Drone warfare Effort post. Overview, some history and the future.

[LoooSeR]

 

Photo of you in a heavy combat vs China in the Pacific via Starlink.

 

Intro

 

   Hello, fellow SHitters. This is big multistage, many days effortpost on a subject of how drones change things on the battlefield, including specifically in Ukraine and how it may work further in the future. I will gradually write and add more into it with time as subject is very wide, from logistics and electronic recon to AI and assault operation organization in FPV-filled environment.

   For last 2+ years we saw some things regarding FPV drones and “grenade droppers” but there is no good overview of the whole thing that I saw, how it actually changed and still changes battlefield, how things are done on the frontline and away from it. And there is much to tell, as this field is quickly developing and expands now, in some way it as a significant intrusion of new as invention of MGs and barb wire before WW1. Alone those things didn’t created mess of WW1, but put into existing arsenal and forces it changed quite a lot and created a whole new field of problems.

 

   Before main parts regarding Ukraine and the future quick overview of how drones started to creep in, and where they were used previously. First stop – Syria, SAA, different jihadists, ISIS, Iraq.

 

 

Syria, Iraq.

 

 

   Drones in Syria were used on my memory as far back as 2014, first footage I saw was one of first models of DJI Phantom quadcopter used to observe fire mission of the UR-77 used as “assault gun” in an urban environment. With time drones started to creep in SAA as a tool for recon and troop command (2016 and further), some of SAA commanders used video feed from a drone displayed on a TV to understand situation in real time with drone flying over troops, creating something like real life RTS camera.

 

Screengrab from Anna news report from command point of the SAA operation

 

Spoiler

 

 

Heh, colors don't match!

 

DJI Phantom used for recon, Iraq.

 

Different drones used in Iraq by ISIS. Recon birds, grenade droppers, one looks like FPV attack drone with RPG-7 warhead.

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

   Other side also started to use drones, most of which we saw done by ISIS. Same DJI drones were used for recon, VBIED guidance, later grenade droppers were introduced (mainly seen Mosul), and first use of a FPV drone.

 

Large number of VBIED attacks were carried with driver having drone operator helping him to navigate quickly and right into target through complex enviroment.

 

Spoiler

 

Grenade dropped next to group of soldiers 

 

Their FPV drone was DIY plane-type flying device and I still remember video from its camera showing it flying into the side of the Iraqi Abrams tank, but I can’t find this video now.

 

 

Spoiler

 

In Syria other radical aircraft modelers groups introduced drone bombers with attacks on Hmeymim AB of the Russian VKS units in Syria. This is in some way is "Russo-Japanese war of 1905" regarding drones and remotely operated systems.

 

Drone bomber launched at Russian base in Hmeimym. Number of them in first attempts reached and delivered their payload, damaging several planes. EW, GPS spoofing worked well against them after first examples were examined.

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Suicide drone, AFAIK made from a tube filled with explosives.

 

Spoiler

 

   Bigger consumer drones for dropping RPGs or IEDs were and are used in Syria and Iraq, later found significant use in Ukraine by both sides (Ukrainian ones were nicknamed Baba Yaga by Russian side).

 

 

Spoiler

In Syria, drone with a device under it to drop IEDs/grenades.

 

   Several military-ordered loitering munitions were used in Syria as well, Switchblade 300 and first combat use of Lancet LM.

 

Quite a number of Switchblade 300s were used bu US forces in Syria. I saw claims of several hundred.

 

Lancet, Syria.

 

   Later in active phase of conflict Turkey got involved with their military-grade drones like TB2, but they were widely used first in Libya.

 

 

 

Libya

 

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

Chinese-supplied Wing Long after FF.

 

 

 

   Libya saw use of big drones like Turkish TB2s in quite a number, and we even saw SHORAD vs big drones action with somewhat mixed results for both. Main reason why some Pantsirs had number of TB2 shot down was range of TB2 weapons (8km).  Main reason why number of Pantsirs were destroyed by TB2s was lack of AA coverage and lack of all other levels of AA force. In any case it showed that MALE class drones vs SHORAD is not a one-sided fight.

