As drone counter-measures to cheap attack drones enter the battlefield, as I expected drones have to get more complicated to survive rather than rely on mass. The Russians have a jet-powered drone that is expensive enough to be termed a "loitering munition."
Russia is using a more capable suicide drone, as a Bloomberg article described:
Russian forces aim to use the Banderol to fill the gap between their cheap, slow Shahed-type drones and the faster and more accurate Kh-101 cruise missiles. Vlasiuk noted that the cheap Banderol drones contain a 150-kilogram warhead that is bigger than a Shahed warhead and that the Banderol can fly faster than Ukrainian drone interceptors. Bloomberg added that the Banderol has a relatively short range of a few hundred kilometers, so Russian forces have been launching strikes on Odesa City from occupied Crimea.
Russia decided that simply building more of the lower capability Shahed-type drones wouldn't work as well as supplementing the mass with a higher quality suicide drone in lower numbers.
Perhaps in response the drone interceptors will have to get better enough to become reusable fighter drones rather than suicide drones, as I speculated about years ago in Army magazine.
As for the Banderol suicide drone being promoted to a loitering munition, continue that line of thought.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
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NOTE: I made the image with Bing.
