Didn’t know where else to post this.
I was thinking while looking at Mexico’s military force on paper vs say the U.S. for a hypothetical invasion/occupation. Like many modern non-NATO forces, it lacks heavy armor, combat aircraft, naval vessels, etc. But with dronewar now ascendant, could this be less a liability and more an advantage? Assuming one could rapidly equip and train their light infantry forces with a mix of both small and medium sized drones?
It seems it would be easier to acquire tens of thousands of commercial off the shelf drones and use old stockpiles of munitions and train young, gaming experienced soldiers to operate them then build or acquire increasingly rare tanks or fighters. And having such a light military means it should be easier to shift to this doctrine then say doing so with a lumbering NATO-style behemoth like the U.S. with it’s MIC.
Could this be a cheap strategy especially for latin american nations to pump up their military forces in the face of U.S. aggression? Make it too costly to engage, as well as cozy up to China for cheap drone parts.
Besides drones, all the rest of the military spending would be best directed towards air defense systems. This is the only bottleneck I see since these are sophisticated systems on par with tanks and fighters. I mean the drones can save you from ground invasion but you can still be leveled from the sky. I suppose until we get cheap air defense drones, which I think might be the future. (imagine loitering long range air defense drones with simple stealth tech; the barrage balloon of the 2040s).
simpsons… did it?
Yep, gotta love those Harvard eggheads
We don’t get good jokes about the army like this anymore
This kind of reminds me of the Chaco War. Newly emerging technologies spur new tactics, and the changes can happen rapidly enough to really benefit smaller forces who can adapt quicker
During the final months prior to the outbreak of war, Paraguayan diplomats secured a secret loan from Argentina. Unlike Bolivia, Paraguay had almost no standing army and no peace-time budget for mobilization stockpiles. While their troops fought the first skirmishes of the war armed with machetes and one castoff Argentine Mauser rifle for every 3-7 men, a civilian purchasing commission frantically shopped the arms bazaars of Europe for bargain equipment. Ironically, the inexperience of the men selected for the task and the crippling, national lack of funds now proved fortuitous. While Bolivia’s professionals spent lavishly on “serious” weapons, like heavy Schneider howitzers, water-cooled heavy machineguns, tanks, and the all but useless little Vickers mountain guns, the Paraguayan amateurs bought poor man’s artillery—light, cheap, Stokes-Brandt mortars, three of which could be had for the price of one field gun—and Madsen light machineguns (right). Cartridges and artillery shells could be had clandestinely, free of charge, from the Argentine army, and grenades were in production in Paraguay itself. In the heat, dense brush, and mud of the Chaco, lightness, mobility, and a high trajectory were the dominant requirements.
really fascinating! i am nearly totally unfamiliar with that war besides reading a couple paragraphs about it
right down to buying civilian weapons, it really reflects the current dronewar revolution doesn’t it?
Honestly I don’t know too much more about the war than that lol. It really does, and makes me shudder to think how it will develop over the next few years too
Don’t need anywhere near as much “heavy equipment” and “very long range things” if your military is not created to invade other places. Way cheaper to maintain, less issues with supply chain disruptions, easier training, faster construction and deployment, less issues with decomissioning old systems when new tech is developed.
Though I fear there will be some anti-drone weapons that will have NBC weapons levels of collateral damage developed by “the West.”
solid state lasers as a company or platoon level anti-drone weapon is my prediction
they will be also used to blind infantry (and civilians) at IR wavelengths.
and then, those shitty microsoft AR goggles will finally have an actual use case because you won’t be able to throw on blackout goggles fast enough to protect against an invisible blinding beam
So down the road you get cyberpunk-style helmets with heavy visors permanently locked down, the whole world filtered through cameras and sensors.
solid state lasers as a company or platoon level anti-drone weapon is my prediction
I’m probably going to be wrong at some point, but this seems to have been the thought for… decades. But its never materialized so I’m just tossing the idea into the “vaporware” pile.
If nobody could figure out how to get a laser to work when mounted to a whole ass navy ship with all that space for batteries and targeting systems I find it hard to belive that we’ll figure out how to make a rig that works effectively either mounted to a small truck or carried by a team of light fighters any time soon.
i could be wrong but i think they’re already in use. everyone from the U.S. to China. early production models but there’s tons of articles out there. so leaving prototyping but not mass manufactured yet
I’m not talking about sci-fi multi-megawatt lasers just kilowatt grade solid state lasers mounted on small trucks
enough to fuck a drone’s rotors up or blind optics. but easily capable of going IR for mass blinding
eh… maybe you’re right.
