What stops drones just killing everything and whoever has the most winning every battle? How are they being defeated? What limits their use? Why aren’t infantry utterly terrified going into battle when drones seem able to blow them up without warning, dropping bombs out of nowhere? Can they be detected being small and flying low? Do they do air-to-air combat?
In: Technology
There is a limited number of drones in war and a limited number of people who can operate them,
That something can be destroyed in battle is not relevant, what is relevant is what it can do. Humans have been easy to kill in battles as long as there have been battles.
Death from above is not new in battle. Projectile weapons like bows have done that for millennia. In more recent times direct fire weapons like rifles or tank guns can do that. The same is the case with indirect fire like gun and rocket artillery. It does not matter to you if a drone or a shell from an artillery hit you without any warning, both can kill you.
Drones have changed how and where you can hide, not the risk in general.
In WWI and WWII the percentage killed by artillery was 50% to 75% depending on where and when. It was around 50% in the middle 18th to middle 19th century too. It dropped to around 10% just before WWI because advances in rifles increased their range to be similar to lots of artillery at the time.
Drones can be taken out by electronic warfare and directed fire onto the drones. They might have an advantage now when they are new but technology will be developed to counter them.
Compared to the anti-tank missiles and rockets active protective systems on tanks can take out today drones are slow targets that are easy to take out. Active protection systems are still rare. There are practically none in the war in Ukraine but lost on Israeli vehicles in Gaza. The FPV drone attack on armored vehicles seen from Ukraine that are effective there would likely be shot down again by Israeli vehicles with active protection systems.
War has always been attack vs defense, sometimes the attacker has the advantage, and sometimes the defender. When new technology is introduced for attack it will have an advantage for some time until there is a counter for it and the balance swings back.
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