For unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) to be more than novelty items, they must complement conventional weapons and be tightly integrated into combined arms operations.
Ukraine is using UGVs in important roles:
While drones have been around since WWI, most people only think about air units being used in modern conflicts. But the Ukraine War has given us a glimpse at how military tactics are evolving as drones have become a more pivotal part of the strategy, including not only air but also water and land drones.
We're in the crawl stage of crawl-walk-run for incorporating UGVs into combined arms operation. While small land drones for urban warfare are fine, I suspect ground combat drones need to be at least SUV size to have some decent cross-country mobility. The small land drones will get stymied by small ditches and obstacles. Early World War I tanks had to be large to cross trenches and to crush barbed wire. Drone design and tactics to make them part of a force will determine their effectiveness.
My longer Substack post on the lessons of the assault on Hamel in the First World War may be of interest in making ground (and air) drones part of a real combined arms force that can restore mobility to a firepower-dominated front.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
NOTE: You may also like to read my posts on Substack, at The Dignified Rant: Evolved. Go ahead and subscribe to it.
NOTE: I made the image with Bing.
