Ok, to state what probably should be obvious but which in practice typically isn’t: If the US does have a giant pile of drones, or contracts for a giant pile of drones, this fact would certainly be classified. And there is a strong incentive, when facing low-end threats that can be dealt with using only publicly-known systems, to deal with them using only publicly-known systems. The historical record includes lots of military systems that were not known to the public until long after their deployment.
Does that mean NATO militaries are on top of things? No. But it does mean that, as civilian outsiders, we should mostly model ourselves as ignorant.
Fairly confident this is not the case with small first-person view drones.
It is not easy to produce in secret. There is no good reason for it. No other NATO country has built them at any scale. China owns most of the supply chain currently. And perhaps most importantly: a stockpile of fpv drones mean nothing if you dont have experienced drone operators to fly them. These would have to be trained en masse, further complicating any secrecy.
Additionally, Western (small) drones are massively overpriced and inferior to Ukrainian and Russian made drones. This is incongruent.
Apparently, even Anduril’s drones are considered inferior and are not deployed much in Ukraine.
Ok, to state what probably should be obvious but which in practice typically isn’t: If the US does have a giant pile of drones, or contracts for a giant pile of drones, this fact would certainly be classified. And there is a strong incentive, when facing low-end threats that can be dealt with using only publicly-known systems, to deal with them using only publicly-known systems. The historical record includes lots of military systems that were not known to the public until long after their deployment.
Does that mean NATO militaries are on top of things? No. But it does mean that, as civilian outsiders, we should mostly model ourselves as ignorant.
Fairly confident this is not the case with small first-person view drones.
It is not easy to produce in secret. There is no good reason for it. No other NATO country has built them at any scale. China owns most of the supply chain currently. And perhaps most importantly: a stockpile of fpv drones mean nothing if you dont have experienced drone operators to fly them. These would have to be trained en masse, further complicating any secrecy.
Additionally, Western (small) drones are massively overpriced and inferior to Ukrainian and Russian made drones. This is incongruent.
Apparently, even Anduril’s drones are considered inferior and are not deployed much in Ukraine.