What pickup trucks are you using? How much do the pickups cost? What armour do they have if any?
There’s one drone operator per pickup. These are FPV drones so they’re limited to at most a handful of drones at a time. You can’t swarm the Abrams, and unlike what the videos would have you believe the chance of an individual drone taking out an Abrams is tiny. The tank has plenty of time and opportunity to blow up the pickup.
The drones aren’t as cheap as you believe—the FPV drones with fibre optic used in Ukraine are many thousands of dollars each. Each pickup, operators, and drone is worth many hundreds of thousands and is likely a sitting duck to artillery, tank fire, and yes counter drones, especially when it moves.
The play would be to sneak the truck in under cover of darkness, set up shop somewhere camouflaged, and then use the drones to help defend the current area, and atrite enemy forces. Basically the same thing as is happening now in Ukraine. It helps in a slow grinding war, but doesn’t help you in a manoeuvre war.
Nato doctrine is all about manoeuvrability and air power. Once air superiority is achieved your pickups are sitting ducks. Only individual people can act effectively against air superiority.
The aim of the tank in that situation is rapid movement and firepower, whilst being protected from most attacks. The pickup can easily be blown up by an enemy ATGM, RPG, or drone operator so just isn’t as useful in manoeuvre warfare. The driver can easily be killed by an assault rifle.
Giving individual troops drones is obviously a power multiplier but with current drone technology I don’t think a drone carrier makes much sense—too exposed in a manoeuvre war, and no different to what’s currently going on in a war of attrition.
(Of course all this changes once we can coordinate fully autonomous drones at scale and low price)
What pickup trucks are you using? How much do the pickups cost? What armour do they have if any?
There’s one drone operator per pickup. These are FPV drones so they’re limited to at most a handful of drones at a time. You can’t swarm the Abrams, and unlike what the videos would have you believe the chance of an individual drone taking out an Abrams is tiny. The tank has plenty of time and opportunity to blow up the pickup.
The drones aren’t as cheap as you believe—the FPV drones with fibre optic used in Ukraine are many thousands of dollars each. Each pickup, operators, and drone is worth many hundreds of thousands and is likely a sitting duck to artillery, tank fire, and yes counter drones, especially when it moves.
The play would be to sneak the truck in under cover of darkness, set up shop somewhere camouflaged, and then use the drones to help defend the current area, and atrite enemy forces. Basically the same thing as is happening now in Ukraine. It helps in a slow grinding war, but doesn’t help you in a manoeuvre war.
Nato doctrine is all about manoeuvrability and air power. Once air superiority is achieved your pickups are sitting ducks. Only individual people can act effectively against air superiority.
The aim of the tank in that situation is rapid movement and firepower, whilst being protected from most attacks. The pickup can easily be blown up by an enemy ATGM, RPG, or drone operator so just isn’t as useful in manoeuvre warfare. The driver can easily be killed by an assault rifle.
Giving individual troops drones is obviously a power multiplier but with current drone technology I don’t think a drone carrier makes much sense—too exposed in a manoeuvre war, and no different to what’s currently going on in a war of attrition.
(Of course all this changes once we can coordinate fully autonomous drones at scale and low price)