Nowadays, the image of a drone is firmly embedded in the media space in the form of either something very expensive, like Bayraktar, which flies high and far, or something simple, which flies out of the box and is needed by every fighter and which even children can control, like Mavic. In fact, drones can include cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and anti-aircraft missiles, generally everything that flies (floats, crawls) and is not directly controlled by the crew. That is, there is often an operator on the ground who remotely controls the drone. In this case, remote-controlled drones are meant. If the drone is completely autonomous, performs a combat mission according to a program, uses various sensors, locators, and a technical vision system for guidance, then we are talking about autonomous drones.
Obviously, a fully autonomous drone is always intellectually more complex than a remote-controlled drone, although it is by no means always technically more complex, because radio control equipment can cost more than artificial intelligence. In any case, almost any drone has an autopilot, which either helps the operator to fly, or controls the device without the operator's participation, using various sensors for orientation in space - gyroscopes, accelerometers, magnetic compasses, altimeters, air speed sensors, satellite navigation receivers, etc.
In the last twenty years, we have seen a renaissance of unmanned systems around the world thanks to the advent of affordable satellite navigation, energy-efficient lithium batteries, brushless electric motors of high specific power, miniaturization of electronics, and software development. Today, drones have become available to everyone: a copter can be bought in a store, and this could not but affect the practice of warfare.
If previously reconnaissance drones were extremely large, because the control and reconnaissance equipment weighed a lot and took up a lot of space, now a reconnaissance drone is a small, lightweight design that fits in a suitcase and can be operated by a single operator, trained in a matter of days. That is, reconnaissance drones used to be in the service of a division or brigade (at best), and now drones are in every battalion, company, and often in every platoon or even every soldier.
The same metamorphosis took place with attack drones: if earlier attack drones (cruise missiles) were only in the arms of specially formed and designated units for the use of such missiles, now attack drones are either copters with grenades, or drones with bombs, or disposable kamikaze drones are already, again, in every battalion, every company, and often in every platoon.
War has changed. Thanks to drones, the time for identifying targets, making decisions, and defeating them has decreased. As a result of air adjustment, artillery became more accurate and efficient. Drones are also used to relay signals, as airborne EW stations, to deliver critical cargo such as ammunition to isolated garrisons, blood components, communications, and more.
A wide variety of flying drones are used in war today. They can be conditionally divided into five classes.
- Short-range and low-carrying drones are small copters or, more rarely, airplanes used for reconnaissance, fire adjustment, and bombardment with fragmentation grenades. The brightest representative of this class on both sides of the front is the DJI Mavic copter. Its average price is $3,000. Thousands of such drones are needed in war, because they are used at the level of a unit – a platoon, separate groups, and fighters. In addition, self-made kamikaze copters equipped with one or two grenades and capable of delivering high-precision strikes, literally flying into the window of a house or the hatch of a tank, have recently been actively used. The cost of such a drone is several hundred dollars, but to control it, you need to have a lot of experience in piloting racing copters.
- Short-range, large-carrying drones – large copters: either specialized R18 type from "Aero-reconnaissance" or adapted agricultural ones – intended for dropping mortar mines modified into aerial bombs, grenade launcher shots, anti-tank grenades and self-made ammunitions. These drones can already destroy an armored vehicle, a tank, the enemy's permanent emplacements. However, such attacks are combined with greater risks for the device, because a large copter is clearly visible in the sky, it flies slowly, and targeted bombing is possible from a height of 70-150 meters. The survivability of a large copter is low – 5 - 7 sorties. The cost is approximately 10 - 15 thousand dollars.
