Zelenskyy states Russia lost battlefield initiative in Dec 2025, arguing Ukraine has a diplomacy window before winter if sanctions pressure on Russia continues.
Drone tech has had exactly the same effect machine guns and precise artillery had in WW1: an advantage of the defense over the offense, which turns the war into one of attrition.
Neither side is able to do sweeping maneuvers and break through defensive lines until the other side’s ability to fight is completely exhausted.
This war won’t end before Putin is gone, one way or the other.
The main difference between WWI and Today’s trench warfare the the level of intelligence available, combined with the ability to precision-strike.
It’s interesting because drones are very mobile, able to be deployed close to the front, and extremely deadly, but simultaneously limited. The heavier payload ones can also be longer range, but counter-UAV technology (mostly jamming) makes these harder to use. In comparison, the shorter-range drones can be sent via cable - impossible to jam, but limited flight distance due to the trailing wire + weight.
The application of drones on the battlefield also favors the defender. The small-payload drones are exceptional at taking out moving vehicles and light infantry, and overhead imagery (via drone or satellite) is nearly omnipresent. With neither side able to secure complete air power, the normal target softening approach of airstrikes followed by troop movement isn’t viable, and then drones take out even the most spread-out groups moving forward. The result is that the doctrinal 3:1 attacker ratio that favors defenders is even more lopsided with drones. I fear that we’ll see a greatly increased use of autonomous weaponry as a result, which is extremely dangerous for humanity.
Are autonomous guns that are moved via servos and aimed via AI cameras a thing yet? I imagine simply trailers with 10-20 rifles that just blast any and all drones with mostly standard munitions. Projectiles should be much faster so it should be possible to shoot any drone down at close enough range, and it should be much cheaper so eventually you should be able to just defend against drone swarms with enough auto turrets.
I imagine we’re still far from the technological peak of drone warfare.
What you just described I’m pretty sure the United States has, at least as air defense aboard Navy vessels. That is, I remember seeing a video with an automatic anti-air gun designed to shoot down missiles that sounds pretty close. This was during Gulf War I mind you, so the tech has been around for a while.
I dont’ see why they couldn’t put one of those on a truck or tank.
I’d imagine something with lasers that fry the drones would be more likely. Like that guy who built a mosquito killing auto-targeting laser for his backyard. No reloading and can shoot drones down all night and day as long as it’s got power.
There are weapons that use sensor fusion already, with computer vision being used mostly on the offensive side. The issue for fixed defensive emplacements is that the attack drones are quite fast, and small for their lethality. The fusion is built off radar, acoustic (sound) and visible spectrum, but isn’t reliable and only recently portable. Humans (which have excellent sensing capability) have been in the loop with aimed jammers, and this has become standard equipment at the platoon level.
Timely detection is hard, and the interception is tricky too. Costly interceptors work better than bullets, and can protect a larger area, but even a 95% interception range isn’t super effective, as we saw with some of the $1b radomes lost by US Forces this year.
Personally, I think we’ve sadly only seen the start of autonomous, self-guided ‘suicide’ drones. These are the weapons that terrify me. Not accountable, cheap, and they can easily be turned against civilian infrastructure. Computer vision is robust, but shrinking the sensor + decision maker still needs work (at least, thats what the unclassified info tells me)
Yeah definitely scary - once you can mass produce drones or combat robots in the millions they become weapons of mass destruction.
I still imagine robots shooting normal caliber guns far better than soldiers can would be a game changer. There was this article about Iran simply producing massively cheaper and that is why they won the war, and overwhelm the expensive toys and defenses of the US. Just state owned weapon manufacturing with long term stability in planning. So if you can take down a drone with 100 bullets it’s going to be cheaper than 1 expensive interceptor drone.
The long range ones are increasingly small aircraft running on dead reckoning for final or loss of comms, ie. Jamming has very little effect at this point.
Why would that be, that drone warfare advantages defense?
For an offensive action you need to concentrate enough forces and material in one area to achieve a breakthrough.
In Ukraine, there is now a “grey area” between the fronts which neither side controls but is permanently patrolled by drones, similar to WW1’s “no-mans-land”.
It’s up to 20-30km wide, and any vehicle entering it is destroyed by drone swarms.
Crossing it on foot takes up to a week, and less than 10% make it through alive.
This makes it impossible to bring heavy equipment to the actual front line for an assault, or even re-supply your soldiers hiding in trenches there.
