I watched a Netflix documentary, Marines, and the fact that the Ukraine War is serving as a lab for learning about warfare in this era was mentioned, specifically the role UAVs or drones are playing in this war. I believe that in the documentary it was stated that up to 80% of deaths in the Ukraine War are now the result of drone strikes rather than engagement by combatants. I found this article that uses that same figure.

quote:

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have become the main weapon of the war in Ukraine—a bloody, high-tech clash that is seen as a harbinger of conflicts to come. While artillery battles once defined the war, up to 80% of all Russian and Ukrainian casualties are now caused by drone strikes…

Have UAVs changed the war?
They've made it deadlier. Some 400,000 Ukrainian troops and close to 1 million invading Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded since the war started in 2022, and Western analysts estimate that just under half of Russia's casualties occurred last year, largely because of the widening use of drones. Mechanized assaults are almost impossible in the drone age: a $400 drone can quickly take out a $2 million tank, and of the 31 M1A1 Abrams tanks the U.S. sent to Ukraine in 2023, all but four have been destroyed.

The rest of the article: Death from above: Drones upend rules of war in Ukraine

It will be interesting to see how our military pivots to address this 21st century battlefield threat.

The YT channel CivDiv is an American volunteer fighting in Ukraine (and other places), and he has become a drone operator. His insights are interesting.

I was just talking about this a few nights ago.

With any advance in technology, War is going to become more lethal.
It is truly a “Darwinian world”, either you evolve quickly, or you’re going to die.

Look at GPS- then see how much more accurate dropping a 2000 lb chunk of steel and high explosive from 15,000 feet as you’re moving at a few hundred miles an hour became.

Satellite communications, repeating rifles, gun powder, changes in steel technology, flight… all have reshaped the battlefield.

The Ukraine war was a huge shift in warfare just as big IMO from going to massed formation fighting to trenches from 1860's to 1915.

Drones changed it all.

I saw that the Army is buying something like 250,000 new drones.

"The object of war is not to die for your country, it’s to the other bastard die for his." - G. Patton

The less i put my troops at risk while killing the enemy, the better.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
The Ukraine war was a huge shift in warfare just as big IMO from going to massed formation fighting to trenches from 1860's to 1915.

Drones changed it all.

I saw that the Army is buying something like 250,000 new drones.

Not even a months supply

His channel has gotten quieter since he separated from Ukrainian service, but Big Macs Battleblog was pretty eye opening.

https://youtube.com/@bigmakbat...?si=2Y7vu4EKhF-t1L0I


I found him through initial interviews on the Lindybeige channel


https://youtu.be/TCbD4WBqPg4?si=D2wRuLXmXLCLRg0y

All true but the Russians aren’t exactly top tier anything militarily. Especially their ground forces. The Ukraine War has shown the Russians to be experts in poor tactics and very slow adaptation to threats. They have basically conceded large portions of the Black Sea to the Ukrainians just due to their inability to counter seaborne drones. Makes you wonder how much we were misled to believe how dangerous the Soviets actually were during the Cold War.

I would love to see what truly advanced anti drone tech looks like.

quote:

Originally posted by pedropcola:
Makes you wonder how much we were misled to believe how dangerous the Soviets actually were during the Cold War.

I would love to see what truly advanced anti drone tech looks like.

Re: anti- drone technology, it’s a HUGE war of escalation!
Drone? Ok, jam the electronic signals!
Oh, you jammed our electronic signals? We’re going to use fiber optic cables!


Re: The Cold War, we had a clue about the lack of maintenance of their tank and helicopter fleet in Eastern Europe.
Yeah, Ivan had 20,000 tanks! Ohhhh! Scary!
But when you learn that only 4000 work, they weren’t that big, bad bear we thought they were.
We really found out their true state of disrepair after The Wall fell.

These battles are for the second tier militaries and neighbors fighting each other. Imagine taking on an AI enhanced F-47 with a half dozen CCAs (super duper advanced autonomous or collaborative drones) alongside manned and unmanned B-21s with their accompaniment of drones. Now they are some drones that are ready to party. The Radio Shack drones with mortars are for insurgency or guerrilla warfare.

quote:

These battles are for the second tier militaries and neighbors fighting each other.

Which is exactly what these turds are. Glorified guerilla warfare. This war of theirs has been stalemated, in a way like World War I or the majority of the Korean War, since it started, with both sides taking and giving bits of ground, back and forth.

This has been going on for what, three years now? In World War II, the then-Soviet Union (which included Ukraine), in the same amount of time, had repelled the German invasion and had recovered some of their lost territory. Now look. If Russia was such hot shit, they'd have steamrolled Ukraine like Germany vs. France.