- Medium-range drones – up to 150 km, aircraft type. These Drones are the most often used. Famous representatives of this class are our Ukrainian Leleka and Russian Orlan. This group may be divided into two subclasses: drones with an electric motor ("electric") and drones with a gasoline engine. "Electric" ones usually have the combat range (fly to and fro) of up to 30 km, some - up to 60 km. Gasoline ones fly longer and further, but they are louder and can be hit by anti-aircraft missiles with an IR homing head, so their use in an active combat zone is less appropriate than of electric aircraft. The use of medium-range drones is also limited by the practical radius of radio communication, which rarely exceeds 30-40 km, although aircraft of this class can perform their tasks in a fully automatic mode, but then there will be no online "picture", without which it is impossible to conduct combat operations in real time. The cost of such drones is $10,000 to $50,000 (and more).
[pics_lr left="https://zn.ua/img/forall/u/495/25/0669aa78abcc31cf421a00fe2239565a.jpg" ltitle="Leleka -100" right="https://zn.ua/img/forall/u/495/25/9394a5e8839508cf0c4b7e74406ce54a.jpg" rtitle="Orlan"] - Medium-range strike drones can also be included in the same class – unmanned bombers (which return) and kamikaze drones (which do not return). Both of them can be controlled online (by the operator) or not controlled online – they perform tasks according to a predetermined program. Guided vehicles are expensive, because they carry a full set of control and video equipment – they are used to attack moving targets, such as surface-to-air missile systems (SAMs), tanks, armored vehicles, self-propelled artillery and MLRS. Not controlled online are automatic kamikaze drones, they attack the target according to the coordinates known in advance, so they are used against stationary targets, such as headquarters, warehouses, positions, etc. Autonomous kamikaze drones can have a maximum possible range of up to 100 km – in electric and several hundred kilometers – in gasoline versions. The weight of the warhead is up to 10 kg (sometimes more). The cost is several thousand dollars.
- A separate fifth class – long-range drones. Bayraktar and Shahed are the most famous. They are of considerable size, heavy, fly further and for a long time. The use of such drones usually requires a developed and complex ground infrastructure, comparable to the infrastructure of manned aviation: airfields, ground control points, large antennas for long-range communication, hangars, repair and maintenance bases. Such drones are rarely used at the front; they work at great depth and perform specific tasks. Among them are purely reconnaissance devices, or reconnaissance and strike ones (Bayraktar), which can immediately destroy a detected target, and kamikaze attack drones (Shahed -136). The cost of long-range drones can reach several million dollars (Bayraktar) - or several tens of thousands of dollars (Shahed-136, which does not carry complex radio-electronic equipment, expensive optics and is designed for one flight in one direction).
[pics_lr left="https://zn.ua/img/forall/u/495/25/e921fd9e3beb27ceb41f332244925c64.jpg" ltitle="Shahed-136" right="https://zn.ua/img/forall/u/495/25/59dd2d444c070180523ba54b75477704.gif" rtitle="undefined"]
As you can see, drones are very different in size, characteristics, purpose, and price. Therefore, when Bayraktars are purchased for 7 million dollars per piece to perform one-time and rather specific tasks, and there is an acute shortage of unmanned aircraft and battlefield copters at the front at a price 200-300 times lower (because the budget is not infinite), then such a purchase of super-expensive and complex equipment does not help us win the war.
Furthermore, it should be said about EW (electronic warfare), the omnipotence of which is greatly exaggerated by all kinds of "experts". Half of all drone losses in war are attributed to EW, but in fact, the reason why drones do not return is often due to design or manufacturing defects, poor storage and operating conditions, nonsensical orders (to fly into gale-force winds, for example), and most often, poor training of drone crews.
EW does three things: it detects drones in the air (by the presence of a radio signal); tries to influence the channels of control and/or transmission of the video signal by means of interference and attempts to intercept the control; tries to influence the satellite navigation receiver by interfering or changing coordinates (spoofing). That is, if a drone is completely autonomous, does not have radio communication with the operator, flies according to the program and does not emit anything, then the EW does not detect it and does not try to influence it – or detects it (by other means, in particular, visual) and tries to interfere with the satellite navigation receiver, to knock the drone down, off course. However, even in this case, everything is not so bad for the drone: if it is of the aircraft type (not a copter), then it has some (this is already a standard option) inertial control system, with the help of which, orienting itself according to the magnetic compass, knowing its speed, the drone leaves the jamming zone of satellite navigation signals, picks up the GPS, specifying its location on the map, and continues its flight to the target. With drones (airplanes and copters) that are controlled and that transmit video via radio channel, everything is a little more complicated: the EW can jam the transmission of video, control signals, but even in this situation, everything depends on the design features of the device, software, autopilot settings and professionalism of the operator.
