Trent Telenko has an excellent thread discussing this subject, complete with plenty of images, links to other sources, and supporting material. Here's an excerpt.
To date, no one has done a real logistical, cost effectiveness & weapon effect/lethality numerical evaluation of FPV drones versus conventional weapons systems.
. . .
In order to get the weapon effect of the 25mm chain gun, 120mm cannon and GMLRS rocket you just saw in Iraq, a 35-ton, 70 ton or 17-ton vehicle respectively have to be moved by sea halfway across the planet to Iraq.
Now compare all those US Army weapons to the impact of this Mammoth FPV drone with a 4 kg warhead.
. . .
Heck, you can move dozens of FPV on an airline seat.
Meanwhile those M1/M2/HIMARS loaded merchant ships will have to deal with a gauntlet of Houthi/Iranian anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBM), anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCM) or Boat-Drones to get there.
Please also note, each 14 of such vehicles there will be one M1070 HET, and either a M88 Hercules tracked ARV or one HEMTT wrecker.
In addition to that, there will be a huge logistical tail of fuelers and ammo trucks running the same Houthi missile/boat-drone gauntlet.
Now compare all those US Army weapons to the impact of this Mammoth FPV drone with a 4 kg warhead.
It is competitive in weapon effect, and in terms of precision, cost and logistics to move it to target, it's far superior.
There's much more at the link.
The cost-effectiveness of modern drones versus "traditional" weapons is so dramatic, so stark, that it's almost mind-boggling. I wasn't surprised to learn, from Mr. Telenko's thread that:
"The artillery heavy, but more analytically inclined, ROK Army is seriously thinking about "Crossing the Drone Logistical Cost Effectiveness Rubicon" versus ballistic shells by converting its battalion mortars into drone units."
The savings in doing so, in terms of equipment cost, personnel, training, ongoing transport, replenishment and support requirements, etc. will be staggering.
One hopes the US military is watching this carefully. I suspect an awful lot of "traditional" weapons manufacturers will be fighting with might and main to prevent their gravy train from being derailed by more modern technology.
Peter
23 comments:
the tiny FPV drones that you can fit a dozen in a airline seat do not carry multi Kg warheads
each drone is FAR more expensive, likely to fail, and harder to ship than a similarly sized warhead that can be fired from a mortor or artillary piece.
Those who go 'all in' and replace conventional weapons with drones will seriously regret it as anti-drone weaponry (including lasers) start coming online.
the idea that each drone will result in a kill is wet dream marketing material, not reality. We don't see viral videos of the ones that missed, the ones that clipped their rotors on a tree branch, etc.
weaponry is a continual one-upsmanship between new attack capabilities and new defensive capabilities. Drones have a good window right now in Ukraine, in large part due to Russia being so poor with their anti-air capabilities. In a few years of R&D, that will change in Russia and is closer to changing elsewhere.
They will, just as Big Bomber Generals fought ICBM and cruise missiles, the Battleship Admirals before them fought the carriers, the Bolt action rifles commanders opposed semi-automatic and full automatic battle rifles, etc, etctra back to General Ogg insisting these new fangled flint tipped spears and arrows were just a passing fad.
Besides harassment and final fires, mortars are really useful for smoke and illumination. Which drones haven't been shown to employ. Yet.
Due to diminishing returns, technological innovation strengthens the little guy more than it strengthens big government. This started with the printing press, but a current day example is: if government grows from 3,000 nuclear bombs to 3,001, it doesn't increase their military capability. Whereas if the little guy grows from 0 to 1, that's enormous. Ever-cheaper rocketry is weakening the largest gun control organization, NASA, which monopolizes the largest weapons, ICBMs. copenhagensuborbitals.com is "flying an amateur astronaut into space on an home build, crowdfunded rocket".
Cryptology applied to money and commerce is going to make taxation cost more than it collects, which will end government funding and thus government.
Are yes, the "Wow that is amazing so everything else is obsolete" argument.
Ukraine is very flat and open. Small drones work well there because it is flat and open. All the footage of drone effectiveness I see is nice open farmland.
What about jungles? What about temperate rain forests? What about mountainous areas where the line of sight required by these small drones for control is blocked when they enter their terminal phase?
My take? Drones have a role and are here to stay, but there is something to be said for 9 lbs of 81mm mortar launched dumb metal crashing through the forest canopy, or arriving on the other side of the ridge.
Or put another way, I see a lot of ill-thought-out commentary and not much strategic analysis of drone tactics in various scenarios and terrains, at least in the general public space.
Yeah, drones have very useful capabilities and it makes sense to incorporate them into a modernized military organization table... but I really wouldn't have expected that *Battalion mortars* be the thing replaced by them. I guess that might say more about what _else_ a ROK unit expects to have available?
While the Drone may be nimbler and less expensive than the howitzer - so are the means of dealing with the drone.
Drones are slower than an artillery round and unarmored. Easier to defeat - no need for a 20 or 30mm Gatling gun that combats missiles and artillery rounds a mile away or more.
Scale down the FLAK.
The USA Army canceled an order for several hundred new Abrams tanks last year for a redesign to make the Abrams more drone resistant.
https://www.defensenews.com/land/2023/09/06/us-army-scraps-abrams-tank-upgrade-unveils-new-modernization-plan/
But ... I'm reminded of a discussion back when I used to work in the defence industry. "You know", I said, "you could launch that payload out to where it's needed on a smallish, cheap rocket; there is no real need for the manned platform they are using now".
