Breaking Defense: Russian Drone Threat: Army Seeks Ukraine Lessons
AUSA: Watch the skies: The US Army’s is paying close attention to Russia’s “massive use of drones [to spot for] artillery,” Gen. David Perkins, head of the powerful Training & Doctrine Command, said here today.
“In Iraq and Afghanistan, we were kind of the only ones that had Unmanned Aerial Systems [UAS or UAVs] and they pretty much flew in uncontested airspace,” Perkins said. “Now, what we’re seeing in the Ukraine, is the enemy has unmanned aerial systems, they’re deploying them pretty effectively, and the airspace we’re used to operating them in is becoming very contested.”
Nor do the Russians use their drones the way Americans do, for prolonged surveillance and the occasional precision strike. Instead, the Ukrainians have learned, the hard way, that when they see certain kinds of Russian UAV overhead, an all-out barrage will follow.
WNU Editor: The U.S. Army's concerns are justified. Using drones to spot a target and then coordinating an artillery strike was used to great effect in Ukraine, and I will not be surprised if this same tactic will be used in Syria and elsewhere. The above video is two years old, but Putin gives a heads up that Russia is going to use drones differently from how other countries use them.
4 comments:
Like Maxim's Gun, the new tech will be used in many ways, the changes on the battlefield will surprise, fascinate and terrorize. It's a new world and everyone will be a player, drones are cheap and getting cheaper and are only limited to ones imagination, so much can be done with this stuff, and then there is robotics wow!
Wow new kind of war
Using drones as artillery spotters, while certainly effective, is hardly innovative. That was the purpose of the late but not lamented British Phoenix and I think also for the failed American Aquila.
Surly,
I never knew about the Phoenix. If I remember (and this is iffy) right, I thought the Israelis first used drones effectively for military purposes.
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