enable strikes that were considered unfeasible previously.
This is also an aspect driving 'loyal wingman' development, like the MQ-28 (although these tend to go more in the UCAV direction with increased autonomy). In some situations, sacrificing an aircraft can give you a tactical or strategic advantage.
he did mention COIN...
I'm Canadian, and we have Russian Arctic Divisions reactivating old abandoned Cold War-era Arctic Stations. There is just no way our tiny air force can man patrol flights on the scale we need to monitor our northern boarder, and I see high endurance RPA/UAS systems are the best available solution to this very specific potential and for me, deeply ominous saber rattling.
I do not believe in states achieving their goals through violence, but I also do not think shutting our eyes and hoping it's all just strutting is the correct approach. We need the capability to monitor, and if pushed to do so, protect our territorial soverignty and integrity. I do not want war or violence, and UAS options maximize potential capability and minimize danger for our military service members.
@@johnzach2057 That's genuinely all I hope any Canadian UCAV or similar platform program ever becomes. I am not some "bleeding heart liberal" that tries to say that nations don't have the right to defend their soverignty, but that doesn't mean I want to see anyone harmed. Sun Tzu explained ~2500 years ago that knowledge of your opponents actions wins battles before they ever need to be joined. That's my highest hope.
Expert analysis as always, Chris! Your explanation of the difference between UAV, RPA, and UCAV was very easy to understand. This stuff is very new to a lot of us so I suspect it will take some time until the terms click and everything stops being just called a "drone".
Yup, a lot became clear once more 🙂
you put this out because War Thunder announced drones were coming to the game didn't you! ;-)
tbh, pure coincidence but a good one
@@MilitaryAviationHistory right, right, uh huh...........
I'd rather see them add Zeppelins.
@@bosoerjadi2838 With Led Zeppelin in the background
You beat me to a similar post lol :)
Some time ago I read an interview with the current Chief of Staff of the French Navy. According to their doctrine, they are using drones to cover the down time of their pilots when they rest and so on. I thought that was an interesting view. I think this was in the Indo-Pacific context as well. So the great empty distances matter there too.
I remember you had a guest from the Royal Institute that said that he opposes the use of UCAV (unmanned combat aerial vehicle) because what we have today is not nearly capable enough for combat. It can be shot down too easily and doesn't have enough firepower.
Very good video as always. There is an intermediate level of autonomy with UAVs/RPVs that was kind of glossed over, but is important to understand as it indicates the level of operator training required for certain classes of UAVs. You have certain RPVs, such as the MQ-1 Predator, which have an autopilot on board. The operator uses the autopilot for most of the flight, but takeoffs and landings are done manually by someone with special training. Historically, this was done by a rated aviator. As you mentioned, on the opposite end of the spectrum you have UCAVs which have such a high degree of automation that multiple aircraft could potentially be managed by one operator simultaneously. However, most NATO Class II and III tactical UAVs, such as the RQ-7 Shadow and the MQ-27 Scan Eagle, have a basic autopilot similar to that on the MQ-1, but lack the Predator's capability for fully manual control. Launch and recovery are usually accomplished with specialized ground equipment and automation. This obliviates the need for specialized training in this aspect of flight and reduces training time.
Where normally I find your videos very interesting and I admire your analysis and detail, I tend to not agree with much of this presentation. Please accept the following criticism as being constructive as is my intent.
First - I feel the exhaustive effort to classify these 'devices' (I won't say drones) was largely wasteful both due to the dynamics of their development and deployment and also to the wide range of design amongst them. If we were to draw a Venn diagram of all devices, there would be considerable overlap to the point in which precise classification is meaningless. I see you attempted to delineate between devices that operate as an entity and those which are part of a 'system.' Again, there is only a very fuzzy line between those differences. The man behind the controller is now the system. If he has a cell phone and is passing on targeting coordinates to an artillery director, there again we have a 'system.' Who is to say this is less of a system than an automated computer network with satellite links?
Second - One cannot deny that these devices are 'Game Changers.' They have most assuredly changed the landscape of both offensive and defensive battlefield tactics, have they not? Simply because they are vulnerable to air-defense, does not change that fact. If an enemy must now divert some percentage of their air-defense systems to UAVs, that is, by definition that is a game changer. I can draw an analog to WWII when the US attacked Tokyo using B-25 bombers. In no way can that attack be considered effective, yet it was, in every respect, a game changer in that it modified Japan's defensive landscape for the remainder of the war and diverted considerable resources in doing so.
I understand that all of this is just my observation, but I felt compelled to discuss it given how great your channel is and how much I enjoy watching you.
Well stated. And the other factor clearly highlighted by this war is the psychological effect. Simply hearing or seeing a drone causes immediate panic. It is not unlike knowing a sniper is out there.
You droped this almost at the same time as the War Thunder Drone update trailer :D
Is there a connection? Humm?
Cost of procurement and maintenance are the game changing factor of RPAs compared to manned A and F type planes.
