Very good read! The cost factor and time to manufacture timeline which the Ukrainians have shown is phenomenal. Scary to think what will happen when PRC uses their manufacturing scale.
I'm not in the 'tank is dead' camp (more on this in M.6). But I do think we need to change how we equip, what we buy, and how we fight. I'll go into more detail on these in M.7 and M.8.
'Tanks aren’t much different. We didn’t ditch horses as cavalry because horses could get killed by machine guns. We actually still have horses in the army today. But tanks took over their heavy cavalry jobs because they were better heavy shock troops. Drones do a lot of things, but they aren’t doing heavy cavalry’s job yet.'
I get where you're coming from....but armor paired up with it's own drone/counter-drone/anti-drone is a thing. The paradigm of the lonely tank fighting a super cheap/ super capable EW resistant drone just isn't reality; it's always been a straw man. We see this with Ops in Ukraine where the armor optimally is running as part of a air-ground team with it's friendly drone systems. Also, while the democratization of precision air power is a thing, capabilities still exist on a cost spectrum. As a result, I think your comparison of drones / cost to other legacy anti-armor systems was a little overly simple. Also, we are finding that UAS/UGV are an 'add' to the combined arms stack, not a replacement. I don't doubt the possibility that drones become a central part of the stack, but they aren't the stack, even if there are a bunch of them.
I don't disagree, and will detail how it's 'yes, and' not 'either / or' in M.6. Unfortunately, I have to first explain to the drone skeptics, which somehow are still out there (and in leadership in the US army) that cheap drones are absolutely a thing.
'FPVs aren't doing artillery jobs or infantry jobs for that matter. So, they aren’t going to replace them. Disable them? Sure. Kill them? Oh, yeah. But pigeon-holing drones as just replacement tools is missing their value. Cheap drones work with artillery, infantry, and yes, even armor.'
Great piece, but two things. It is a combined arms fight for a reason.
I believe Nimitz had a quote about the obsolescence of a weapon isn't in its vulnerabilities but when it can be replaced. Ultimately the carrier was a superior capital ship to the battleship. Sense and shoot further out. Another way is despite all the vulnerabilities of infantry over the years. We haven't replaced them. We have augmented them but still we mass infantry. Why? We can't replace it yet
Make a strong case that we are facing a future of AT weapons.
You guys are all spot on, just getting ahead of me. I'll talk about exactly this in M.6.
As above in my reply to Cfrog: 'Unfortunately, I have to first explain to the drone skeptics, which somehow are still out there (and in leadership in the US army) that cheap drones are absolutely a thing.'
'Bullets kill infantry all the time. Have been for over five hundred years. The cost-per-bullet is vanishingly small in comparison to the soldier killed, and yet we still have tons of infantry running around. Hundreds of millions of dead infantry across every war since the 16th century, and plenty more lying on the front in Eastern Ukraine today. Why? Because no one has found a better way to hold and clear ground, nor a more efficient bullet sink, than infantry.'
Great article again, Erik. I can imagine an entire catalog of dating profiles for modern weapon systems and units now.
Very good read! The cost factor and time to manufacture timeline which the Ukrainians have shown is phenomenal. Scary to think what will happen when PRC uses their manufacturing scale.
Sean Harper's preliminary work is pretty daunting.
https://www.warquants.com/p/one-million-suicide-drones-with-chinese?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web
This has the potential to derail our Joint Operating Concepts. How should this change our Large-Scale Combat Operations doctrine?
I'm not in the 'tank is dead' camp (more on this in M.6). But I do think we need to change how we equip, what we buy, and how we fight. I'll go into more detail on these in M.7 and M.8.
M.6 dropped today: https://downrangedata.substack.com/p/m6-burning-man
'Tanks aren’t much different. We didn’t ditch horses as cavalry because horses could get killed by machine guns. We actually still have horses in the army today. But tanks took over their heavy cavalry jobs because they were better heavy shock troops. Drones do a lot of things, but they aren’t doing heavy cavalry’s job yet.'
M.7 & M.8 will drop over the next 8 days.
I get where you're coming from....but armor paired up with it's own drone/counter-drone/anti-drone is a thing. The paradigm of the lonely tank fighting a super cheap/ super capable EW resistant drone just isn't reality; it's always been a straw man. We see this with Ops in Ukraine where the armor optimally is running as part of a air-ground team with it's friendly drone systems. Also, while the democratization of precision air power is a thing, capabilities still exist on a cost spectrum. As a result, I think your comparison of drones / cost to other legacy anti-armor systems was a little overly simple. Also, we are finding that UAS/UGV are an 'add' to the combined arms stack, not a replacement. I don't doubt the possibility that drones become a central part of the stack, but they aren't the stack, even if there are a bunch of them.
I don't disagree, and will detail how it's 'yes, and' not 'either / or' in M.6. Unfortunately, I have to first explain to the drone skeptics, which somehow are still out there (and in leadership in the US army) that cheap drones are absolutely a thing.
M.6 dropped today: https://downrangedata.substack.com/p/m6-burning-man
'FPVs aren't doing artillery jobs or infantry jobs for that matter. So, they aren’t going to replace them. Disable them? Sure. Kill them? Oh, yeah. But pigeon-holing drones as just replacement tools is missing their value. Cheap drones work with artillery, infantry, and yes, even armor.'
Great piece, but two things. It is a combined arms fight for a reason.
I believe Nimitz had a quote about the obsolescence of a weapon isn't in its vulnerabilities but when it can be replaced. Ultimately the carrier was a superior capital ship to the battleship. Sense and shoot further out. Another way is despite all the vulnerabilities of infantry over the years. We haven't replaced them. We have augmented them but still we mass infantry. Why? We can't replace it yet
Make a strong case that we are facing a future of AT weapons.
You guys are all spot on, just getting ahead of me. I'll talk about exactly this in M.6.
As above in my reply to Cfrog: 'Unfortunately, I have to first explain to the drone skeptics, which somehow are still out there (and in leadership in the US army) that cheap drones are absolutely a thing.'
M.6 dropped today. https://downrangedata.substack.com/p/m6-burning-man
'Bullets kill infantry all the time. Have been for over five hundred years. The cost-per-bullet is vanishingly small in comparison to the soldier killed, and yet we still have tons of infantry running around. Hundreds of millions of dead infantry across every war since the 16th century, and plenty more lying on the front in Eastern Ukraine today. Why? Because no one has found a better way to hold and clear ground, nor a more efficient bullet sink, than infantry.'