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From providing real-time intelligence to helping soldiers and commanders conduct assessments of whether enemies have been eliminated, drones play a role at every level of fighting.
By SETH J. FRANTZMAN FEBRUARY 28, 2025 22:31 Updated: FEBRUARY 28, 2025 22:40
THE ROBOTICON Rooster rolls, climbs, flies and can carry sensors and cameras. It can hover or be used as a stationary observer.
(photo credit: Ariel Gabay)
The use of drones in warfare has become one of the most common features we now see on battlefields from Ukraine to Gaza.
Drones are transforming how soldiers fight wars.
From providing real-time intelligence to helping soldiers and commanders conduct assessments of whether enemies have been eliminated, drones play a role at every level of fighting.
This is a new phenomenon.
Not long ago, drones were primarily used as a kind of unmanned aircraft. From that concept came terms for drones such as “remote piloted aircraft” or “unmanned aerial vehicles.”
Today, the term often used is “unmanned aerial systems.”
This indicates how drones are now part of a much larger system. What that means is that we are no longer talking about sending up an aircraft without a person to conduct dangerous missions or to conduct mundane missions. Instead, it is about using a collection of technology that can best be described as drones.
For instance, some of the new drones combine the ability to take off vertically like a helicopter, and then fly like a plane. They also use different fuel sources, such as diesel engines or batteries for power. They may be loud or relatively quiet.
They also come in a lot more sizes. What armies have come to understand is that the game changer in war is not large, expensive drones but rather smaller units in large numbers of small quadcopter-type drones or new “loitering munitions.” Advertisement
What is a loitering munition? It is a drone that also includes a warhead, and the goal of the system is to fly into an enemy zone and go kamikaze. This is different from a missile or cruise missile because the drone can “loiter” by flying around in circles, or it can be called off and possibly return to the operator.
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What does this mean for the future?
First of all, this means these systems will need to be expendable and less expensive.
In general, large slow drones are vulnerable to air defenses. Israel is even pioneering laser air defenses that can shoot down drones. This means that drones need to be lower in cost, and companies need to make large numbers of them.
In the Ukraine-Russia war, the Ukrainians have used tens of thousands of small drones. However, most of these drones are relatively simple and perhaps too cheap and not rugged enough for war.
The next major hurdle of the drone wars will be to make sure that smaller quadcopter-type drones and loitering munitions that can be packed in backpacks are issued to units in a systematic manner.
That means that armies need to get away from the phenomenon that has been seen recently of soldiers bringing their own drones to the front or having donors donate drones to units.
This isn’t the Wild West, where a posse has to bring its own horses and guns. Armies need to have a pipeline of logistics.
In addition, drones will need to be knitted together more in terms of what they share and how they operate. This means having common operating systems so that commanders at the highest and lowest levels can see what the drones are seeing.
This isn’t like those movies where there is some “eye in the sky” watching everything, and people wait to take a shot at a terrorist.
Wars today move faster, and battlefields are incredibly complex. You can’t send up one drone and have it hover over a target forever in many cases.
Therefore, multiple layers of drones must be employed, from smaller drones to larger ones, and what they see needs to be knitted together into a common picture for all the commanders and soldiers. From artillery to tanks and the Air Force, everyone needs to see this 3D battlefield. This means using a lot more AI and other forms of technology.
Drone wars
Another aspect of the drone wars is finding better ways to neutralize drone threats.
Drones are hard to detect, and they are becoming more versatile. They are not yet “stealth,” but they may have a low radar signature, and they may fly relatively quietly.
Also, new types of batteries and engines are enabling them to fly longer. In some cases, drones can be used to shoot down or attack other drones.
Israel is pioneering a lot of this technology. Drones can also have signals jammed or have trouble operating in GPS-denied environments.
The drone wars are making vehicles more vulnerable because drones attack from above, and many vehicles are not well defended from aerial attacks. That means vehicles need more armor and active protection on their rooftops, and they need to find ways to maneuver and avoid drone threats.
Another feature of drones is the concept of drone “swarming.” This can be seen in some of the use of drones to do light shows, where dozens or hundreds of drones form an image in the sky.
What if the same hundred drones were used to attack a column of tanks or infantry or an aircraft carrier? It would be very difficult to defend against a large number of such threats.
Laser air defenses or using machine guns to shoot down drones don’t give enough time to defend against dozens of drones. This is because it takes time to shoot down each drone. Finding a way to stop a drone swarm is one issue.
However, using drone swarms effectively is another issue.
One has to deploy an adequate number of drones to the units involved in order to “swarm” them. In addition, smaller drones usually only have a flight time of half an hour or a relatively short time. That means they can’t fly long distances.
There are ways to overcome this. Drones can communicate with a “mother ship” drone and then be deployed from canisters in a vehicle.
For instance, an unmanned vehicle or unmanned vessel at sea could carry a number of canisters that can launch dozens of drones. Once the mother-ship drone comes into contact with the enemy and spots a target of value, the swarm could be unleashed.
Use of AI and other technology can help guide the drones in because operators won’t be able to fly dozens of drones individually.
ALL OF this points to a future with more drones. However, how does it actually change the battlefield?
Technology has changed war in the past by providing soldiers with new systems. For instance, the development of combat aircraft and bombers changed war between the First and Second World Wars.
The development of armored vehicles, such as tanks, also changed war. Are drones similar to aircraft or the explosion of different types of vehicles on the battlefield?
What is the best comparison in terms of drone evolution? Perhaps they are more comparable to the development of cannons and rifles because they can be both large and small.
At the end of the day, drones will become more ubiquitous on the battlefield. However, as they become more common, they may not be the game changer that is expected.
Once everyone has drones and everyone has systems to shoot them down or neutralize them, then the arms race will take on the form that the arms race for tanks or jet-powered aircraft historically became.
Drones: Decisive?
Drones don’t win wars.
They didn’t help Israel prevent the Oct. 7 attacks, for instance. Hezbollah used drones against Israel, and although some did penetrate Israeli airspace, they didn’t defeat Israel. Drones haven’t help Ukraine win against Russia.
Drones didn’t win the global war on terror. In some cases, they have helped countries that can’t afford an air force create a kind of instant air force.
However, these supposed successes of drones in a few cases are not a story of drones transforming war. Rather, they are how war is changing.
Armies that don’t use drones will be akin to armies with spears charging a force armed with machine gun. Once both sides have machine guns, though, they tend to balance each other out.
Drones will likely take this route until a country like China develops a groundbreaking way to use drones on the battlefield.
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