 

 

   In Libya DJI Phantoms again were sporadically used by different sides to for recon, notably Wagner started to use them with several mortar teams for real time fire observation and correction. Not much good videos on a subject. RSOTM channel talked about experience of this use of drones – one of quite a funny one was about mortar teams that were able in few places to even take out cars driving at ~100 km/h on a highway by timing their shots and a vehicle crossing specific place.

 

   On top of MALE drones use, Libya saw loitering munition being utilized, at least IAI Harop LM was seen in Libya. Hard to tell how well it worked as information on that is quite hard to get, if anybody has more – please link me to it or share info.

 

IAI Harop after a successful landing.

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

Karabakh

 

Baku, 2018 parade.

 

Spoiler

TB2 at the parade.

 

   Most of drones used in Karabakh/Artsakh war were factory made military recon and strike drones, both sides didn’t put any noticeable effort in cheap low level commercial remotely operated devices, unlike people in Syria and Iraq. Karabakh war shown very well how military drones can be used and their role in warfare.

 

Recon bird no longer flying.

 

Spoiler

 

Harop didn't made a successful landing.

 

   Recon, target spotting and observation, guidance of munitions for piloted planes, suicide drone use, disruption of AA, attacks on artillery and MLRS deep in the rear of forces after creating or exploiting holes in AA coverage, spotting and prevention of assault/counter-attack operations and many more. At some point Artsakh troops positions were vultered by "multistory" group of different level drones. 

 

Strike on a target being observed by TB2, with other lower-level recon drone visible in the picture.

 

Spoiler

A moment before Artsakh forces Soviet-made OSA SHORAD getting hit. Projectile's shadow is visible. 

 

Artillery unit position under fire.

 

Drone observing infantry preparing mortars and positions for crews.

 

Aliev petting Israeli Harop kamikaze drone.

 

Spoiler

 

 

MLLMS? Azerbaijan army MAZ truck with 9 containers to launch Harop LMs.

 

Spoiler

 

 

During parade in Baku

 

[LoooSeR]

Types of drones.

 

   After history lesson let's overview all the types of drones there are, before getting into anything else. Previous conflicts and current ones produced rather wide variety of remotely operated vehicles of many sizes and intendent jobs to do. A lot of flying ones, plenty of surface dwellers, from humming bird sized to ones as big as an AFV.   

 

Different sized drones next to each other. Bigger one that looks like plane/cruise missile is equipped with jet engine. To the left from it - an FPV drone.

 

 

    Drones for bloggers and for artillery spotters.

   First ones are drones made for making cool looking videos on social networks, tiktoks and so on. Those are quite well-developed products with hefty software package that helps to use it. Plenty of electronic assistance, features for some level of automated flight (back to a starting point for example), stabilization of a drone and bunch of other things that makes it easier to fly. Most well-known example in recent years is DJI Mavic.

 

 

   Drone is radio controlled; you need radio transmitter device (usually part of the joystick) to have a control of a drone. Operates on “civilian” frequences, which are public. Range at which it can be used is several km from operator.

   Drone itself isn’t very speedy, have limitations on wind conditions and weather. Thanks to electronic assistance, it is relatively easy to fly it and this type of drones usually don’t require much from operator (skill, amount of attention and time to learn) to use it.

   Most significant part of those drones are cameras. DJI ones have pretty good optics on them to make those tiktoks look nice. Infantry can be spotted from several km, vehicles – up to 12-15 km depending on terrain/weather/ drone altitude. Those drones are used for scouting and recon, terrain conditions recon, searching for mines and obstacles, mapping features or frequently used routes. Also quite often used to guide teams to their targets through terrain while being out of LOS of target, on site real time recon, fire correction for artillery or other drone attacks. Less frequently used for searching for MIA or civilians, shelters, wounded soldiers/civilians, to check if buildings, roads, bridges are prepared for demolition by enemy. 

 

Drone guided DPR assault team to last UAF soldier in this trench

 

   Civ Drones and bird poo

   After recon drones use became more than just few weirdos playing around with their DJI Phantom toys and started to look at it as a military tool the idea of grenade dropping variant appeared and got implemented quickly. First time it was used that I know about was by ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Take a drone for bloggers and “jihaded” to it some sort of DIY device to drop a grenade or small IED. Nothing really hard to pull of, question is accuracy. The lower you get – the more accurate and precise can payload be dropped, but with increased risk to lose a drone to fire from the ground, wires, tree branches hitting blades of the rotors and so on. As there are number of such drones with different capacity to carry weights you can start with grenades and climb a ladder to bigger drones that can move quite a significant payload.

