A Thousand Snipers in the Sky: The New War in Ukraine | Drones now cause about 70 percent of deaths and injuries, commanders say

“Drones now kill more soldiers and destroy more armored vehicles in Ukraine than all traditional weapons of war combined, including sniper rifles, tanks, howitzers and mortars, Ukrainian commanders and officials say.

Drones armed with shotguns are now shooting down other drones. Antiaircraft drones are being designed to take out surveillance drones flying higher in the sky. Larger drones are being developed to serve as motherships for swarms of small drones, increasing the distance they can fly and kill.

The Ukrainians make use of a wide range of explosives to arm drones. They drop grenades, mortar rounds or mines on enemy positions. They repurpose anti-tank weapons and cluster munitions to fit onto drones, or they use anti-personnel fragmentation warheads and others with thermobaric charges to destroy buildings and bunkers.

Surveillance drones that guide themselves with A.I. — instead of being remotely operated by radio — are starting to take flight, too.

Ukraine often sends its drones to hunt in “wolf packs,” hoping the lead drone can blast a path for those that follow.”

It sounds like a very pleasant future. I can’t wait for AI to be 1000x more capable than any human and blindly obey the order of any wannabe king.

You wait till we start having lunatics building armed drones and going for a fly down the road. Quite a probable, damn upsetting problem. 

Time to start making carbon filiment shotgun shells

A passing fad in warfare that will quickly be solved with another generation of counter-drone technology. Falling for articles with headlines like these designed to spur defense stocks and expand the military industrial complex.

I’d just like for people to understand that this does NOT mean that every war will look like this from now on.

Ukraine already had a sizable drone arm before the full-scale invasion of 2022. Yet the first months saw mostly *conventional war of maneuver* with tanks and aircraft taking a bigger role than drones. And this is when the vast majority of territorial exchanges happened.

Drones only became this super-mighty main weapon once the front lines had solidified. They basically now fulfill the role that artillery had in WW1 and much of WW2 – you have relatively thinly held front lines, backed up with artillery (or now drones) that cause constant attrition or can smash any larger-scale attacks.

Of course drones will also be an important element in future war of maneuver, both for reconaissance and attack. But this overwhelming role only exists in static warfare *after* maneuver has already failed.

The robot wars have started.

Soon we will be getting ace pilot drone to drone warfare in the sky

This is just a training ground for the war machine to test their shit out on.