FPV Drones and the Future Battlefield

The war in Ukraine has done quite a number on armored vehicles. What's interesting is that the difference in generations and protection levels hasn't mattered all that much. A recent M1 Abrams lost there hit a land mine, was struck with a laser guided shell, and finished off with multiple FPV drone hits. Some of this is obviously due to the changing nature of the conflict. While landmine/IED threats have been present for some time, most wars don't feature minefields kilometers (tens of kilometers in some cases) deep, and hundreds of kms long. And generally while guided artillery shells have played a role here, the use of artillery in this war is not unprecedented in principle. But FPV drones, a cheaper version of loitering munitions, represent a fairly new element. Prior to the war loitering munitions were relatively expensive and complex. And while the Russian Lancet has become quite widespread, and is now showing at over 150 strikes per month consistently, this is nothing compared to the thousands of FPV drones used by both sides. Civilian UAS adapted for battlefield use are also in principle nothing new. ISIS used quadcopters to drop grenades, and Syrian rebels have used swarms of UAVs to try and overwhelm Russian defense at Khmeimeem before, but the FPV drone as it has emerged here is different. They offer the ability to hit different projections of armor on any vehicle. They're so cheap they can be purchased with donations and so simple they can be assembled like Legos with COTS components by almost anyone. They provide a PGM capability to the last, saddest, most forgotten batallion of mobilized personnel from either side. Initially I thought they were just an erzats for proper loitering munitions, but this is clearly not the case. Their variety and non-standard nature is actually a plus as it makes it harder to come up with a one-size fits all EW solution. Their low price means their expenditure is not significant. You can throw them away in whatever quantity you have them in. The sides involved in the war have adapted by building complex cage structures over all kinds of vehicles, and by putting up netting around artillery positions and over trenches, but this has only partially helped.

So what does the future hold? Roof cages have clearly become mainstream. We've seen Israel, China, and India, using them in peacetime. FPV drones have been spotted in use by the Syrians in actual combat, but no doubt many others stand ready to follow their example. So what does this mean for the future of warfare? Clearly they have a profound effect on the survivability of an armored vehicle. They're also being used to target infantry with airburst variants fielded by both sides in Ukraine. They can overcome EW with limited automated targeting capability (we've seen this first from Russian Lancet variants, then from Ukrainian FPV drones, no doubt Russian ones with that are just around the corner too). The technology is clearly simple enough that anyone with resources will follow suit. What does this mean for future armored vehicle design? An ELINT/EW combo on every vehicle, or every 3rd/5th/10th vehicle to detect both frequencies in use and jam them before the strike lands? Giant barns of sheet metal on top of vehicles leading assault? An end to mechanized and armored warfare as we know it? And where will FPV drones go in the ORBAT? What tactical level needs to use them? A section per company? A dedicated vehicle with a launcher?

Clearly EW has a role to play in countering them as does some sort of SHORAD, possible based on lasers, possibly based on HMGs with EO or radar guidance. Positions will need to protected by anti-UAS teams, we've seen Russia and Ukraine use two-man teams with anti-drone rifles, recently Russia has used a shotgun-based munition to do this (some anti-UAS pickets have been spotted with Vepr' semi-automatic shotguns, some have been spotted using anti-UAS munitions fired from the under-barrel grenade launcher). Their effectiveness is unclear. But so far no solution has emerged that completely overcomes the issue.

What are your thoughts? Where do FPV drones fit in the ORBAT? What does this mean for armored vehicle and MBT design? What happens when COTS FPV can give you a range of tens of kms, instead of the typical 4-5 we have now and they become an effective counter-battery weapon too?

Couple years back I put this video from SCMP on drones swarm using their AI Algorithm to maneuver out of thick forests, by their own. No operator involve. When the AI already shown that capabilities, something that before only seen in sci-fi movie or novel, then the sky is limit.

Imagine sworn of those drones with Algorithm to recognize weak points on any armour vehicles, and capabilities to maneuver at will. Imagine their algorithm can recognize any uncovered spots on armour protections. This requires more actives EW protection and active smart munitions to recognize the drones maneuver. High/Medium energy laser can be part of defense, however also need sensors with fast algorithm to change direction on their defense. As the drones themselves also fast maneuvering.