The cost per destroyed enemy asset is a critical factor in an attrition war.
The effectiveness of TB2 in Ukraine is much bigger than what's shared. Ukraine is in a war of survival, so the first week it was necessary to boost morale by sharing/leaking many drone strikes. Since their morale is already sky high, it's better to limit sharing operation footage to make the Russians wonder what keeps hitting them. There was a TB2 footage almost every day until the end of March which is also when the battle of Kyiv was won. Which is another advantage of drones: footage boosts morale of army and the people.
Turkey (producer of TB2) was probably also afraid of Russian sanctions. It's likely that Turkey asked Ukraine to not share too many Turkish made TB2 drone videos to not anger Russia too much since Turkey has a bad economy.
I disagree. Just because countermeasures are being conceived does not mean that drones are no game changers. The airforce was a game changer in war.
The game changing aspect is the capability of acquiring information about the enemy in real time at a very low risk and cost for the operator. Knowing where the enemy is and what he is doing is a game changer in war, it is most often decisive for the outcome of a battle.
I think you misunderstand what I mean with it not being a game changer. That was in reference to RPAs being used to conduct strike. The latter part of the video makes it clear that the main value of UAVs and RPAs is ISR.
@@MilitaryAviationHistory O.K. Thanks for your response.
@@MilitaryAviationHistory Im not so sure, listening to most of your analytics tend to say every weapon sucks.
It comes down to training and so far No ome of our p2p enemies have it and wont have it.
It dosnt matter of Russia have ultimate AA system when they are drunk.
I do think more focus on loitering munitions aka Kamikaze Drones warrants more focus. I think in the next decade they will be the most important evolution of drone tech. Platoons could theoretically launch them and take out an opposing platoon a few meters away, down a hill, etc.
Personally, I would like to point out that we have already seem a host of home brew drones designed to carry anti personnel charges a terrorist could appreciate. A pound of comp B coated in ceramic fragments is quite the rudimentary weapon.
if you really think about it, all cruise missiles are UCAVs already. So we have deployed this technology since at least the 1970s at the strategic and operational levels of war for a long time. When you think of systems like Tomahawk, you are thinking of UCAV.
As for weapons to "take out" a platoon a few meters away, that is what MGs and mortars are for.
even a cheap DJI drone is going to be easy to hear and shoot down. It's hard to imagine that attacking a platoon nearby with a cheap UCAV is more economical than a grenade or a mortar.
@@davedoe6445 you might be surprised just how cheaply made those DJIs are. Or just what the DoD spends on disposable items. Besides that flying bomb only needs to last long enough to get close. Were not talking about a stand off weapon here.
Yes potentially small drones will change warfare in ways some people can not envisage yet , maybe even many people.
The tactic of using a relatively large amount of cheap kamikaze and decoy drones are extremely effective when it comes to overwhelming enemy air defense systems simply because they have a limited number of more expensive rockets and need time to reload. This tactic was used in both Syria and Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020. Currently there is no widely adopted countermeasures for such tactic. Classic electronic warfare systems use radio jamming of a wide spectrum of frequencies thus interfering with your own communications.
Rheinmetall AHEAD ammunition should be the thing you missed
@@DJ1573 I'm familiar with this systems existence. And yet it is not a widely adopted system. As far as I know is is only adopted by Germany and a few other countries in a naval CIWS form.
The Drones used in Karabakh were Turkish TB-2‘s and Israeli Horon Drones both are not kamikaze or decoy drones so could you explain exactly which type of drone you think was used?
@@emrefifty5281 IAI Harop drone that was used during the conflict is a Loitering munition that can also be utilized for reconnaissance.
not to be harsh, but honestly there's quite a few things missed out on here. one thing that wasn't really touched upon is the use of drones in a SEAD/DEAD context. UAVs/RPAs/whatever have been used very extensively as decoys to fake out IADS pretty much since the Yom Kippur War. and newer developments like the anti-radiation IAI Harpy and Harop are very promising as DEAD weapons too. consider the fact that they can be more easily expended to attack SAMs or radars in areas that would otherwise be too risky for the expensive jet bombers (Harop has been successfully used in this context in Syria and Karabakh against modern SAMs). suicide attacks just aren't an option for manned aircraft, unless you're in Imperial Japan.
likewise, UCAVs have a lot of potential as the new order of CAS aircraft. maybe it isn't wise to fly a TB2 into airspace covered by S400 and Pantsir batteries. but once those have been dealt with by jets and/or loiter munitions on SEAD missions, then it makes a lot of sense to use UCAVs to blast away the heavy support weapons of defending enemy troops (this is what Ukraine has been doing since they received AGM-88s). sure, you can have helicopters or jet bombers do this, but you risk an expensive pilot in the process. and with UCAVs, you can potentially have much smaller systems that can be used with a lot less infrastructure like runways, crews, etc.. a lot of UCAVs coming out of Iran for example are launched from trucks using RATO and then land using parachutes, or there's the example of Ukrainian quadcopters with grenades (which admittedly aren't super effective, but they have a lot of R&D potential seeing how PGMs could be developed specifically for them). so you could in the very near future have ground troops able to provide themselves with real-time tactical CAS and ISR with UCAVs perhaps even down to the platoon level.