We have another story related to EW, a purely corrupt one. Since 2014 and even now, during a major war (a major war is a major corruption), the suitability of drones for the front is determined by tests at a range, where manufacturers are invited to "fly under radio-electronic means", i.e. near a deployed EW station, which not only is guaranteed to detect the drone (the crew of the station knows about its flight), but also “jamming” the drone with all its might, while it is prohibited from flying away from the station. It is a bizarre and too improbable situation, which almost never happens in a real combat setting. Of course, in such conditions of harsh and endless exposure, the drone either eventually loses contact with the operator or goes off course, because error accumulates in any inertial system. Using a tool like EW, it is very easy "hack to death" a good, field-proven drone at a range and put into service another good (not always) drone from the right people.
Exaggerated requirements to drones from the military department and other law enforcement agencies, inflated expectations of society from drone specifications are the reason for the purchase of very expensive devices with video cameras of a cosmic level of clarity, with thermal imagers of the latest models, long range, extremely complex and, as a result, unreliable. The high complexity and low reliability, multiplied by the poor training of the crews (because there is a war and there is no time to prepare), lead to catastrophic losses - both financial and quantitative. If for various reasons we lose 100 drones per month (the number is notional), half of which are non-combat losses, then we need to produce and purchase not 100 new drones per month, but 150-200, in order not only to compensate for the loss, but also to eliminate the chronic deficit of drones in the army.
And here is the most interesting thing: the state, the military department and large volunteer foundations follow a completely different policy: they advertise, buy and put into service the most expensive, "most efficient", "coolest" drones - which, however, are too complex in terms of their technical parameters and therefore in a combat environment, they are unreliable. Thus, we prefer to get the most advanced technical devices instead of buying cheap, simple, and easy-to-use ones. In a situation where it is possible to buy 10 devices with functionality and capabilities that reach 90% of the ideal, one "perfect" one is bought, and for some reason, they are almost always bought from a company whose owner's name we all know well.
It's as if the painful (for us) experience of using the Iranian Shaheds should have taught us something already: technology, in particular unmanned, should be simple (relatively, of course), reliable, and it must be supplied in large quantities. But there are no signs of progress in this direction yet.
Ukroboronprom has been promising for half a year a Ukrainian kamikaze drone that is coming back (why?!), based on the long-abandoned Horlytsia, which was once presented to Turchynov. Three of these unfinished Horlytsias were not finished a few years ago, and they will be modernized now at an exorbitant price, because it is economically very expensive to produce them in small series. But it is extremely advertised - for the entire "marathon" and the entire Internet.
We need relatively cheap, proven and mass-produced drones in hundreds or even thousands of units per month. Among them, reconnaissance and attack drones are necessarily Ukrainian-made. We have all the conditions for this – idle manpower, equipment, empty premises, but no state policy, no will and no management team. To be more precise, there are all these - managers, designers, engineers, and technicians, there are running factories and there are successfully war-tested drones. All this exists and works, but separately from the state and often in opposition to the state, in a fierce struggle with the state machine.
There is no doubt that the situation will change. The very logic of war pushes the Ukrainian drone industry to rapid changes. Since February 24, several times more drones have been developed, manufactured and used in Ukraine than in the previous eight years. And there will be even more drones that will show themselves both in Moscow and in Vladivostok, as they have already shown in Engels, Dyagilevo, Kursk, Sevastopol, Novoshakhtinsk and other places where the Russian army is based. Many cases of drone attacks simply did not get into the media space, did not become known.
