I think the comments are also worth a read. I want to share one particular comment here, which I think has a good explanation/hypothesis regarding the situation:
The scaling up of FPV drones for the Ukrainians was definitely the result of artillery and mortar ammo shortages. But that can’t be the only answer, as Russia never suffered that degree of shortage and they’ve gone as hardcore into FPV drones, if not more so, than the Ukrainians.
I think the biggest problem relying on artillery and mortars in THIS war is the ultra static nature of it. With the lines barely moving, it’s very hard to create an artillery or mortar firing position that has decent survivability. Enemy recon drones, which can’t be jammed or shot down easily (as most use freq hopping, fly at altitude, have limited radar signatures, etc), they are prowling the tactical rear areas. Since the start of the war, indirect fire has had to greatly disperse, especially artillery, which operates as single guns now. They can’t even do “shoot and scoot” for survivability, since moving is where most of them will be caught. And if they fire, then counterbattery radars will detect their location. What most are doing is having to dig into treelines, at the least using maximum camouflage, if not building overhead cover, making it much more difficult to take them out with counterbattery.
However, there is only a certain number of hiding spots they can do that. I heard a report last fall about how the Russians in the Pokrovsk sector, despite having ample artillery ammo, had their fire rates drop, because as they were advancing, their artillery could not find and occupy enough hidden firing points to adequately support ground operations. It will be just as hard with mortars, if not harder, because even more enemy recon drones (including those belonging to the enemy’s small unit level) can reach into their range to see.
Whereas, drone operators are much harder to perform the equivalent of counterbattery, especially destructive (actually hitting them). While artillery and mortars are next to impossible to stop once they’re airborne, for drones its often the opposite, it’s not even worth trying to go after the drone operators, they’re too hard to kill, whereas its much easier to try to down the drone using EW especially, or using some sort of passive system, like C-UAS cage. Or active systems, to include dudes armed with shotguns, other drones, or even hard kill remote gun systems that the Ukrainians and Russians haven’t developed/fielded much of.
I’m personally convinced that the ultra static nature of the Russo-Ukraine War is mostly responsible for most of these novel TTPs. And why a lot of this isn’t applicable outside Ukraine.
Very interesting! But I’m not convinced. Some speculation to follow:
In a more dynamic war of maneuver, won’t finding/locating your enemy be even more of an issue than it is today? If there are columns of friendly and enemy forces driving every which way in a hurried confusion, trying to exploit breakthroughs or counterattack, having “drone superiority” so that you can see where they are and they can’t see where you are seems super important. OK, so that’s an argument that air superiority drones will be crucial, but what about bomber drones vs. drone-corrected artillery? Currently bomber drones have something like 20km range compared to 40km range for artillery. Since they are quadcopters though I think that they’ll quickly be supplanted by longer-ranged variants, e.g. fixed-wing drones. (Zipline’s medical supply drones currently have 160km range) So I think there will be a type of future platform that’s basically a pickup truck with a rail for launching fixed-wing bomber drones capable of taking out a tank. This truck will be to a self-propelled artillery piece what a carrier is to a battleship: Before the battleship/artillery gets in range, it’ll be detected and obliterated by a concentrated airstrike launched from the carrier/truck. As a bonus the truck can also carry and launch air superiority drones too. Like the Pacific in WW2, most major battles will take place beyond artillery range, between flights of drones launched by groups of carriers/trucks. Oh, and yeah another advantage of the drone carriers vs. the artillery is that they are much, much cheaper & also can potentially take cover more easily (e.g. if your column of trucks is spotted, your men can get out and take the drones into the basements of nearby houses and continue to fight from there, whereas you can’t hide your artillery in a basement.)
Also: The ultra static nature of the Russo-Ukrainian war is generally thought to be because of drones. The reason it’s been a stalemate is that drones currently favor the defender, because they make it easy to spot and attack enemy concentrations well before they even reach the front lines. The attacker can’t do traditional attack tactics anymore. (i.e. accumulate forces in secret behind your lines, across from a weak spot in enemy line, then charge and break through, then exploit, hoping to encircle pockets of enemy forces. Recent successful example: Kharkiv offensive.) There are many, many examples of columns of vehicles being obliterated by drone-corrected artillery, drones, land mines, and drone-laid land mines, before even reaching the front lines. So current offensive tactics have shifted to a sort of piecemeal thing where you send in a constant trickle of troops, often on foot, to gradually erode the enemy line primarily not by doing any shooting themselves but by forcing the enemy to kill them and thereby reveal their positions and get hit by artillery and drones. And this sort of thing is inherently extremely slow and defender-advantaging.
Adding context/(kind-of) counter argument from reddit (the link has a link to the main article and contains a summary of it):
https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/1ll7ypj/article_i_fought_in_ukraine_and_heres_why_fpv/
I think the comments are also worth a read. I want to share one particular comment here, which I think has a good explanation/hypothesis regarding the situation:
Very interesting! But I’m not convinced. Some speculation to follow:
In a more dynamic war of maneuver, won’t finding/locating your enemy be even more of an issue than it is today? If there are columns of friendly and enemy forces driving every which way in a hurried confusion, trying to exploit breakthroughs or counterattack, having “drone superiority” so that you can see where they are and they can’t see where you are seems super important. OK, so that’s an argument that air superiority drones will be crucial, but what about bomber drones vs. drone-corrected artillery? Currently bomber drones have something like 20km range compared to 40km range for artillery. Since they are quadcopters though I think that they’ll quickly be supplanted by longer-ranged variants, e.g. fixed-wing drones. (Zipline’s medical supply drones currently have 160km range) So I think there will be a type of future platform that’s basically a pickup truck with a rail for launching fixed-wing bomber drones capable of taking out a tank. This truck will be to a self-propelled artillery piece what a carrier is to a battleship: Before the battleship/artillery gets in range, it’ll be detected and obliterated by a concentrated airstrike launched from the carrier/truck. As a bonus the truck can also carry and launch air superiority drones too. Like the Pacific in WW2, most major battles will take place beyond artillery range, between flights of drones launched by groups of carriers/trucks. Oh, and yeah another advantage of the drone carriers vs. the artillery is that they are much, much cheaper & also can potentially take cover more easily (e.g. if your column of trucks is spotted, your men can get out and take the drones into the basements of nearby houses and continue to fight from there, whereas you can’t hide your artillery in a basement.)
Also: The ultra static nature of the Russo-Ukrainian war is generally thought to be because of drones. The reason it’s been a stalemate is that drones currently favor the defender, because they make it easy to spot and attack enemy concentrations well before they even reach the front lines. The attacker can’t do traditional attack tactics anymore. (i.e. accumulate forces in secret behind your lines, across from a weak spot in enemy line, then charge and break through, then exploit, hoping to encircle pockets of enemy forces. Recent successful example: Kharkiv offensive.) There are many, many examples of columns of vehicles being obliterated by drone-corrected artillery, drones, land mines, and drone-laid land mines, before even reaching the front lines. So current offensive tactics have shifted to a sort of piecemeal thing where you send in a constant trickle of troops, often on foot, to gradually erode the enemy line primarily not by doing any shooting themselves but by forcing the enemy to kill them and thereby reveal their positions and get hit by artillery and drones. And this sort of thing is inherently extremely slow and defender-advantaging.
https://youtu.be/tgkP0W7OvMc?si=hoa0l2mu5B6aRbpy
Perhaps of interest, 16:33 the guy mentions the development of a new type of drone resistant “turtle” tank