Small Drone Warfare Fundamentals

none, 2025

Written using Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) this paper overviews the Ukrainian 13th Khartiia Brigade's use of ground and air drones in Combined Arms Attacks over 2024, and 2025.

none

This paper looks at Infantry Drone Units' organization and roles that have developed organically in the war in Ukraine ecosystem as a response to emerging use of the technology. In 2018, it was anticipated, "a future possibility for lone combatants on foot to operate one or possible more small UAVs as an extension of his or her own means to combat an opponent." 1 In a recent report about United States Army soldiers from the 1st Squadron War Eagles (2nd Cavalry Regiment), the Human factors element in the emerging use of drones is central to using the technology: "Our soldiers are observing trends on the battlefield. They're then seeing where we have capability gaps, and they're finding low-cost solutions to innovate" 2. The type of role change in basic Infantry skills, are: "Our soldiers are 3D printing, they're doing basic soldering, they're doing basic coding using code like Python or C++ to create low-cost solutions to tactical problems they are seeing" 3. In a recent interview with an Escadrone spokesman 4 , they stated: "FPV kamikaze is about pilots, not about drones" 5. This is because: "using an FPV drone effectively requires considerable skill … flying an FPV drone is not so hard. But if you want to use it like a weapon, you have train for a month … because it's very difficult to hit a moving target at high speed." 6 It should be noted, while Human factors are a key element in the use of drones, there is also an emerging substitution with Artificial Intelligence with this entity standing-in for the Human pilot. In comparison to a United States Switchblade 300 drone, "it can lock on to moving targets and track them automatically" 7. The same technology may reach FPV kamikazes drones soon, "thanks to new AI chips for drones, but at present it is down to operator skill" 8 .

International conference KNOWLEDGE-BASED ORGANIZATION

The text deals with the development and methods of use of Drones or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in contemporary conflicts or special operations. The contribution tries to present the main advantages of these vehicles as being the main reasons for their current use in armed forces of state as well as non-state actors and their dynamic proliferation in global space in past years. We can observe a new trend in the armed conflict in the last two decades - use of advanced systems of unmanned vehicles in such a range that many military and academic experts talk about a new wave of revolutionary changes in the military affairs. This wave, or we could even talk about militarytechnological breakthrough should lead to imminent use of these systems in contemporary as well as future conflicts which would result in the partial or complex robotization of the battlefield. Specific attention is dedicated to controversies tied to the use of Drones/Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in socalled Drone Warfare and ...

Kutbilim Journal of Social Sciences Vol.1, Issue 2 , 2021

This article analyzes the importance of drones in modern warfare and armed conflicts. It explains how states and non-state actors use drones for various purposes. The United States of America was the first country globally to use drones twenty years ago to eliminate dangerous terrorists. George W. Bush was the first president of USA who used drones for counterterrorism operations in different countries. Drones proved to be very effective tool during the war on terror. If USA used drones only as killing machines for the elimination of terrorists, Azerbaijan was the first country that used them for military purposes in the war against Armenia. The massive usage of drones by the armed forces first took place in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in 2020. This conflict often referred to as the "war of drones," demonstrated how effective drones could be in modern warfare if used wisely and rationally. This conflict has shown that even a small state can achieve total air supremacy in the conflict if it uses drones properly and effectively. After the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, the number of states willing to purchase drones has increased considerably. However, it is also noteworthy that not only states are interested in drones, but also terrorist organizations and aggressive non-state actors. Many terrorist organizations have started to use drones in order to achieve their goals. One of the main challenges that faces states today is to develop effective defense mechanisms to neutralize and eliminate threats coming from drones quickly. The research question of this paper is: how did the usage of drones affected modern warfare and what are the advantages and disadvantages of the massive usage of drones? The main goal of this article is to find out positive and negative sides of the usage of drones in modern warfare. The aim of this article is also to find what threats to do the states face because of the massive usage of drones by the terrorist organizations.

There is a budding controversy with the combat use of Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA). Also known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), there is a growing literature critiquing the use of RPAs, often using the pejorative term "drone." RPAs seem to get the blame for a variety of complaints about policy and employment that have little to do with the airframe or its processes. While all of the military functions of an RPA can and are done by manned aircraft, the RPAs must endure additional scrutiny. The decision to employ RPAs requires additional considerations at both the strategic and operational levels of war. This article explores the strategic issues that govern the decisions to employ RPAs in combat. The decision to employ RPAs involves a variety of strategic and operational concerns involving legal issues, technological constraints, operational efficiency, and an interdependency upon information operations.

