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Ukraine: Does it come down to the drones? [1]

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Date: 2023-12-02  

That drones are important to this war is not a new concept. We’ve been hearing about them from the very start. Early on in the first months the media focus on drones was the donation of US loitering drones used as flying anti-tank systems as well as the Turkish Baykar TB2. As the war progressed we saw the “novelty” videos of homemade drones and explosives being dropped into tank hatches. Over time more and more reconnaissance video from drones appeared. During the battle of Bakhmut the role of drone as spotter came to the forefront in coverage (the actual practice having started far earlier, I’m only referencing the prevalence in coverage). And then this last summer, we saw just how hard it is for Ukraine to advance through minefields which are under constant drone surveillance.

Meanwhile, other systems have waxed and waned. The very early war was one of tanks, vehicles, and mobility or lack thereof in the north of country. There were actual tank vs tank battles NE of Kyiv. The Javelin and NLAW became sainted as we saw endless videos of them destroying those tanks. But as Russia retreated from the north and refocused on the south and east the focus on battles moved to the old Russian standard of artillery as supreme. We saw the volume of the Russian artillery matched against the accuracy of the Western artillery. HIMARS made a spectacular entrance (well, many spectacular entrances) and has kept delivering.

But now artillery, king of the battlefield may be waning. With ammo shortages on Ukraine’s side and Russia more frequently unable to fire their guns for very long before needing to move both sides are focusing more and more on the drone. Both sides have reason to prioritize drones over artillery (while still using both as much as possible of course).

For the Ukrainians, the drone is a weapon independent of the Western allies. While Ukraine will continue to get some artillery ammunition and what they get will continue to be highly valuable, they are not currently receiving it in enough volume to press home the advantage they have in quality over the Russians. In some ways this is even more disappointing to me than not sending them enough tanks early enough. We’ve seen how tanks, while useful, no longer dominate the battlefield. But artillery, we just need to get them enough rounds. Even with NATO not delivering on the promised volume of standard shells, the US is supposed to have roughly 4 million rounds of cluster munitions which we’re not supposed to use anyway. There should be absolutely no reason every one of those is not already sent to Ukraine. We were about to pay companies here to decommission them, why aren’t we PAYING Ukraine to get rid of them for us?

To boot, the US political situation is impinging the reliability of US donations. Meanwhile the Europeans have donated all the easy things to donate and further donations will cut into limited supplies for their own militaries. So the country with plenty to give (the US) is politically compromised and the countries with their political acts together are running out of stuff to give. Ukraine’s own artillery production was destroyed over the years by Russian saboteurs and Ukraine’s vehicle plants were hit early in the war by missiles. (One of the few smart targeting decisions by Russia.) But Ukraine has been creating some percentage of their own drones and purchasing a fair number on the open market. Being cheap enough, they are able to buy large quantities and we’ve seen in plenty of Daily Kos articles just how cost effective they are.

So Ukraine focusing on its own drone production is important to its own military independence. While early in the war when Ukraine almost ran out of artillery shells it would have been catastrophic. If they were to run low now, it would be a blow but one softened by their own production of drones. A drone explosive may be smaller than an artillery shell, but it is highly accurate and can therefor accomplish many of the same tasks.

Russia, on the other hand, has been losing the effectiveness of their own artillery. Russian artillery is mostly inaccurate and reliant on a volume of shells that Russia is unable to provide anymore. They can conserve shells for a while to have large volume for a time, but they have to pick and choose now where they didn’t early in the war. Further, due to their inaccuracy, the Russian artillery is no longer very useful in counter battery fire. From RUSI, most Russian kills of Ukrainian artillery are accomplished through drones and not through their own artillery. So Russian artillery is simply becoming less useful to them than drones. Further, drones are filled with so many consumer-grade components that it’s a weapon system that is hard to stop under sanctions. Between Iran and China able to supply components and the explosive part is far less precision than an artillery shell.

An artillery shell requires a minimum level of craftsmanship as it needs to be a very precise diameter. Too small (or not perfectly round) and too much gas escapes around it making it inaccurate. Too large and best case you have increased tube wear and worst case the round sticks in the tube and explodes. But a drone explosive could be as simple as a pipe-bomb. It’s an explosive so you never want your tolerances to be too sloppy, but it has far more tolerance in many areas than an artillery round does.

On the flip side of the drone war is the EW response (electronic warfare). The specifics of this side of the battle are very secretive and not very visible to the average person. While very complicated, the most basic version of EW is overwhelming a drone’s ability to communicate with its controller or its ability to get a GPS signal with massive transmission of noise or fake signals at the specific frequency of the drone. There are of course methods to try to evade jamming and it becomes an evolving battle.

So there are two separate battles. There is the Ukrainian drones versus Russian EW and Ukrainian EW vs Russian drones. It’s not enough for Ukraine to win just one of the battles. The Russian’s drones are the most prominent and accurate weapon they have. Shutting them down eliminates one of the best weapons Russia currently has. Meanwhile Ukraine needs to at minimum have their reconnaissance drones continue to function to make use of their superior artillery quality. But they also need to get their FPV (first person view) suicide drones through to reduce their dependence upon western weapon systems. The more things FPVs destroy means fewer western artillery shells need to be used on that target saving those shells for situations where the FPV doesn’t work quite as well for whichever reason.

Throughout the war we’ve wondered what might be the critical resource or weapon system to possibly put one party over the top. I’ve certainly jumped the gun myself before. Will it be drones? Maybe. They are clearly an important system that if one side solves to a decisive advantage then the other side will need to step up somewhere else in a significant way to make up the difference. I wish I could tell you who it will be. I like the resourcefulness and brilliance of the Ukrainians but you can’t count out the Russians on coming up with something. I wonder how much help the US will be with EW. While the US clearly has a lot of resources to throw at the problem, EW is highly secretive so it’s not automatic that all EW resources will be shared with Ukraine if the US fears the tech may be compromised somehow. Time will tell.

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[1] Url: https://dailykos.com/stories/2023/12/2/2209210/-Ukraine-Does-it-come-down-to-the-drones?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

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