Just seems that its too easy to spot and kill the anti-drone trucks.
They’d have to be out in the open with line of sight and be able to track multiple small/fast moving drones, right?
I’m not talking about sci-fi multi-megawatt lasers just kilowatt grade solid state lasers mounted on small trucks enough to fuck a drone’s rotors up or blind optics. but easily capable of going IR for mass blinding
Somebody just needs to break out the aluminum foil, shiny side out, and it’ll be okay.
oh yeah i’m sure they will be priority targets. we’re still a ways away from ghost in the shell style tiny roll of quarters sized solid state anti-drone/anti-missile lasers
but i could see these systems becoming more compact over time until they serve as close in defense system on tanks, trucks, other vehicles.
tied into the vehicle power plant it would save weight vs some kind of automatic gun
closer on the horizon then say coilguns/railguns in combat i would think.
Drones are almost useless against fortifications, so tanks and artillery are still very important. Drone-armed light infantry can efficiently slow down conventional armed forces, but they would be unable to push them back. But drones will be invaluable for a guerilla war.
i think everything you said is true for nations looking to go to war in the next three to five years. After that, i’d imagine more specialized models and tactics will emerge, and versions made with civilian parts will be worse. More importantly, it would probably be best for countries to start their own drone and drone munition production. It’s about training engineers and technicians as much as it is about making weapons.
i had some other thoughts but they were really long, sorry
i think the economy of combining off the shelf drones with old munitions is possible because Ukraine and Russia have access to the Chinese markets for drone parts and lots of Soviet munitions stockpiled up. i don’t know if your average country has old stockpiles to that extent. That also has impact on design; having a big pile of surplus mortar rounds encourages designs meant to use them. It could be that in ten years, everyone serious uses some kind of shaped charge made for drones especially.
i also don’t think that drones make heavy armor or navies a waste of money. Capital ship navies have been a waste of money/ a national prestige project since the 80s at least. Back then, of course, no one had to worry about what the navy was for, because any serious conflict meant nuclear war. Battleships emerged and became obsolete within like 20 years (naval aircraft and torpedoes). Aircraft carriers emerged and became obsolete within like 50 years (anti-ship ballistic missiles). Submarines are also there. People are going to keep fighting on the water. Drones, missiles, and satellites change the details, but the big issue with boat fighting is and always has been finding where the hell the other person is and then getting there fast. Light patrol boats, missiles, and loitering underwater drones are probably going to be the budget navy of the future. i don’t think the parts for UUVs are as easy to get as quadcopters.
For heavy armor, the big problem in Ukraine is massed armor, because both sides have so many radars, satellites, and sensors that multiple vehicles are an immediately detectable and attractive target. They still use lone tanks as armored fire support, and IFVs and motorcycles together provide supporting fire for rapid movement. In other wars, countries or organizations with no armor have made technicals, which are all of the fire support of the above without protection. Most countries won’t be dealing with NATO vs Pact, farce edition, and will probably have zero satellites involved. Soldiers with motor transport will move faster than soldiers without, and soldiers with fire support will best soldiers without. If a T-70 with a cope cage is good enough for the Russians, i’m sure even the jankiest tank can be modified for a non-NATO force.
Combat aircraft is a tougher one, because i don’t think there’s been a real showdown between most air forces and most air defenses. Like yeah, that one Lightning got downed in Serbia in the 90s, and a bunch of MiGs and Mirages got wasted in the Gulf War, but those both had too many outside factors. India and Pakistan were probably both really glad to have jets during their little war, even if India lost some. We still can’t tell if the Zionists bypassed Iranian air defense systems because they were bad or because of access to Azeri airspace. The other thing worth considering is that the last time the US faced a real air defense challenge and took casualties was Vietnam. They’ve built all their planes, missiles, and radars since then to make sure it never happens again.
assuming complete air superiority, you do need to have some answer how to make armor piercing stuff without it being blown up in one place, and how to avoid logistical snags on the other parts (motors, fibers,connectors, pcb etc)