 

 

   Those birds dropping their explosive poo on everybody below are quite capable against infantry outside of buildings, in uncovered trenches, exposed crews of AFVs (including inside while hatches are open). Lightly armored vehicles / with week roof armor and unarmored vehicles became easy targets for those drones, you just need a HEDP or RPG warhead to deliver.

   Can be used to hunt down AFVs on firing positions, dismounted infantry outside of buildings, infantry in light structures, quite a lot of use cases were finishing off abandoned or mobility killed vehicles.

 

Spoiler

ISIS moded DJI Phantom with contraption to carry and drop DIY "bombs" made out of 40 mm caliber grenades for UBGLs. 

 

 

Bird poo incoming

 

 

Hamas drone dropping DIY bomb made out of grenade with DIY detonator.

 

RPG shot as drone-delivered bomb vs tanks.

 

In Ukraine Mavics were first to be used as NLOS grenade delivery device

 

Ru MoD official munition and mount for drones for dropping bombs.

 

Ukrainian soldiers and selection of different sized drones to deliver munitions, including mortar mines for 82 mm mortars.

 

Russian "Pigeon" drone that can carry 10 kg payload - 82 mm mortar rounds or 12 VOG-17 in a revolver system

 

 

   Civ racing FPV drones
   FPV drones before war were racing drones for those who want to fly at a speed but with a camera feed from a drone. Unlike drones above those one have very little to no electronic assistance or anything else outside of essential parts needed to make this piece of plastic and wires fly – engines, battery, camera, controller and radio transmitter/receiver. Very cheap (can be 500$) as they were usually made from a few basic cheap parts. Drones of this type were frequently modified heavily by operator and becoming a collection of parts from different companies.  

 

   Combat use of FPV drones was nothing really special design wise – take racing drone that was configured to be able to carry some weight and duct tape RPG-7 warhead with DIY fuze. Fly into someone (or something)..... profit.
   With time FPV drone operators started to use add-on batteries to extend range, repeaters to increase coverage of radio link and range, more powerful or “overclocked” engines to carry stuff. Other types of payload started to appear, including specifically designed munitions for drones. FPVs now can be armored with grenade dropping mounts, mortar mines, Claymore-like mines, IEDs, HE-Frag with ball bearings, incendiary, AT mines (either as munition to be dropped or as AT mine with propellers), etc. There are also attempts to mount RPGs to FPV drones. 

 

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

They fly now ... towards you.

 

AT mine, but with small engines and propellers

 

 

 

 

   Civilian drones becoming military
   Drones described above were and are getting their “military” versions, specifically drones made by an order of specific military to meet requirements instead of going to hobby shop and picking what is on the counter. We are not counting MALE or LM drones, those were military from the start, but recon drones and kamikaze FPV drones. This process is significantly increased with jump in use of drones in Ukraine war.

   One example can be RQ-28A, which is probably based on civilian UAV that were produced by Skydio. Some of civilian/military small drones were mentioned in this video (from 7:00):

 

 

   There are bunch of other companies that work on quadcopters and other ROVs for military use.

   One of new bigger player in US and in the field is Anduril, they are getting in this expanding market with a selection of systems, some of which are not far from civilian.

Quote

The US Army has announced the acquisition of Anduril's Ghost X and Performance Drone Works' C-100 drones as company-level UAVs.

The Ghost X is a helicopter-style drone that can carry 9 kg of payload, with a range of 25 km and 75 minutes of endurance, respectively.

The C100 is a quadcopter equipped with a factory-fitted ammunition release and mount. It has the same endurance as the Ghost X, but only a 10 km range. The C100 could soon replace the Skydio X2D.

 

Spoiler

 

 

Russian companies also put out their military-specific versions of civilian UAVs. As example:

Quote

Rostec reported successful testing of the unmanned system "Quasi-mast" in the SMO zone.
This product is designed for reconnaissance in the visible and infrared ranges, as well as radio communication relay.

