Doc7505
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- Feb 16, 2016
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Lessons from the drone attack on Russia’s airbases -
Analysis
The Ukrainian attack on the Russian airfields has been seen as a game-changer in warfare.
Lessons from the drone attack on Russia’s airbases - analysis
The Ukrainian attack on the Russian airfields has been seen as a game-changer in warfare.
www.jpost.com
Ukraine carried out a complex drone attack on Russian airbases far from the front line. The attack has received a lot of attention around the world. It is seen as a game changer in the way drones can be used to attack key strategic military assets.
For instance, the drones apparently flew out of trucks that had been stationed near several Russian airbases. Dubbed Spider’s Web, the operation targeted the Belaya and Olenya airbases and may have targeted others. It is believed that several Russian Tu-22M and Tu-95 bombers were destroyed.
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Drones are playing a much larger role in war
Over the last decade, the use of drones by militaries has increased exponentially. From the 1980s to the early 2000s, only a handful of countries used them. They were usually very large, similar to small airplanes. Israel was a pioneer in using drones to conduct surveillance.
Later, the US Predator became a symbol of the way drones could be used on the battlefield. The technology behind these types of drones was complex, requiring advanced electro-optics and communications systems, enabling them to fly many hours far from bases.
Eventually, the type and number of drones being used worldwide shifted because of the growth in the commercial market of small quadcopter commercial drones. Many of these were made in China. Innovations enable the use of these drones for surveillance and also increasingly to carry small weapons.
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Small drones matter more
As the use of drones on the battlefield has grown exponentially, there have been rapid innovations in the use of small drones. These are usually called unmanned aerial systems (UAS) to describe the large numbers and types of drones that are now being used.
Ukraine has been a pioneer in the use of small drones, which are more helpful on the battlefield because they are cheap and attritable, meaning that they can be lost in large numbers at the front and easily be replaced. This means that Ukraine didn’t have to rely on Western countries to resupply its drone fleet. Kyiv began the war with several types of drones, including the Turkish-made Bayraktar. However, these larger ones proved vulnerable on the battlefield because can be shot down with air defenses.
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A message for the West
Some commentators believe that the Ukrainian success lifts the curtain on what comes next in terms of threats to the West. Kyiv has shown what is possible, and now, countries like China or even terrorist groups might try to replicate this in attacks on the US military or on other countries. The fact is that this threat was already known, and Western countries have been investing heavily in new counter-UAS technologies.
However, the challenge is that there are too many places to defend. Because the counter-drone tech, whether it be jammers, lasers, or even rifles and missiles, has a limited range, means every place that needs to be defended requires multiple layers of anti-drone defenses. Even if they have some defenses, there are types of drones that may avoid them. This is not an easy threat to overcome, and it is growing exponentially.
Commentary:
it’s important for the defenses to be as cheap or cheaper than the incoming drone/missile. In other words, for some types of enemy drones, it may be best to go back to a flak, or wide electronic style defense.
Not so much a "game changer" as the next step in the evolution of drone warfare. It has been inevitable for years that drones would become a dominant factor on the battlefield. However, if the new laser weaponry by the DoD is as effective as claimed, then the defense to drone swarms has also arrived. So it goes in military technology, shifting alternately from offensive to defensive innovation.
This cycle never ends, there are always innovations of attack or defense in war and factually the cycle is likely to accelerate with the use of A.I., because the U.S. continues to be at the forefront of technology, while our enemies will lag.
While we're at it, isn't it a good thing that Joey B's fraudulent administration kept a nice tight lid on the border, and certainly didn’t let in tens of thousands of military-aged men from all over the world, so there’s no way that anything like this could happen on US soil as exampled by the Sunday attack in Boulder Colorado...