All known and unknown attacks by Ukrainian drones became possible thanks to the private initiative of businesses and the personal initiative of military personnel. The command only authorized the raids, and the state, at best, took responsibility for the result.
Such an "initiative" system will undoubtedly remain in the future as a real working alternative to the state policy vacuum in the field of unmanned vehicles. But, apparently, everyone understands that the effectiveness of our attacks could be much higher. In an attempt to bypass the intricate departmental bureaucracy and established corruption schemes, a kind of loopholes have been opened in the state machine, when law enforcement agencies and even individual military units directly purchase the drones they need. At the national level, such a loophole through the forest of red tape became the "Army of Drones" project, which carries out direct urgent purchases of the necessary equipment.
Of course, urgent direct purchases solve urgent tasks and close holes. But it's not just about money. The biggest obstacles are the incompetence of officials responsible for the development of the drone industry, chaos and confusion. Once again, there is no coherent state policy. There are instant purchases, which are often purely "publicity". There are sensational statements by the Ministry of Defense and Ukroboronprom. There are beautiful presentations of companies close to government officials, which receive the lion's share of the budget pie. But there is no think tank that consists exclusively of specialists – developers and operators. There is no well-founded understanding of the direction of development of the industry, understanding of what drones we really need, how many of them are needed and how to produce them in the right amount at the right time. There is no policy to protect the domestic manufacturer, help in obtaining the necessary components, attracting technically competent people for production, investments in the development of the production base.
Someone can say: It's a private business, so why should we help it? No, it doesn't work like that. It must be understood that the science-intensive and high-tech production of drones is very expensive. The development of a drone starts from half a million dollars and can reach hundreds of millions. No private individual can cope with such tasks alone, during a war, especially under constant shelling. There is no country in the world that has created or developed an unmanned industry without the help of the state.
Perhaps the opponent might ask, is it easier and more profitable to place production abroad, in calm conditions, or simply to purchase Western drones? It's not easier. Economically unprofitable and politically short-sighted. Today, many men in Ukraine have lost their jobs, they have to support their families, and they cannot go abroad. It is logical to use this labor resource in defense production. This is the first thing.
Secondly, few countries, even considering the limitations of national legislation, will agree to host our military–industrial complex (MIC); few of them will agree to additional migration from Ukraine, because you can't just take and organize production in Poland, recruiting people who went there. In this type of production, specific knowledge, skills and abilities are important, and not everyone has them.
Thirdly, we cannot buy everything we need abroad, especially drones. It is very expensive, they simply do not have as many drones as we need, and they (manufacturers/countries) are not always ready to sell us high-tech equipment in order not to quarrel with Russia or so that their technology does not fall to the enemy. There is an example: only Israel has long-range strike drones, but it does not sell us drones. Besides, they are very expensive, and no one in the world, except for Israel (and now Ukraine) produces inexpensive ones similar to the Iranian Shaheds.
"But what shall we do?" – the opponent can ask.
If I had to deal with drones on a national scale, I would, first of all, gather all the developers, manufacturers, many operators (military, law enforcement), major commanders, listen to them and create an extra-departmental national military-technical committee to implement the public policy: determine which drones we need, how many, how to help production, how to get critical components, how to organize a continuous process of military personnel training, organize repair and operation bases... I would like the state to help purchase components and materials, help find investments, find people, guarantee procurement of drones according to a long-term plan and at a fixed standard price.
The time has come when we need to establish large-scale production of drones in Ukraine. We are talking about hundreds and thousands of pieces. In the conditions when Russia steps up shelling our country and prepares for a new "decisive" offensive, we urgently need to equip the troops with means of intelligence and targeting and ensure an adequate response to Russian air terror with long-range strike drones. All necessary drones have long been developed in Ukraine, they are produced in small batches and successfully used in war. It is possible to increase production several times within two to three months. The delay is due to a minor thing - strong political will.