Thing is, modern drones that can take out tanks don't really need staging areas. You can fit one in your backpack and operate it out of a hole in the ground.

[–] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm not talking small airfield, more like the cache where you would actually keep and distribute the drones.
The whole thing falls apart of you can't keep resupplying them, even if they don't need much space to operate.

[–] zephyreks@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Distributing modern drones isn't any different from distributing guns or ammunition or food or supplies. They're small, easy to pack, individually distributable, and require minimal infrastructure.

You might need a lot of infrastructure to launch a Predator, but I could build an FPV drone in my room.

[–] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, but in a warzone distribution of those things can be hard, and is only made harder by an opponent that can bomb you and you have minimal ability to defend or get warning.

You can't just handwave logistics and supply line defense. At some point things get put on a truck and driven to where you hand them out. If the trucks get blown up or that distribution point gets bombed, you can't hand out the drones, and if you can't get them to troops it doesn't matter if they would trounce a tank.

In Ukraine no one has air superiority, so both parties are facing similar logistics issues.

The next time the US does a ground invasion, it'll invariably have air superiority because of navel missile assets and long range bombers being able to clear out defenses. So it'll be curious to see how effective that will be at countering the drones.

[–] zephyreks@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If the US is fighting a peer war, how do you plan on them gaining aerial superiority and naval superiority? Ukraine's operations in the Black Sea demonstrate that you can do the exact same thing you're doing with drones in the ocean, and Russia/China both have hypersonic missiles for more distant naval assets.

Moreover, your ability to project with bombers only exists if you've taken out enemy anti-aircraft systems, so you would need air superiority in the first place. That's not a given since F-35s are notorious for having incredibly finicky maintenance that reduces their uptime.

Wars are decided by logistics, so your statement that "if you don't have logistics then drones are useless" is basically saying "if you've lost the war then you've lost the war." Drones require far less logistical management than aircraft or ships or tanks but are easily capable of taking on any one of those things.

[–] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well, for one I thought I was pretty clear in saying I wasn't talking about the US fighting a peer war. That's what I was specifically curious about how it would play out. Are smaller drone tactics like we're seeing in Ukraine able to counter air superiorities ability to make a safe operating environment for troops and armor?

Conjecture about a war between the US and China is entirely out of scope. If the current war has shown anything, it's that Russia isn't actually in the class everyone assumed.

[–] zephyreks@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

How far off is Ukraine from a peer, though? What are they missing that the US would have in the same conflict (other than sheer numbers)?

Stealth aircraft? Russia has been deploying those.

Naval power? Not really relevant in the Black Sea, particularly with Russian naval defences and antiship missiles.

This is what modern warfare looks like. The only reason this is a shock is because the US has spent the past few decades bullying terrorists in the Middle East.

Thing is, air superiority doesn't do jack shit because drones aren't really operating in "airspace," they're operating barely above the treeline.