Drone tech has had exactly the same effect machine guns and precise artillery had in WW1: an advantage of the defense over the offense, which turns the war into one of attrition.
Neither side is able to do sweeping maneuvers and break through defensive lines until the other side’s ability to fight is completely exhausted.
This war won’t end before Putin is gone, one way or the other.
Why would that be, that drone warfare advantages defense?
WW1 era weapons advancements like machine guns advantaged defense, because these new weapons were not easily mobile. But drones are extremely mobile.
The main difference between WWI and Today’s trench warfare the the level of intelligence available, combined with the ability to precision-strike.
It’s interesting because drones are very mobile, able to be deployed close to the front, and extremely deadly, but simultaneously limited. The heavier payload ones can also be longer range, but counter-UAV technology (mostly jamming) makes these harder to use. In comparison, the shorter-range drones can be sent via cable - impossible to jam, but limited flight distance due to the trailing wire + weight.
The application of drones on the battlefield also favors the defender. The small-payload drones are exceptional at taking out moving vehicles and light infantry, and overhead imagery (via drone or satellite) is nearly omnipresent. With neither side able to secure complete air power, the normal target softening approach of airstrikes followed by troop movement isn’t viable, and then drones take out even the most spread-out groups moving forward. The result is that the doctrinal 3:1 attacker ratio that favors defenders is even more lopsided with drones. I fear that we’ll see a greatly increased use of autonomous weaponry as a result, which is extremely dangerous for humanity.
Are autonomous guns that are moved via servos and aimed via AI cameras a thing yet? I imagine simply trailers with 10-20 rifles that just blast any and all drones with mostly standard munitions. Projectiles should be much faster so it should be possible to shoot any drone down at close enough range, and it should be much cheaper so eventually you should be able to just defend against drone swarms with enough auto turrets.
I imagine we’re still far from the technological peak of drone warfare.
What you just described I’m pretty sure the United States has, at least as air defense aboard Navy vessels. That is, I remember seeing a video with an automatic anti-air gun designed to shoot down missiles that sounds pretty close. This was during Gulf War I mind you, so the tech has been around for a while.
I dont’ see why they couldn’t put one of those on a truck or tank.
I’d imagine something with lasers that fry the drones would be more likely. Like that guy who built a mosquito killing auto-targeting laser for his backyard. No reloading and can shoot drones down all night and day as long as it’s got power.
Right! That exists, at $3 per laser shot.
There are weapons that use sensor fusion already, with computer vision being used mostly on the offensive side. The issue for fixed defensive emplacements is that the attack drones are quite fast, and small for their lethality. The fusion is built off radar, acoustic (sound) and visible spectrum, but isn’t reliable and only recently portable. Humans (which have excellent sensing capability) have been in the loop with aimed jammers, and this has become standard equipment at the platoon level.
Timely detection is hard, and the interception is tricky too. Costly interceptors work better than bullets, and can protect a larger area, but even a 95% interception range isn’t super effective, as we saw with some of the $1b radomes lost by US Forces this year.
Personally, I think we’ve sadly only seen the start of autonomous, self-guided ‘suicide’ drones. These are the weapons that terrify me. Not accountable, cheap, and they can easily be turned against civilian infrastructure. Computer vision is robust, but shrinking the sensor + decision maker still needs work (at least, thats what the unclassified info tells me)
Yeah definitely scary - once you can mass produce drones or combat robots in the millions they become weapons of mass destruction.
I still imagine robots shooting normal caliber guns far better than soldiers can would be a game changer. There was this article about Iran simply producing massively cheaper and that is why they won the war, and overwhelm the expensive toys and defenses of the US. Just state owned weapon manufacturing with long term stability in planning. So if you can take down a drone with 100 bullets it’s going to be cheaper than 1 expensive interceptor drone.
The long range ones are increasingly small aircraft running on dead reckoning for final or loss of comms, ie. Jamming has very little effect at this point.
For an offensive action you need to concentrate enough forces and material in one area to achieve a breakthrough.
In Ukraine, there is now a “grey area” between the fronts which neither side controls but is permanently patrolled by drones, similar to WW1’s “no-mans-land”.
It’s up to 20-30km wide, and any vehicle entering it is destroyed by drone swarms.
Crossing it on foot takes up to a week, and less than 10% make it through alive.
This makes it impossible to bring heavy equipment to the actual front line for an assault, or even re-supply your soldiers hiding in trenches there.