Direct-fire close combat is hard enough without making the tip of the spear responsible for their own air defense. The reaction to our expensive stealth fighters sweeping the skies of enemy aircraft is cheap enemy drones hugging the ground in the brown skies above the ground fight. It will take cheap drones to battle these threats.
[The] states of the West have to find a way to conduct ground combat in an environment where they will be subject to frequent air attacks—something they have not had to do in generations, but that Ukraine must do now.
Such a review must incorporate the effects of the new-era meshed network of civilian and military sensors that is making the Ukrainian counteroffensives some of the most important and deadly battles in the modern age. The proliferation of drones, connected to modern digitized battle-command networks, allows for both militaries to rapidly identify and target each other’s forces. Current Western doctrine has not adequately adapted to this new environment.
They are cheap and getting much better:
“Now, we're seeing UAS able to loiter longer, with longer battery life that can reach farther distances and have increased payloads. They are hardened. They use 5G,” he said. They are faster, and can be used in swarms to overwhelm defenses, he added.
This problem of constant and swarming drones is why I advocated combat air patrol drones in this 2018 Army magazine article.
Clearly, units at the company level and below need a better means of controlling their own brown skies airspace. Yet rather than burdening lower-level units with additional ground-based air defense gun and missile systems, air-to-air combat UASs would provide better air defense than either high-flying advanced fighter aircraft or distant higher-echelon air defense weapons that will have difficulty identifying and tracking small aerial threats--let alone engaging them--before the threats strike and return to enemy positions.
Why do I want air defense drones rather than hand-held defenses?
Much as Army units carry out their operations unaware of the battles taking place in the blue skies that keep enemy aircraft away from the battlefield, units maneuvering and engaging in direct fire can't afford to be distracted by fighting for the brown skies above them.
Let's lift the burden of air defense from our forward ground combat units focused on making it through the last 100 yards to destroy enemies or holding off enemies that approach that close to kill them. Combat air patrol drones are the answer.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