An aspect, which was not really completely adressed in the video is the combined operation of armed drones with other weapon systems. Especially in the Russo-Ukrainian war, we receive more and more hints, that the combination of SEAD missions (with AGM-88 HARM) and TB-2 seems to be very effective. I would even say, if Russia is not be able to establish a counter for this combination and the Ukrainians are able to support those missions in large numbers, this would be a decisive factor for the outcome of the whole war for sure.
Because of my age I remember when "drone" meant an unmanned aircraft that was semi-autonomous in that it could take-off, land and loiter without input. This distinguished it from a remote-controlled aircraft which was 100% controlled. Modern drones are partly controlled and partly GPS programmed to fly without control. An observation drone doesn't necessarily need any pilot input.
Some of the harassing strikes by small drones seem to have the potential for large impacts. Some of these appear to have grenades or small shaped charge explosives. While the impact of a single or few explosive devices may seem small at first, combined with the loitering and guidance ability of a small drone it can be applied where the impact is maximized.
For example, some of these may have been used at river crossings to interrupt movement by bridge, mobile bridges, or ferries and thereby impair resupply and reinforcement of forces on the other side. This then can impact on large numbers of forces within an area by exploiting such a point of logistical vulnerability.
Another example is attacks by drones directly on artillery operators or their munitions stockpiled nearby in the open. This not only harasses artillery units to degrade effectiveness but also impacts the way in which they can operate and what is required to provide adequate protection. Much more frequent movement of artillery assets or use of armored artillery and supply vehicles for example could inform future force structures and choice of types of artillery to employ in order to counter such harassment by drones on a large scale.
The design and assets included to defend air bases or naval vessels also could be impacted by these small drones. More gun or laser based anti air systems for example, instead of heavy reliance on large expensive missiles. More attention may also be paid to basic passive protections, such as armored covers or full hangars for aircraft instead of being parked in the open. Naval vessels may also need more overhead cover in port and more extensive close range air defense systems and some systems specifically to counter drones.
Game changer: maybe!
The cost of the systems is the game changer in allowing the speed at which changes in tactics, modifications to “drone”systems and the ability to make mistakes and just give it a go. The prohibitive costs of new manned aircraft are allowing cheap commercial “drones” to be used for targeting, reconnaissance or even mini strikes. A manned aircraft can not respond fast enough, or cheap enough, in making modifications to the aircraft, avionics or ordinance to changes in the battle. In a pier to near pier conflict the Bayracktar may still be very useful. It could be used to draw SAM systems to target it. The comparison in cost between the Bayracktar and an expensive S300, S400 or other may be a good trade off. Using the Baktar as bait for enemy SAMs. It would be very easy to add some lowly ECM, such as old fashion chafe, or co ordination with a manned aircraft launching AGM 88 HARM anti radiation missiles. The point is it is easy & relatively cheap to use unmanned systems to attack the enemy and fast to make changes in the field to see what works.
Small quadcopters with explosive charges aren't a game changer YET, mainly because you have to pilot them manually using very limited sensor data (single camera stream). But i am sure that completely autonomous types of kamikaze-drones, which do not have to rely on GPS and control links aren't that far off. Just take a look at the current research landscape with respect to depth estimation, object recognition and location mapping from video. The basic bulding blocks are all there and are getting better each day. We will get to the point where small drones can be used as basically homing grenades that you just have to send in the general direction of the enemy. How are you going to deploy countermeasures against something that zips through forests or buildings with 40-80 km/h and has no radio signature?
While not a game changer, I would be at least a little nervous if I was a Russian soldier about quadcopters dropping grenades after seeing the many videos put out over the last few months.
When it drops a grenade on your toilet paper stockpile, it is a game changer
The thing you will hear about in a couple decades isn't just that, but quadcopters or winged drones acting as a first stage for a MANPAD or an anti tank rocket.
All of a sudden, it would mean that aircraft can't escape manpads by flying at 10 km, and that top attack against tanks from long range becomes a lot easier. And it means you can no longer look for the smoke trail to see where it was fired from. On top of that they get loitering capability as in they can hover over an area and take out any tank or aircraft that enters it.
The other arguably even more important one is anti-radiation loitering munitions that directly target enemy radar systems.
As an armchair strategist, I think drones in two distinct ways: Traditional- recon, strike, screening and decoy. Logistical- gross weight, payload, range, speed, takeoff and landing, maintenance and repair, manning and training, doctrine, shipping and storage AND, most important, numbers vs price vs battle space.
The main value of drones is not support roles as this video claims.