"The Quasi-Mast rises into the air on four engines. The apparatus is powered from the ground via a power cable, which was doubled at the request of the operators. The system is resistant to electronic warfare and can remain in the air continuously for more than a day."

 

This one reminds my Geoscan's drone for topography/geodesy.

Spoiler

 

Kalashnikov's concern ZALA 421-24:

   This trend will continue for a little more until most if not all civilian tech for small drones is going to be absorbed by the military. There are many war-specific capabilities that civilian drones don’t have, but overlap is still significant. One of things I didn’t expect few years ago is use of civilian drones for logistics.

 

   Agricultural drones for mil jobs, logistics.
   One of specific problem for both sides in last months is “last km logistics”. Delivering water, food, ammo during previous phased of this conflict by both sides was done with armored cars and BMPs/IFVs. With saturation of both sides with FPV drones and recon drones, equipment and coms to run all that with some level of efficiency creates environment when driving armored car or IFV to deliver bottles of water and snacks is no longer working strategy in long run, as they get eroded. And here is where agriculture drones with significant cargo capacity introduced themselves. 

 

Spoiler

 

 

   Big copters, boats, and at times wheeled/tracked drones with moded FPV drone control systems are now used for delivery of water, food and ammo to contact line troops. Not only Ru/Ukraine is using those drones for logistics, Chinese also conducting exercise with them.

BES-HV active exoskeleton (5-8 hours battery charge) used to carry fuel to big logi drone and send cargo to other unit.

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

Russian soldiers use remotely operated boat to deliver supplies to soldiers on the islands, Dniepr river. 

 

     Those ROVs can carry 50-100kg or sometimes more of supplies and are quite cheaper than running crewed armored vehicle. Taking into account that roads that are often used can be remotely mined use of flying and cheaper vehicle becomes quite interesting.

 

   Other line of use of bigger copters is delivery of munitions. UAF equipped number of them with a Starlink antenna and use them to harass forces behind frontlines. Efficiency is varied as those drones are much slower (around 40 km/h speed for loaded drone, or een slower) and bigger, noiser, easier to hit. One of them even had plates from body armor to protect it. Often used at night in order to avoid being shot down by soldiers, but increasing number of thermal sights on small arms makes this type of drone less successful getting through.

 

 

 

Spoiler

Some of concepts have quite a heavy weapons on them. So heavy that drone needs additional jet engines to fly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chinese "arsenal" drone with mortar mines and deployable FPV drone. First time such drone was used was in Ukraine by UAF.

 

Folded up "Baba Yaga"

 

   Baba Yagas are getting more rare as more night vision sights are gettign to frontline troops, as FPV operators are getting more experienced countering them. I suspect in the future strike version of agro drones in current form is not going to be as significant as it was or even die all together. As carrier of stand off weapons it is quite possibly will continue to be present on the battlefields.

 

   Very small military recon drones
   Going from big to micro - before this war there were already number of very small “military-grade” recon drones in form of Black hornet micro helicopter thingy, or UGVs, or even just throwable cameras. In current conflict in Ukraine are not used much, but those system are useful and see some action in counter-terrorism operations and by engineers/sappers. Use of micro drones is one of many reasons why IDF suffered rather low casualties in very complex enviroment in Gaza.

 

Russian sapper in Palmyra.

 

Spoiler

Skarabey small UGV, Palmyra.

 

Sfera throwable remote camera

 

Black Hornet

 

IDF micro FPV drone on a footage published by Hamas. Drone was used to check for terrorists before IDF squad moved in.

 

French counter-terrorism unit drone operator with a micro drone.

 

   Those systems are usually short ranged, have low flight time, don't have much range of remote control. But low weight and ability to be used in compressed volumes make them capable in trained hands as recon tool.

 

--------------will be continued-----------------

[LoooSeR]

Reserved: 2

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Reserved 3: Fury Fist

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Reserved as well.

[LoooSeR]

Added a post on type of drones out there used by different forces, but not all that i wanted to cover. Next time - military FPVs, recon UAVs (medium altitude, medium endurance), loitering munitions, long range kamikaze drones/cruise missiles at home, and UGVs.