Are we getting carried away with small aerial drone worship based on the static nature of the Winter War of 2022 this past year?
Mind you, I identified the need to protect forward units from swarming drone attacks in the "brown skies" just above the ground some time ago, arguing in Army magazine for fighter drones to lift the air defense burden from already busy small units at the tip of the spear in close combat.
Small drones have been great for recon and strike in the Winter War of 2022 this last year, seemingly justifying my worry. Yet I suspect that the static front magnifies the effect of the small strike drones:
Just as snipers had an outsized role in the World War I trenches, surely it is easier to use the cheap drones when the operators have a secure area and operate over familiar territory--because the front isn't moving much--with those short-range suicide drones.
I imagine the same is true for recon drones. Recon drone information is siloed and the information gained will often take time to get stale. Unless the information from many drones is fused and analyzed in minutes, this capability is also a static-war feature.
If war goes mobile, how do the short-range small drones operate when patient searching is needed? How do they identify targets that are moving--and perhaps heading for the drone operator's position with fire support raining down suppressing and killing fire? How do you use drone information to mass fires from many sources--some far away--to break up fast-moving, large formations.
At the very least, the small drones will need to adapt, becoming disposable fired from advancing vehicles in launchers much like smoke dispensers. Or even released from carrier rounds fired from cannons and rocket systems. They will need to be AI-directed with somebody in the battalion immediately collecting all the data, analyzing it, and distributing it to appropriate recipients for rapid decisions to exploit the information.
And the information must flow to higher levels to get bigger pictures for the brigades, divisions, corps, and the army itself. Although the time to create those pictures will be longer. But the scope of decisions at higher levels will have additional time.
At that point, the drones may be as broadly effective as the current buzz credits them with. Assuming counter-measures don't catch up in that endless race the drones currently have the lead in.
I just don't want to be hasty in crowning small drones the queen of battle based on the Winter War of 2022 experience in 2023.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