As TB2s have shown, the real value of drones is cost effectiveness. It's a true advantage when the drone costs comparative prices with the missile that takes it down. You can buy 60 TB2s for 1 S-400 system. Ukraine doesn't have enough TB2s to saturate the Russian AA capabilities. If they did, the war would have gone differently. Saturation attacks happened in Nagorno-Karabakh. Drone systems have further potential when multitudes of them can be effectively used as a swarm by a single operator. Cost effectiveness becomes even more critical in conflicts between countries of symmetric capabilities. A future is possible where many AA drones equal to cost of a 5th gen fighter can potentially rival the jet. Unmanned vehicles are the future of air power and aviation.
just because it's cheap doesnt make it any more faster to build, it still takes a lot of time to build 1 tb2 than to manufacture ONE s400 missiles (not to mention they are cheaper too)
the true game changer of this was is HIMARS, probably did the most damages and enabling more option for ukrainian military than any weapoen that has been sent to ukraine, these system will be the game changer not the drones (maybe UCAV in the future, who knows) , why do you think they are less and less TB2 footage that the end of the war
I think it is funny people freak out about suicide drones but "drones" have been around for almost a century. We call them guided weapons. ATGMs. TV guided missiles... But wait...radio controlled tanks, air craft and ships! 😁
I really do appreciate your (typically German) attempt of clearly defining the different terms for drones. There is just one problem and one big mistake you're making while doing so.
Your personal definitions and your own use sometimes go against long established use and definitions of some of these terms.
The term UAV for example is long established and it simply defines an unmanned aerial vehicle of any type. You could argue this term could potentially even include a simple paper plane, but it certainly includes remote controlled and semi-autonomous and autonomous aerial vehicles, as long as they carry no human.
An RPA on the other hand is simply a remotely piloted aircraft and this can potentially certainly include manned remotely piloted aircraft, such as air taxis or potentially (temporarily) remotely controlled airliners (with or without pilot on board). Theoretically any manned aircraft that was remotely piloted by someone, even if just temporarily in an emergency situation, would qualify as RPA.
Instead of attempting to redefine long established terms, even though they may often be interchangeable and may not always be clearly outlined or sufficiently precise, I suggest and recommend using - or introducing - other more suitable terms.
What you personally (re-)defined as a "UCAV", I would recommend you call an "AAV" or "ACAV", an "Autonomous Aerial Vehicle" or an "Autonomous Combat Aerial Vehicle", or if only semi-autonomous then maybe also as ""SAAV", or "SACAV" for Semi-Autonomous Aerial Vehicle and Semi-Autonomous Combat Aerial Vehicle.
These terms AAV, ACAV or SAAV and SACAV may not (yet) be widely used, but they are easily understandable, and they are clearly defined, and they do not break with long standing definitions and common use of already long existing terms.
Other than that, a great video by the way!
Basically you're saying spending 15-minutes out of 22 total on definitions was too much. Agreed, that part was boring.
Paper planes? Dammit, and here I was signing up for the armed forces without including "UAV operator since age 7" in my resume. 😆
I disagree that I personally redefined them. The way I classed them is essentially the approach most NATO countries take, including the US. It could have been shortened though, that's for sure.
Please don't report the author to the authorities....
Chris Bergs and Matt Easton, brothers in context.
One interesting though I had is how drones might cause the return of the idea of Total War. If operating drones or other types on remote weapon systems becomes as simplified as a video game, it could allow much more recruitment compared to a regular armed forces where there are certain requirements to qualification as well as time needed to train soldiers.
i doubt you can supply enough of those. sure cheaper than jet fighters but still not cheap enough. also if one is lost you can use another one so easily one operator can use few so you dont need so many operators
great analysis; another interessting thought is quantity vs quality: drones are much less capable than fighter jets, but can be cheaper. So you can field more of them, and cover an increased area or over longer timespans.
I'd say the best use of drones so far in the Russia/Ukraine situation is spotting for artillery...if you mentioned that then I guess I missed it?
That's what he meant by ISR - intelligence surveillance reconnaissance
especially because russia does rely a lot on artillery. for nato it might not be so useful.
@Ex Bismarck, Yop,
Unrelated to that precise video, but maybe of interest to you if you don't already know about it. I mostly enjoy your content, despite some sparks of insanity here and then ( "Airbus is a german company !" ), but one thing that shows you can't be completely evil -for a german, is your taste in "what plane would i get". When i asked myself that question my answer was "a PBY-5A catalina or comparable, to cruise around the world, land either at sea or on landing strips".
Was delighted to see that was also your idea.
Turns out, there was a man in the 1950s, at a time where a surplus of aircraft made them quite affordable, and had the same kind of ideas. His name was Glenn Odekirk, and he transformed a few maritime patrol aircraft, namely Catalinas, into flying yachts. A few photos are easy to find.
So if you already knew about it, sorry for the bother, if not, hope it was of interest. In any case, good luck carrying on.
