Hm… I actually think Ukraine is probably at the forefront of UAV development worldwide at this point (both mass scale domestic production and innovation in design / tactics).
At the beginning of the war they were using bayraktars and commercial quadcopters, and maybe a handful of officially-military-designed western drones. Obviously they drew on established technology, but I actually think at this point developing a completely new generation of UAVs is exactly what they’ve done (primarily in the aspect of how to keep them tactically effective while making them small and cheap so they can be produced at scale at a limited tech-tier, which isn’t something the Western manufacturers really specialize in.)
I think the vital stuff they’re importing is tons of artillery rounds and cruise missiles, stuff where you can’t really cheap it out in the same way, but if the Kremlin starts getting hit with ATACMS munitions I don’t think it’s gonna fly to say “naw we found it refurbished bro, nothing to do with the West.” IDK, give it time, maybe by a couple years from now they’re gonna find themselves at the forefront of production of glide bombs that can reach hundreds of km after building on their exhaustive experience making FPV drones.
There’s not really a substitute for putting stuff into practice every day, with a heavy heavy penalty if you don’t get it right. All the money in the world won’t get you the same level of solution effectiveness as that will.
Hm… I actually think Ukraine is probably at the forefront of UAV development worldwide at this point (both mass scale domestic production and innovation in design / tactics).
At the beginning of the war they were using bayraktars and commercial quadcopters, and maybe a handful of officially-military-designed western drones. Obviously they drew on established technology, but I actually think at this point developing a completely new generation of UAVs is exactly what they’ve done (primarily in the aspect of how to keep them tactically effective while making them small and cheap so they can be produced at scale at a limited tech-tier, which isn’t something the Western manufacturers really specialize in.)
I think the vital stuff they’re importing is tons of artillery rounds and cruise missiles, stuff where you can’t really cheap it out in the same way, but if the Kremlin starts getting hit with ATACMS munitions I don’t think it’s gonna fly to say “naw we found it refurbished bro, nothing to do with the West.” IDK, give it time, maybe by a couple years from now they’re gonna find themselves at the forefront of production of glide bombs that can reach hundreds of km after building on their exhaustive experience making FPV drones.
Yeah, for real, they’re doing stuff with drone design and warfare that have some western defense industry execs and flag officers all like
There’s not really a substitute for putting stuff into practice every day, with a heavy heavy penalty if you don’t get it right. All the money in the world won’t get you the same level of solution effectiveness as that will.
Necessity is the mother of invention, and all that.