I think they still favor the defensive. On the front line they make movement, hence offense, very difficult.
In the strategic sense we’ve already seen Ukraine adjust to the propeller drone/cruise missile attacks. The first few months were terrible for them but then they organized a defense system with the mobile anti drone teams. The interception percentage for Drones traveling a fair distance over Ukraine is extremely high, 98% type numbers. Most of the Russian focus in now on more “front line” targets like Odessa because the Ukrainians don’t have as much time and space to make the interception. They are downing maybe 60%-70% of those drones.
The Russians are slow to adapt, but they eventually do. There is no reason to believe they won’t get better at intercepting these slow drones. Expensive cruise Missiles with high success rates can end up being a better deal when strategic drones have 98% loss rates. The slow drones are better suited for near front line attacks. It also wouldn’t surprise me if they adapted to be more expensive to add features like quiet engines, thermal signature obfuscation, and lower radar cross sections.
I also think it’s worth pointing out that the Houthis have tried unmanned surface vehicles and they’ve all been quickly destroyed. Same with their slower drones. The hardest weapons to defend against have been conventional Anti Ship Missiles and the newer ballistic anti ship missiles. You can argue about the intercepting missiles being too expensive, but the US is moving towards using more APKWS guided rockets against these strategic drone targets. These only cost $30,000 each and we already procure tens of thousands of them each year. The adaptation game is ongoing but the short range FPV drones seem quite durable while the strategic slow speed drone impact looks less sustainable.
Here is my original post.
The post Austin Vernon on drones and defense (from my email) appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
This post first appeared on Mongo | The Hottest Trends , News And Technology In The World - Exclusive., please read the originial post: here