Thanks for the clarifications on the differances and the misleading news reports we have heard and accepted as fact for many months afterward.
Drinking Game: While binge watching MAH, every time Chris says "context", take a shot.
Fantastic channel and great video as always!
There is only one true lord of context. His name is Matt Easton and he does not share the power :)
It's very ironic you'd make this video as I myself was thinking about making a video analyzing how the utility of drones may be overhyped. It's easy to think the current conflict in Ukraine means that drones are going to dominate the future like they are in this current conflict but once you dig deeper it's clear that their domination has been due to the incompetence of the enemy. Even now there's a video of a Russian drone being hacked, but more practically they can be jammed/shot at. I don't see them going away, they offer too much utility, but even saying that I do think they're overhyped currently.
But... At the moment EVERYONE is more or less 'incompetent'.
You don't fire a manpad on a 500g UAV.
You don't jamm a 4000km front 7/24/365 - AND they will become more independent and hardened.
And you don't have a radar behind every tree to spot a small UAV.
@@Krusesensei I mean, I can send you down a rabbit hole but usually when I get comments written like this it's usually someone talking AT me instead of WITH me so uh, I'll just leave it.
@@SogenOkami okay... Then why do you answer at all?
PS: drones will not dominate the warfare.
It's just 'another' tool in your box.
But a important one .
@@Krusesensei In the off chance I could spark reflection but it ain't happening.
"Context Matters!" Nicelly said, I'd buy it!
A lot of the drones used today are living on borrowed time. Counters are becoming cheaper, more ubiquitous, and more effective every day. There will always be uses. But aside from small semi-expendable camera platforms, loitering munitions, and maybe high-risk resupply, drones will trend towards acting as an extension of manned platforms. Having an HMG armed UGV than can roll off a JLTVs bed and roll with ground troops. Longshot/Gunslinger weapons pods that can detach from fighters and act as loyal wingmen. HuntIR or similar micro drones that a scout can use to get a better view of his surroundings. These will stick around. Quad rotors and slow props that aren't kamikazes, will, like actual WWII strike aircraft, take higher losses for less effect on target than suicide craft.
And do not forget the power of cluster-drones, as observation drones or attack drones, making relaying signals back, not be hampered if several drones are knocked out.
The drones can even automaticaly move in to cover an area, that was covered by a lost drone.
Ok, I really enjoyed this video and learned a lot about something I knew little about. Thanks.
Imagine a apache or a viper launch loitering drones with them as the heavy hitters when the targets pops out somewhere and the loitering munition be the initial executory attack or the final attack covering the exfill of the strikers/ambushers
What do you think about expensive SAMs shooting down relatively inexpensive UAVs? With enough drones can you just overwhelm air defense?
he didn't touch much on other eölectronic counter measseures, for one because not much is known about it because the german company world leading in this is not talking about how they do it
Cheap commercial drones without any weapons could also be used to create noise in an air defense system. The defenses may not be able to tell as easily which of the sensor contacts is carrying a package of weapons, sensors, or electronics with combat utility and which are just cheap decoys providing a large number of contacts to track.
Nice distinction! UAVs and RPAs are ISR, but also precision strike and force multiplier when there is poor AA, because battlefield awarness is the key to a future battlefield. Next gen autonomous vehicle as selwarms and etc. with AI will be the game-changer on the field. In the future integrated AA will be the defense tool against all aircraft and will be cheaper to have. As a small country Bulgaria should buy and develop integrated AA, get RPAs and VLOs and autonomous systems.
Drones are 100% a gamechanger. There no need to overblow the importance of drones, but theres no need to down play it in response like you are here. Drone losses are cheap in cost and in life when compared to any other CAS platform. They basically make all other CAS platforms irrelevant. That is huge!
I think it's very reductionist and also quite snobbish to say that drones aren't game changers. It's absolutely what they are doing which is diversifying Battlefield threats and opening up new opportunities.
Usage in Ukraine and Nagorno-Karabakh is only a precursor to mass usage which will be seen in the future. Its blinkered to write these off as isolated successes which wouldn't have occurred if not for asymmetric opponents.
The TB-2 is now once again seeing strike usage where threats have been suppressed around Kherson. A larger military could use drones with abandon, overwhelming air defences with sheer numbers.
Also small tacrical drones are totally useful for dropping small munitions. Pinpoint disruption of enemy forces using difficult to counter assets which are incredibly cheap, immediately deployable, easy to use and expendable? Which military doesn't want systems like that? Even when defense systems and countermeasures are used these often cost more to employ than the drones they shoot down. Again a system diversifying threats and opening new opportunities again game changing.
Just for a fleeting moment I thought you said you had a disco were you all meet up! given the context I thought what a nice way to meet other like minded drone enthusiasts.
100% right about drones use in recon though. Bayraktar got all the hype, but the real drone MVP of this war has been the Russians Orlan-10.