2020

Turkey and Russia are learning how to operationally use a new type of twentyfirstcentury warfare—unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) warfare. Many historical analogies can be traced to the advent of new types of weapons and resulting strategies implemented for their use in a direct, kinetic confrontation. UAVs have existed since the Cold War, but in the 1990s few countries possessed firstgeneration UAV technologies. Russia and Turkey joined the military UAV technology club relatively late, and both set a straightforward aim toward creating their own indigenous drones—first for utilitybased roles and then purely combat drones. Russia achieved the first aim, but Turkey soon managed to field its own combat drone. However, Russia has a larger UAV fleet. The beginning of 2020 nearly witnessed Russia and Turkey in direct kinetic war, initially due to a successful Syrian offensive against Turkishbacked rebel forces. This success forced Turkey to enter a war against the Syrian Army, and from 27 F...

Crude drones existed as early as World War I, but the technology matured in the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s and the current wars around the Middle East. The U.S. first used a weaponized drone in late 2001, in Afghanistan. Drones may cause more or less civilian casualties depending on the targeting protocols employed by their operators. There is an inherent ambiguity in determining who is an insurgent from several thousand feet, but civilian casualties are likely to be higher if targeters emphasize "signature strikes" over "personality strikes," if they engage in "double-tap strikes," if they rely too much on local informants, and if they rely too heavily on cellphone identification in the absence of corroboration from other intelligence sources. The legality of drone warfare is fairly clear in established battle zones such as Afghanistan, but is more problematic in terms of both international and domestic law when it comes to drone strikes in countries such as Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia with which the U.S. is not at war. Looking to the future, the U.S. would be well advised to sponsor negotiations for an international drone convention that might establish clear international rules for the use of drones, ban autonomous smart drones, and establish adjudicatory procedures to handle allegations of war crimes. INTRODUCTION 1 Over the last two decades drones-also known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPAs)-have become a vital, and rapidly growing, component of U.S. airpower. The U.S. Air Force currently trains more people to operate drones than conventionally manned aircraft. (This necessitates drafting as drone operators some who would prefer to fly F-16s, B-1s, KC-135s and so on). The best known drones are the MQ-1 Predators (the last of which will be retired from active service in 2018 2) and the MQ-9 Reaper drone, both of which are armed with air-to-ground missiles. Although this article will focus on the Predator and Reaper drones, the two weaponized drone platforms, it bears noting that the U.S. also deploys a number of other drones of varying sizes and capabilities, using them for reconnaissance rather than kinetic attacks. The largest and most expensive is the RQ-4 Global Hawk, which can operate at higher altitudes and with more expansive vision than the Predators and Reapers. At the other end of the spectrum, RQ-11 Ravens, WASP-IIIS, RQ-20 Pumas, RQ-16 T-Hawks, and RQ-7 Shadows are smaller systems, some hand-launched by forces in the field, that can be used for local tactical surveillance. Nautical drones are also under development. Weaponized drones have been attractive to US military planners for three main reasons. First, they allow extended flexible aerial reconnaissance in a way that manned aircraft and satellites cannot. Manned aircraft can track developments on the ground, but can only stay in the air for a fraction of the 24 hours of which a Predator is Nuclear Weapons and Related Security Issues AIP Conf. Proc.

Oxford University Press Bibliography on Drone Warfare, 2018

Extensive Bibliography on Drone Warfare. Textbooks and General Overviews Conceptual Questions Drone History and Historical Research Debates and Controversies Ethics US Politics International Implications International Politics Geopolitics Nonstate Drone Use Critical Literature Geography Public Opinion

Serbian Journal of Engineering Management

The use of combat drones has been existing for more than a century. Only in recent years have we witnessed how the evolutionary process with the advancement of technology has turned into a real revolution. The conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020 was one of the turning points in the application of this disruptive technology for combat purposes. As never before, the mass use of combat drones has not decisively influenced the outcome of a conflict. Due to the importance of the mentioned conflict, an SWOT analysis of the possibility of using combat drones in local conflicts was performed. The conclusions drawn can help both in understanding the outcome of the conflict and in defining the direction in which the further application of these combat systems will progress in the future.