David Hambling points to a number of videos released by Ukrainian forces that show FPV lurk-and-strike ambush tactics in action:
The technique is used behind Russian lines to strike vehicles travelling on supply routes and seems to be used as a way to interdict logistics – and also for targeted assassinations.
This technique may have been adopted as a way to get around the short flight time of FPVs, which typically fly for 20 minutes or less and cannot wait for targets.
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What is clear from this is that all three FPVs were in the ambush area, and the operators found it worthwhile to expend three on a low-value target which was not carrying passengers or cargo. In Russia the Desertcross costs around $23,000; the FPVs are around $500 each but availability rather than cost would likely be the deciding factor. Nobody wastes ammo when it is scarce, however cheap it might be.
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These perch-and-wait ambushes are interesting for what they do not show as much as for what they do.
There is no indication how the drones reached their ambush spots. Battery life is the big issue; the drones might have flown there under their own power and counted on having enough juice left for the waiting period and the ambush. But they may have been delivered by drone. Wild Hornets Queen Hornet has been shown delivering FPVs and acting as a flying relay station to increase control range. And when British PM Keir Starmer visited Ukraine recently, he was shown two FPV carriers, one a fixed-wing drone, the other a large multicopter.
Ukrainian forces are increasingly using drones to lay anti-tank mines on roads behind Russian lines. Mines are relatively easy to remove; drones which may be some distance from the road and can be relocated (or target anyone attempting to remove them) may be more challenging.
I have seen where the Russians have their fiber cable drones perch-and-wait for targets. They are not jammable, but their tether is finite in length and prone to snagging. Perch-and-wait gives them the best of both worlds (though a spotter drone above is useful).
Yes, drones are more accurately modeled as short-lived, vastly more capable mines than as fighters, bombers, artillery, or rifles. The next great innovations will be in weatherproofing, hibernation duration, and fully autonomous friend-or-foe target identification. The “stealth” characteristic of drones is in the nature of ambush: length of time spent waiting before activation, distance to target, and speed of drone. Observability in flight is not irrelevant but is relatively unimportant.
Jim says:
Or just better infantry ATGM. In many cases, yes — slow, but good and inexpensive guided munitions.
Still, drones and responses to them seem to resurrect on a smaller scope some capabilities that grew expensive. In that they create possibility of aerial reconnaissance working for just a company or platoon, demand for widely distributed low grade air defenses, etc. Not limited to air, RC boats are a serious threat.
Roy in Nipomo says:
Speaking of disposable cameras with cables, return of WWI style observation balloons is not out of question.
The defining characteristic of mines is that they can be “set and forgotten”: that is, that they can remain dormant for lengthy periods of time before activation (detonation). Although drones are unlikely to be as durable as mines, which can remain in the field for many years, even decades, it is not inconceivable that they will be able to lie dormant for weeks, months, or years. And because drones, unlike mines, are inherently extremely mobile, this fundamentally changes the character of warfare.
Jim yes, and the North Atlantic has some dormant stuff left on the bottom from the Cold War, waiting for activation or forgotten and getting random.
A hundred years from now that might be worldwide.
Jim says:
Yes, but it’s a wide set, not just two different things with a wide gap. Naval mines are already closer to the other end of the gap, thanks to being larger, more expensive and planted in less accessible places.
Consider mines that change states not just by arming/self neutralizing timers, but on command. At least naval mines with this capability are known to be produced.
https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Te-2_remotely_controlled_mine
Likewise, torpedo- and MANPAD-based mines already threaten far more than immediate vicinity.
«Mk 67 Submarine Launched Mobile Mine[36] (which is based on a Mark 37 torpedo) are capable of swimming as far as 10 miles through or into a channel, harbor, shallow water area and other zones which would normally be inaccessible to craft laying the device»
https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Naval_mine#Torpedo_mine
On surface 10 naval miles is far beyond the horizon.
Is there much difference between a remotely activated torpedo mine with acoustic guidance that discriminates targets by propulsion noise vs a remotely activated sleeper UAV that launches at the right sort of noise and uses image recognition to pick the most valuable vehicle?
T. Beholder:
The significance of drones lately, as opposed to UAVs or other autonomous or semi-autonomous “true” military mechanisms, is that, but for the explosive bit, they’re entirely a product of the ordinary civilian “consumer” supply chain. So, yes, the inexpensive “mining” of a landscape with low-cost high-availability hunter drones is a fundamentally new capability.
As you note, activation triggers could be sensor-based and fully autonomous, RF and fully command-control, or some blend of the two. Perhaps a small “cache” of drones located in a field will opportunistically attack a target if and only if they hear certain exhaust notes, else wait for subsequent commands from HQ or, alternatively, incidentally nearby soldiers in need of impromptu air support.
Bruce:
True.