A better term for UAV with your definition I've used for a while and seen used like 10 years ago is Micro UAV. And those the size of a Manned aircraft is a UAV instead of UCAV which only makes sense to me if it is armed... So a Micro UCAV, RPCA, and UCAV would be better I think. Edit: And like armored combat vehicle describes tanks, APCs, IFVs, Armored cars etc Drone could be used as a catch all for any and all unmanned systems.
is there any information about "drone on drone" warfare? So far they all seem to target ground targets, but can they be adapted to also engage other aircraft? aerial dominance is more important than ever
Biggest thing I realized from this is how to differentiate "Automated" and "Autonomous"
There are light, medium, heavy & MBTs with different roles & capabilities so of course you're right to differentiate the various types of drone
Very 2D thinking. The terminology lags way behind the applications and as such is really makes no sense to get so hung up on it. A platform of any size may exhibit any or all of these features potentially within a single mission. The idea that a MQ9 pilot has the same skills as a light aircraft is just not true. While both need to understand the airspace and deconflict with other aircraft etc, only one is really a pilot, the other is a director. The real deal on counter drone is economics, i.e. How much does it cost to neutralise a system vs that systems cost and the ability of the opposition to replenish. As I think you alude, the tech to take down a Mig is likely to work against a the, but the economics is not even close
As an RPA pilot, I’m very interested in your upcoming UCAV video. Well done!
Awesome! Thank you!
The main thing is RPAs and UAVs don't *need* to be "effective" in the traditional sense to be very important battlefield assets. Even if a tank's attached reconnaissance vehicle is destroyed five minutes into the battle, the fact that it detected that an enemy was in the area may have saved it. If an RPA is shot down by enemy air defense, that's air defense not firing at manned vehicles. They still have expense, yes, but the lack of pilots put in harm's way is an economy in human capital other materiel simply doesn't have.
Will they replace systems? Probably not. Will they be heavily used to supplement existing units? Absolutely. In a way, they're like MANPADS, which while unlikely to kill fixed-wing aircraft, are so cheap that aborting a mission is still a win. Being a new technology, we haven't seen them get to their full potential either, and as countermeasures develop, so will the "drones". Only time will tell.
The most important difference between an RPA and a U(C)AV is software, and maybe some electronics. Even a couple home-built vehicles have autonomy (like the open-source Ardupilot). Upgrading an old system against a near-peer enemy should be relatively cheap if necessary. Ukraine probably did that with their old Tupolev Tu-141 machines, because a digital camera and a handful of microcontrollers are a lot cheaper than a jet plane.
Thanks, Cris.Cheers from the Pacific West Coast of Canada.
Computer gaming might be more useful than first thought.
that thing at 19:27 looks awesome, i can imagine a fleet of these being launched from a drone unit for close ground support.
Just to make it clear for those of us who associate controlling light air craft with needing to adjust the control surfaces to steer a plane. I.E. to turn you use your ailerons to bank and then use your elevators to follow through on the turn. You aren't talking about that when bringing up training for RPAs right?
The game won't change until standard countermeasures can't deter "drones" (to just use the generalizing term). This may involve stealth technology, but might as well involve radar-evasive systems able to autonomously navigate below tree-top level.
Right now, "drones" are useful because they are cheaper than airplanes meant for the same task, easier to deploy, in some cases easier to control, and more expendable than a human life (at least, more expendable than a human life playing for your own team).
But, development never stops, and at some point, enough technologies will mature and become available to put "drones" to another level. Artificial intelligence and pathfinding technology will have a huge effect. Improvements in propulsion for higher speed and range will also affect what drones can do.
Even the UN isn't sure what to think of them right now. Even if they decided to place a ban on LAWs, countries can't help but research them because they will still want to protect themselves against them from either rogue nations or rogue organizations, because that's how close the technology is to public knowledge. The vehicles are openly available, private companies are already researching artificial intelligence, automatic guidance or autopilot functionality, facial (and object) recognition, improved propulsion, improved energy storage. All of this non-governmental technology will at some point reach viability for fully automated warfare. And all countries in the world will want countermeasures against that threat yesterday. And if the UN allows, they want the technology itself in their ranks as well.
One area that doesn't show up in "losses" is Ukrainian drones forced Russia to provide expensive air defenses when their plans were not to bother. The drones forced Russia to operate differently, limiting their combat capabilities.
For old microprose gamers, this speaks to the return of ZSU-23-4 type AA guns. Definitely higher $/$ return on investment for close air defense for troop columns (or maybe the Russian Tunguska)
Also the German Gepard. There are still many Leopard 1 tanks around that could potentially all be converted into Gepards. Greece has hundreds of them for example.
There's huge collateral damage risk in firing a ZSU volley. You could end up doing more damage than the drone itself
Great video! Thank you. Very well reasoned. As far as your T-shirt merchandise, I would put the phrase “context is everything“ on it.
looking forward to the series. thks
this video has helped me to better understand the differences and roles of the various types of unmanned aircraft.
