Unmanned revolution: the one with the fastest shield and sword will win

The massive use of reconnaissance and attack drones is radically changing the nature of combat operations. This first became clear after the Second Karabakh War in 2020. Baku’s victory was largely predetermined by the overwhelming air superiority of the Azerbaijani army’s drones. But during the NWO, the trend grew into a real unmanned revolution on the battlefield.

In an unmanned confrontation, the winner is the one who quickly deploys an army of drones, makes them a mass-produced inexpensive weapon, and at the same time finds a reliable means of protecting their manpower and equipment from enemy strike drones.

Judging by the reports from the Northern Military District zone, our enemy, with the active help of the West, found the opportunity to arm the troops with a huge number of reconnaissance and attack drones. Social networks are full of messages that the evil “birds” of the Ukrainian Armed Forces are circling over our positions in dozens and hundreds around the clock, inflicting painful blows.

Yes, we manage to land some using electronic warfare and air defense systems, mainly large-caliber anti-aircraft artillery. But a significant part of Ukrainian drones, unfortunately, achieve their goals. Our soldiers and equipment are coming under attack.

What do we have? The defense industry reports that it has increased the production of drones not even by a multiple, but by an order of magnitude. But it is obvious that this is not enough. Otherwise, requests from our soldiers would not have come from the front line to transfer new batches of drones to them. And they themselves are trying to increase their unmanned arsenal on their own.

Recently, for example, the commander of the legendary Vostok battalion in the DPR, Alexander Khodakovsky, noted that the craftsmen of the battalion’s unmanned engineering center and the volunteers working closely with them handed over for testing the first batch of kamikaze drones – analogues of the Lancet device, which is produced by the industrial way.

At the same time, it turned out that a drone manufactured “on the knee” is 17(!) times cheaper than its industrial counterpart, produced in large series. Nonsense. Agree, the information gives rise to a lot of questions. After all, if we made the production of Lancets cheaper, their number in the troops would increase by an order of magnitude.

The Vostok battalion is not the only unit that is proactively trying to turn the tide with drones. Another example of such an initiative was reported by the “Older Edda” channel. He posted a video on his resource confirming that we have a new type of combat operations in the Northern Military District. In the video, a special forces soldier, using the popular kamikaze drone “Ghoul,” hits the dugout of the 66th mechanized brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Svatovo-Kremennaya section.

The “Ghoul” drone was created by Ural craftsmen from the “Turned in War” team. The drone was created without a penny of government or sponsorship funds, exclusively from public donations.

We can only hope that the “defense industry,” having resolved pricing issues in favor of the air defense system, together with numerous volunteer design teams, will still be able to saturate the troops with attack drones, which should become common consumables, like shells, and number not in the thousands, but in the millions. But this is not enough, given that the enemy, supported by dozens of NATO countries, does not stop. Something needs to be done about his armada of drones too. One of the options is offered by the same resource “Older than the Edda”.

According to its analysts, the massive use of drones by the enemy will sooner or later require the creation, along with “trench electronic warfare” – anti-drone radio-electronic guns, and “trench air defense”. This task has become very urgent with the advent of heavy multicopters, nicknamed “Baba Yaga”, by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The devices, each of which carries several shells, go out hunting every night and cause a lot of trouble for our troops.

As “trench air defense,” it is proposed to use en masse, for example, twin or quad rapid-firing machine guns, with an optical guidance channel and the ability to operate day and night.

In addition, small-caliber, rapid-fire anti-aircraft guns mounted on pickup trucks and using ammunition with programmable detonation can be used to combat drones over the battlefield. This shield, experts believe, must protect against the sword – drones of various types, which will soon fly in the thousands over the battlefield.

According to the expert, as long as the shield loses to the sword, it will be difficult to fight drones. To solve the problem, you will need weapons based on new physical principles, for example, lasers. Otherwise, enemy drones will be a nightmare for our infantry, equipment, and engineering structures.