Civil and military analysts study the Russian-Ukraine war to understand which weapons to invest. But if the bombs without pilot save human lives and money, they slow down but do not stop the enemy. Thus the hybrid systems made up of humans and robots are born.
The armed forces from all over the world and among these those of NATO are trying to understand from the conflict between Russia and Ukraine as the technology and doctrine of combat are evolving. After the many missions abroad in the desert environment of the nineties and two thousand, from February 2022 to today the attention has shifted on how new and old weapons are used in the scenario on the borders of Europe. For example, there was a maximum confirmation that an intelligence and analysis apparatus of the territories brings more and more important advantages to those who have it. But also that weapons of a few hundred dollars, made with small modified commercial drones, can neutralize tanks of the cost of millions.
From this a question: have drones replaced traditional weapons such as tanks and artillery? By responding affirmatively, there is a risk of making a mistake since the countries that can integrate drones with conventional weapons will have an advantage compared to those that will entrust the masses of drones at the expense of their traditional fire power. For NATO, the implications are not only tactics: the alliance is reconstructing its armies after almost thirty years of cuts to military investments, but now that the money is there, the problem is where to allocate it to get the maximum benefit in the future. The error is lurking and doing it is often politics, which thinks that if robots are the future, it makes no sense to build new tanks or other traditional systems. But this deduction is incorrect for various reasons, even if it allows you to build a greater number of devices and to use them by breaking down the number of human losses in combat. In Europe it remains a lot to do in terms of equipment for electronic war, today the prerogative of the USA and Israel, especially for the aerial component of this discipline, in which you set a place of tens of millions of dollars already today interact with other cheaper. It is demonstrated by what has recently taken place experimentally in the USA, where a fightening F-35 has “exploited” a small quadricotter drone to direct it and send it to hit its goal, managing perfectly in the mission.
But the danger consisting of small drones is now recognized and mitigated by all armiesas shown for example the methods used by the Russians in Ukraine with the affixing of large networks that prevent contact by trapping small propellers-produce the Chinese with unhappy materials-and the deployment of anti-drone measures based on radio disorders. The subsequent counter-trustee is therefore based on the quantity, or in the creation of shamans of drones quite numerous to overcome the protections for breakthrough or saturation. And even if the impact of this technology in a battle environment still based on the creation of mined fields, artillery and on the launch of rockets has been shocking, an armed force that could no longer use “traditional” weapons continuously would be limited. It follows that you can think of the swarms of drones as added to conventional weapons but not to replace them. In Ukraine, from both the parties, the drones in battle are reconnaissance, paralyze the maneuvers of the heavy vehicles because they find them, force troops and vehicles to remain sheltered and fortified, slowing down their action. And in addition they can hit. In this sense, it was the operation that saw Russian drones used with first -person viewing (FPV), led by fiber optic cables, therefore not subject to radio disorders, hit the Ukrainian refueling lines. However, if you observe what happened in the long run, the Ukrainian drones have certainly slowed down the Russian advance but have never been able to stop it because the Moscow soldiers advance behind intense bombings and after using planning bombs, that is, bombs that remain in flight for a sufficient time until they find the right moment and place to score. The earnings on the ground are scarce and the cost is enormous, but Ukraine does not have enough human resources or traditional weapons enough to definitively defeat the attackers. It is no coincidence that the Ukrainian generals ask for traditional weapons such as ATACMS missiles, high mobility systems (Himars), artillery bullets and anti -tank missiles in their respective guided variants, since more precise and therefore effective.
The use of small drones is now also known in the key of low cost and suicide bubbles; If in groups they can saturate the radar of the air defense by preventing to distinguish the targets by forcing those who defend themselves to use expensive interceptors that otherwise would take the aim of missiles and rockets. In NATO the trend is to want to use more planning bombs in place of drones. Although they are more expensive, they are less than guided missiles: a JDAM bomb costs $ 25,000 to 35,000 dollars, while an ATACMS missile exceeds a million. It is the opinion of many analysts that NATO should use drones to increase its existing strengths such as precision and the possibility of acting together with air and terrestrial structures, and it is no coincidence that all the major existing programs in the world for new generation hunting, such as GCAP, FCAS, and those for the modernization of existing aircraft such as the French Rafale Dassault, cannot be separated from the possibility of making attacks together. with drones asserted them.