Anotehr superb video. Tshirt idea is a must have, go for it!
I have to wonder if the psychological effect of having a grenade dropped from a small drone is worth it. By dropping the grenade, the enemy is aware they are under surveillance and can take appropriate counter measures. By staying undetected it should be of more benefit to call in heavy artillery or missile strikes on unsuspecting troops. In theory front line troops should assume they are always under surveillance but fatigue and boredom often come into play.
Great video Chris. I enjoyed your look into the definitions that make "drones" different in use.
If you were to build upon the terms "UAV", "RPA", "UCAV" and "UAS", would you be fine with using a new term to differentiate who is the "combatant"; human or machine? I mean to say, since the RPA isn't making the decisions like movement and probably engagement like the UCAV, could we say the "Unmanned Combat Aircraft System" or UCAS is the combatant "manned/automatic drone" while the UCAV itself is the combatant "machine/autonomous drone"?
So a UCAS makes combat decisions on the system level with humans involved, employing an RPA, while a UCAV can make combat decisions on-vehicle, employing its own software, sensors and armament. Therefore the term "UAV" in military has two sub-branches, UCASs and UCAVs-- or Combat Systems and Combat Vehicles.
I'm mostly interested in this from a legal-political perspective, since the question of "who is the combatant" is looking to be an important discussion in international relations regarding law and warfare.... war crimes in short.
According to this German News real, Russian drones purchased from Iran managed to outwitt the ukrainian air defences due to their very small size and radar cross section and managed to bombard a strategic target in the centre of Odessa, the command centre of the southern army of ukraine.
I do think that Drones are game changers in warfare. I think you should reconsider your assessment.
"Context Matters" on a t-shirt would be oh so cool. Limited Edition.
I'm no expert on military matters.
However, it's obvious that anything flying is very useful for ISR duties, whether with crew on board, remotely controlled, autonomous, etc., at suitable levels. Information is an important factor for any military action.
1 useful aspect of drones (air, water, ground) is that human operator could be in a relatively safe place.
I would think RPA's could fulfill a similar role as light attack craft.
At the end of the day having air superiority only protects your people on the ground if you dont have ground strike capabilities.
Aircraft have many factors going into them. Cost per flight hour, the age of the frame, the amount of sorties you can fly per day/week, the weapons it can carry. But also the height at which they fly, as most modern jets that fly low severely reduce the lifespan of the airframe, increase the cost per flight hour and increase the maintenance time which means less sorties flown. On top of all that any aircraft loaded for a ground mission is both less able to avoid anything fired at it and wont have as much firepower to deal with other aircraft.
But what if you minimize the amount of ground sorties your jets need to fly? It means more sorties against enemy aircraft, less chance you cannot answer an enemy aircraft attack and less costs overall (also better chance of SEAD capabilities still available when you need it).
If your RPA's can supplement the ground strike capabilities it would help you be more ready. It also means that the aircraft originally supposed to do the ground strike can now either be ready on the ground, get maintenance, do a patrol or protect an airspace from aircraft.
A comprehensive and informative presentation. Wonderful work as always Chris.
Thanks!
Really good research! Once again, shining the light of knowledge into a dimly illuminated area. Keep it coming!
I think you need to define "game changer". Any new technology changes the game, but that doesn't mean it will dominate the battlefield. In this respect "drones" are game changers.
Recalling the effectiveness of USNavy's SOSUS lines which were passive listening arrays that could detect the passage of Soviet submarines, and relay data to patrolling U.S.nuclear submarines.
*•* I wouldn't be surprised if someone is developing various types of "swarming" insect-sized detectors equipped with (a) acoustic sensors, (b) electromagnetic sensors, (c) transmitters programmed to send "packets" of sampled signatures.
*•* Such a system could have a hierarchical population: first, bunches of expendable worker bee data gathering bugs that do very little actual data processing, and broadcast brief "chirps" rather than continuous feed.
*•* These could be picked up by silent monitoring beasties, with sufficient processing to identify aggressor/enemy movement from the accumulated chirps of brief intervals;
*•* Digested intelligence estimates would be broadcast in microbursts in order to defeat surveillance.
*•* Circling drones or sensitive low-orbit satellites would be able to capture the processed intelligence from the intermediate dronelettes, process them further to clarify theater-wide threat assessment to be sent to human analysts to determine tactical response for the 6th-gen stealth craft.
*•* We can anticipate development of Electromagnetic Pulse Area Weapons to disable drones & passive monitors. They'll have to be hardened.
I'm sure my musings are at least two decades behind the technologies. Maybe I should just practice my fiddle.