The NCO I was talking to responded that by the time the Ministry of Defence specified a launcher for the thing, it would be just as big and expensive as what they were using anyway. Being older and more cynical myself by now, I'm pretty sure the same will apply to any drone system specified by a major government, at least one not engaged in an existential war.
a rocket or drone needs to have it's propulsion and targeting in the device that is delivered to the target.
A bullet/artillary/mortor shell leaves (most of) that at the launcher to be re-used for the next round.
the airframes are also much easier to damage with lasers (and the sensors can be blinded) than the more durable casings of bombs and artillary shells (Mortor shells are easier to damage than artillary, but not as easy as drones, but are more predictable)
We should be seeing the Iron Beam coming online in the next several months under fire in Israel, and will see what that does to drones/missiles/mortor shells.
So it's going to depend on how accurate you can make your gun and how many rounds you expect to be able to use it for.
In WWII guns were not accurate, too much variation in manufacturing, tolerances that were too loose. Even if the gun did not move, the errors would add up enough to make the landing of the shell/bomb be spread out over a large area
Modern devices are routinely made much more similar to each other than even the most carefully made things of the WWII era, and when you decide to be precise, you are MUCH more consistent (which lets you then make the tolerances between parts much smaller). Chemistry is more consistent and the chemicals used are much more pure. All this means that the flight of the round/bomb is much more predictable.
Years ago I read a book on the Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear program when they first got F16s and the US denied them smart bombs and tanker support. They were able to polish/streamline the aircraft to get much longer flight times from them, and pick bombs that were very consistent. This allowed them to lob the dumb bombs from a significant distance and have them hit targets that everyone expected could only be targeted with smart bombs.
As for tanks, anyone remember the game Ogre?
What in heck does NASA have to do with anybody's Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles? In the US of A that is the realm of the Air Force.
Since January the war porn from UKR has shown a fast evolution in drones. I remember an argument on another forum about whether a COTS drone could carry and RPG warhead and the consensus was "no". Now almost every video shows the characteristic brownish cone of an RPG warhead peeking out in front. Drones now employ IR or other night vision, and probably thermal sights, so nighttime or canopy is no longer your friend. I am seeing drones being used as part of a "system" that does the spotting and probably GPS (GLONASS?) tagging of the target before a strike by arty or a missile. It's evolving fast. I think the transition really is a matter of "more of this" and "less of that" in a mix, or system. A drone is like a 40mm grenade or LAW rocket that has a pilot, allows ~more~ precise targeting. There will be adaptation and countermeasures: jamming, and others, sure...but the evolution is moving fast. And speaking of that, there is an under-appreciation of exactly how fast these FPV drones come in on you. They chase down vehicles on the road.
I'm reminded of "the bomber will always get through".
Not to mention "tanks are obsolete now".
Militaries do need a response to drones. This may make some things heavier and more expensive. It may even make some things not cost-effective to make.
Battleships became obsolete for their ostensible purpose (killing other battleships) because their weapon range was too short. They also became too expensive to risk losing them, so they became unusable for their primary purpose. They did get other uses (bombarding hostile shores no defended by aircraft), but eventually they wore out and were not replaced.
It's possible that tanks as currently constructed may end up the same way; a tank that is sufficiently drone-resistant may be too heavy to drive over bridges.
Downsides of drones:
- an FPV drone currently needs a human to guide it (that's what First Person View means). That human has to be protected and able to communicate with the drone. Which can be disrupted.
- drones can carry more now than they could. But they are still fuel and power plant limited. A drone able to cross a hundred miles of ocean to hit an enemy ship will not be a two pound item you can buy at a hardware store. And this won't change anytime soon.
People forget that the most common use of drones is recon and spotting for artillery. Drones won the second Nagorno-Karabakh war for the Azeris, against the Armenians entrenched in the mountains.
ICBMs are the largest of weapons, capable of self-defense against governments. After the space race, NASA's purpose became gun control. No American is allowed to keep and bear a rocket or a satellite.
Remember that the F-4 was built without a gun because air-to-air missiles made guns obsolete.
dig up the report of the pilot who made the first gun air-air kill from a f4 in Vietnam who explained the difference in cost of a missile kill vs a gun kill
the truly amusing ones who said if you really wanted to shoot down a Mig you shoot a sidewinder at it. If you want a story about the one that got away you shoot a couple of sparrows at it.
NASA doesn't control private rocket launches, that's the FAA.
Yes, the paperwork comes from the FAA, but FAA doesn't employ a bunch of rocket experts, NASA does.
NASA employes a lot of rocket experts, but nothing they do limits other people launching. It's the FAA that does that.
Suppose in 1985 you were a private space entrepreneur and you decided you wanted to create a manned moon base. The government would have told you "no" in 250 different ways, mostly amounting to 'we already have one of those, called NASA, and they think it's a bad idea'. The formal denial of launch permission would have come from the FAA, yes, but that's just the paperwork face of it. The large space expert employee headcount, large political weight, and large political advocacy effort would have come from/through NASA, not FAA.
This is a good discussion of the current state of rocket artillery both the advantages and the disadvantages https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkAM2nMIJxw
This channel has hour long, in depth discussions that seem to be pretty much agenda free.
not 1985, but Blue Origin was founded in 2000 and SpaceX a couple years later.
The DC-X flew in 1993, so was in development in this timeframe It failed due to funding issues, not permitting problems.
David Lang
In the 1980s there were quite a few aerospace companies, but they were having problems (that was around the time of the Boeing/McDonald Douglass merger among other problems)
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