For all of history, until just now, the physically smallest military unit has been the individual soldier. Smaller units have not been possible because they can’t carry a human-level intelligence. This article is about what happens when intelligence is available in a smaller package. It seems to have massive consequences for ground warfare.
I think air superiority would still be important, because aircraft can deliver ground assets. A cargo aircraft at high altitude can drop many tons of drones. The drones can glide or autorotate down to ground level, where they engage as OP describes. A local concentration of force that can be delivered anywhere seems like a decisive advantage.
Shooting aircraft at high altitudes requires either large missiles or fighter aircraft. In either case, large radar antennas are needed for guidance. So I don’t think that AI lets air warfare be miniaturized, like it does ground warfare.
Yes I agree about high altitudes. Some people have now started to make the distinction between low altitude air superiority and high/fast altitude. High altitude superiority is still very important, but not having it is not perhaps the crippling problem it used to be. The more evenly matched the forces, the more it probably matters
High altitude is also super vulnerable to SAMs, because missiles now generally outperform aircraft and the higher the altitude, the more SAMs will be able to see and possibly fire on the target.
In the current battles over Ukraine, it appears to be the case that high flying, non stealth former Soviet aircraft simply can’t fly into areas defended by patriot and other modern SAMs.
There are also near future weapons like fiber lasers, in experimental use on USN ships, that have the advantage of a beam that cannot be avoided, if the aircraft is in LOS and detected its probably dead.
Combined arms to support your drone armada with laser trucks, main point is that arms races don’t necessarily keep improving 2 sides and keeping them even.
The drones you propose likely make infantry pointless, the main reason infantry has any use is limited drones were available in 2023. If Ukraine successfully builds 1 million FPV drones like they say they will, and they continue to have a 1⁄3 success rate, that’s 300k soldiers lost to the Russian army in 2024. At a certain point it’s not going to be be viable to use infantry at all, in the same way horses are no longer used on the battlefield.
Laser trucks might simply make high altitude aircraft mostly pointless.
For all of history, until just now, the physically smallest military unit has been the individual soldier. Smaller units have not been possible because they can’t carry a human-level intelligence. This article is about what happens when intelligence is available in a smaller package. It seems to have massive consequences for ground warfare.
I think air superiority would still be important, because aircraft can deliver ground assets. A cargo aircraft at high altitude can drop many tons of drones. The drones can glide or autorotate down to ground level, where they engage as OP describes. A local concentration of force that can be delivered anywhere seems like a decisive advantage.
Shooting aircraft at high altitudes requires either large missiles or fighter aircraft. In either case, large radar antennas are needed for guidance. So I don’t think that AI lets air warfare be miniaturized, like it does ground warfare.
Yes I agree about high altitudes. Some people have now started to make the distinction between low altitude air superiority and high/fast altitude. High altitude superiority is still very important, but not having it is not perhaps the crippling problem it used to be. The more evenly matched the forces, the more it probably matters
High altitude is also super vulnerable to SAMs, because missiles now generally outperform aircraft and the higher the altitude, the more SAMs will be able to see and possibly fire on the target.
In the current battles over Ukraine, it appears to be the case that high flying, non stealth former Soviet aircraft simply can’t fly into areas defended by patriot and other modern SAMs.
There are also near future weapons like fiber lasers, in experimental use on USN ships, that have the advantage of a beam that cannot be avoided, if the aircraft is in LOS and detected its probably dead.
Combined arms to support your drone armada with laser trucks, main point is that arms races don’t necessarily keep improving 2 sides and keeping them even.
The drones you propose likely make infantry pointless, the main reason infantry has any use is limited drones were available in 2023. If Ukraine successfully builds 1 million FPV drones like they say they will, and they continue to have a 1⁄3 success rate, that’s 300k soldiers lost to the Russian army in 2024. At a certain point it’s not going to be be viable to use infantry at all, in the same way horses are no longer used on the battlefield.
Laser trucks might simply make high altitude aircraft mostly pointless.