In a near peer conflict drones could be used to force enemy air defences to expend their missiles and reveal their locations. After that a traditional bombing campaign would be much easier
I think RPAs that are big enough where they possibly can be manned are going to fall by the wayside. SOCOM decided to arm a crop duster and use it as a stand in for the reaper anywhere that over boots on the ground can be found. And I think the USAF can just buy more A-29s or buy more trainers like the AT-6 to support any future counter insurgency. They may even buy a modernized OV-10 as has been discussed, as the civil mission of the Air National Guard and the Civil Air Patrol would be better served by the Bronco. You don't see the Predator or Reaper fighting fires either. The gains of remote operation are the weight and risk reduction at the cost of increased logistics, and the vulnerability of a command link.
The only reason to use remotely piloted planes is to not have to deal with rescuing a downed pilot in places you don't already have troops on the ground. Fly an aircraft longer than a crew can sustain themselves in a cockpit, or for use as a parasite aircraft that can be dropped from a mother aircraft, stored in a cargo container and cat launched as needed, or strapped to a person's backpack.
We been schooled! Not often used phrase.
Thanks Chris.
This significantly complicates the battle space.... I like this video, I eagerly await for part two
One point about the usage of countermesures against "drones" is about cost.
Sure, to protect your high vallue assets is vital, but a "quadcopter with a grenade" is dirt cheap (for military standarts), but a MANPAD missile is not.
It becomes a matter of "do I risk the asset now, or do I burn this $5000 missile to destroy that $500 bomb risking running out af missiles if/when a bigger threat comes later".
Coutermesures will eventually evolve into something more efficient, but, at least for now, they are a "positive loss": the enemy looses $500, you loose $5000, but you protected the $50000 thing from damage.
The current MANPADS missiles (e.g. FIM-92) themselves are upwards of 200k atm for a single pop.
@@MilitaryAviationHistory OUCH! that might hurt A LOT OF WALLETS...
I'd love one of these T-shirts, if you ever decide to make them! 🙂
Because Context Matters everywhere, in any debate or analysis.
It's a good catchphrase!
Keep up the good work, thanks for sharing this!
Regards,
Thomas
Anyone else find it odd they still call them tanks instead of something like operational breakthrough vehicles?
good comparison on rpa vs information drones on a local scale
I think the one thing Ukraine has taught us is that the smaller the drone, the better it is. Using them for spotting or dropping anti-tank grenades, seems to be where they shine now. A small drone may show up on radar, but getting a MANPAD or other SPAA system to gain a lock on a small DJI sized RPA will be close to impossible. The real danger is small arms fire from infantry, which is really not going to be effective against a seemingly unending supply of AT grenades and RPAs to carry them.
Tbh, I really appreciate drones, at the same time it’s sad because they are starting to replace manned systems, which are the legends of the bunch.I really don’t want them to replace everything we do with the manned feature, drone warfare can be hyped up a lot, but at the end of the day….I think manned is a bit better
Spot on. Really. really well done.
Glad you enjoyed it
imagine trying to pretend that drones aren't the game changer that they very clearly are.
Interesting video
I think drones are "game changing" but they are not "paradigm shifting".
As I understand it, none of the modern platforms you call RCPs require as much piloting as you say, with takeoff, landing, cruising, loitering being automated to varying degrees.
Drones will be as revolutionary to war, as guns were when they first came out. The firearm is not necessarily superior to a longbow especially in the early stages of development. But anybody can learn to use a gun quickly while longbow took enormous amount of training. Similarly, drones are cheap and expendable, while pilots are expensive and rare comparatively. Thus, if drones only have a 10% success rate, it may absolutely be worthwhile to use them in mass, while a 10% success rate is catastrophic when it comes to pilots.
In short Russia is not Ukraine's peer. Also Air Defense rely on active radar system which are vulnerable to Anti Radiation Missile or an Anti Radar Loitering Munition. A drone that patrols the sky hunting and destroying any radar system it detects.
I think this would be better presented as 3 separate video's, it would be easier to absorb the information. I love what you do Chris but for some reason your voice turns into white noise & I just tune out.
Dude, good content. Very relevant topic.
Great analysis.
after some preliminary anti air suppression ---any chance of a straight up anti-radar bayraktar with harm misses being effective?
Azerbaijan used IAI Harop drones as anti-radiation weapons to protect the TB2s.
Excellent work. Thank you.
Very interesting video. Much appreciated. You may want to reconsider the distracting cactus…over your right shoulder.
Hi @Military Aviation History do you have something planned on Iranian RPAs and by extension those used by the Houthis in Yemen? The Houthis claim to have used RPAs successfully against Saudi Arabia which is surprising given the Saudi Air Force and Air Defence investment is very good. Iran seems to have invested heavily in all kinds of RPAs as their air force updates in mainstream aircraft seem to be going slow. I am a bit confused by the number and variance of Iranian RPAs as they don't seem to be for different mission profiles. I was even more surprised that Russia wanted Iranian RPAs given that Russia should have better capabilities already and that the Ukranian forces might have good countermeasures of their own, seeing what has happened to TB -2s there. I know there is scant data but whatever you can dig up would be awesome.