1- it will be interesting to see how slowly our military can draw out the pivot to drone and AI warfare. Bureaucracy and Board Seats run the Generals.

2- we will not be fighting Russia.

3- we will be fighting China, literally half the globe away from us but at their doorstep. Advantage, China.

4- China already has emplaced assets in the US adjacent to military bases and with plans for wholesale infrastructure destruction, both mil bases and civ cities. Hard to fight half a world away when 200,000,000 Americans have no water, power, heat, fuel, or food.

The U.S. currently doesn’t have enough of the drones needed to conduct or sustain warfare.

Every offensive weapon ever has been countered to some degree or another by defensive measures: as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. Nevertheless very often when a new weapon was developed it was predicted to spell the end of effective defenses.

I haven’t made an effort to study the issue in depth, but some examples:

The development of firearms spelled the demise of personal body armor for centuries because nothing that was practicable to wear in active combat was capable of stopping even low velocity bullets. Now, however?

Dynamite was predicted to make warfare too awful to wage and therefore would end wars.

A catchy saying at one time was, “Whatever happens, we have got, The Maxim gun, and they have not.” That was in reference to the notion that machine guns would make it impossible for more “primitive” enemies to successfully fight against Western forces.

“The bomber will always get through,” was the fear expressed after World War I and was the claim that no effective defense against aerial bombing would be possible. Did they always get through? Yes, send over a thousand or so and some will definitely get through. Did all get through and back home? Definitely not. In WWII, and despite the estimate by the Germans that an average of 3000 rounds of antiaircraft artillery was necessary to bring down one attacking bomber, being a member of a bomber crew was one of the most dangerous forms of military service there was.

And claims for bombing were grossly exaggerated. I have a 1920s-era political cartoon that showed the assumed before and after of a flight of dirigible bombers (yes: blimps ) passed over a large city that left nothing but ruins behind. Many otherwise sensible people thought that was going to be absolutely true. In retrospect even a couple of decades later after the massive bombing efforts by the Allies in WWII that idea should have seemed risibly improbable. That didn’t, however, keep other advocates from claiming that air power would make ground combat impossible even as late as the start of the Korean War.

When President Reagan proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative (aka “star wars”), the pacifistic left ridiculed the idea that incoming missiles could be intercepted in flight: “A bullet hitting a bullet” was the presumed impossibility.

I have no idea what defensive measures will be effective against drones, but it seems highly improbable that something won’t be developed. Does that mean they will be rendered totally ineffective? Probably not. Military forces must still contend with primitives having machine guns of their own as well as dealing with bombers and missiles of various types. Oh yeah: dynamite as a military explosive has been replaced by much better compounds.

If I am unfortunate enough to live for another decade or so, I will be surprised if by then anyone still considers drones to be unstoppable killers any more than crossbows were centuries ago.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: sigfreund,

You spent a lot of time on that post, sigfreund.

The point was that “war has changed dramatically” with the introduction of UAVs into the battlefield in Ukraine and Russia. Has it? Yes.

Is the world of war forever altered by the invention of militarized drones? I don’t know, probably not, but that was never the claim.

AI controlled drone swarms are coming.
And they're hive mind AI.

Imagine thousands launched into an area to seek and eliminate troops.
Each one a flying antipersonnel mine.
Thermal vision. AI target acquisition.

That is the future were facing.

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:
You spent a lot of time on that post, sigfreund.

The point was that “war has changed dramatically” with the introduction of UAVs into the battlefield in Ukraine and Russia. Has it? Yes.

Is the world of war forever altered by the invention of militarized drones? I don’t know, probably not, but that was never the claim.

Good points by sigfreund. Always a game of measure countermeasure. And the pace of change has accelerated- my first combat deployment in 2004, we had no armor vehicles, and were using makeshift techniques to improve survivability that go back at least to WWII. Then came add on armor kits, then purpose built up armor hummvees then the MRAP.
Once we figured out what electronic devices were triggering IED’s a jamming system was developed. Then the enemy used a different device / frequency then Countered again and so on.

Has some of the weaponry and the accompanying tactics for using it changed, yes. Has it been decisive for one side or the other, no.

quote:

Originally posted by CQB60:
The U.S. currently doesn’t have enough of the drones needed to conduct or sustain warfare.

The US Military is purchasing a bunch of them.
https://www.reuters.com/busine...-ramp-up-2025-11-07/

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:
You spent a lot of time on that post, sigfreund.

I could apologize for having annoyed you, but that would be insincere. This is a discussion forum, and things get discussed.