Perhaps later on this is going to lead on to investment on magnetic field shields ? Too much Sci Fi ? Well the progress on AI Algorithm as the video shown, also already enter more what previously consider as Sci-fi area.

I think that while people invested in Ukraine-Russia war have reason to be pessimistic about the sheer impact of FPV drones, this shouldn't be the case for other conflicts. Ukraine-Russia war has its own unique characteristics that allow this. For nations at the lower scale of technology, this democratization of strike capabilities should be seen as an opportunity and a threat, but for nations at the forefront of technology, they're really neither.

We've heard similar talk about MALE drones over Nagorno Karabakh as they were indeed democratized similarly to FPV drones, after decades of service with air forces at the higher end of the technological scale. The same hype was transferred to the Ukraine war in its early days when Bayraktars plucked Russian targets one by one. And it ended as quickly as it started.

Being low-tech, FPV drones can be modified - as quickly as they can be entirely countered. Their key advantage, as you said, is their price. A single modern, mil-std loitering munition can cost the same as a dozen FPV drones, and be manufactured at just a fraction of the scale. But once you pit an FPV drone against an adversary with truly modern capabilities and equipment, suddenly you need to modify it quite a lot to keep it viable - secure comms (civilian drone comms broadcast the operator's coordinates), jam-resistant comms, swarm capability (ad hoc networking), day and night sensors (thermals), and purpose-made warheads. Just the comms alone can multiply an FPV drone's cost several times.
All together these can make it about as expensive as a full fledged loitering munition. It is then that we realize that its survivability is comparatively lower, and that's where they gain more niche capabilities rather than a general purpose PGM.

Regarding Ukraine and tank generations:
Both Russia and Ukraine employ old tanks, with modifications being rather ad-hoc and not an organized, modern technology-driven effort. Even the "new" Abrams, Leopard, and Challenger tanks are not really new. They're quite old, all of them, and even the most modern among them, at the year of their manufacture it could be argued that their development was lacking in scope. They are only considered "new" and better because western tech and doctrine allowed for higher quality equipment with higher survivability and ergonomics. But when it comes to dealing with an evolving threat, they were clearly not adapted, as such adaptations have to occur in parallel to the evolution of the theat, if not even preempt them. In this race, you have 2 armed forces racing for offensive technology while utilizing defensive equipment built for the threats of yesterday.

If we look at Gaza right now, we see that like Ukraine and Russia, Hamas (as does Hezbollah in Lebanon) too has drones of several types. In such environment jammers are less effective due to disruption of LoS by buildings, and the larger concentration of communications equipment limits the utility of noise jamming techniques. Yet we don't see footage like we do in Ukraine. No tanks blowing up, no drones chasing desperate troops. Nothing. IDF statistics put the number of total loss heavy AFVs at 2, with a total of 45 vehicles being hit, of which 38 needed repairs afterward. These are very low numbers for such intense fighting over 6 months and over 13,000 dead combatants on Hamas's side.
We've actually seen far more footage of Hamas running up to tanks, sticking charges on them, and running away, than drones. And it's not because they couldn't get their hands on drones.
The IDF were simply ready for such a threat. Within just a couple weeks they kitted out what was then said to be a brigade with drone hunting equipment, including the training necessary.

Today a modern army has the means to not just create a drone-hunting capability, but make it multilayered.

Elbit here explain how they offer such a capability. They employ their sensors to detect a drone, upload its data to the BMS, alert the crew, slew its manually operated sensors and weaponry to the drone, and as a last resort can utilize the onboard APS to shoot it down.
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This is something that neither Ukraine nor Russia are able to deploy at the moment, each for their own reasons.

So to summarize:
FPV and other drones are a threat now, and they may find some use in other conflicts in the future, but they don't seem to be headed toward becoming standard kit for every modern armed force, at least in the tank killing role. More relevant would be the room clearing role.

I think your examples are too specific to Israel. Let's talk about a few things.

First off geography. Israel is small, and the distances involved are short. How easy is it to effectively cover a few tens of sq kms vs thousands of sq kms of combat area? What would it look like to conduct another thunder run to Baghdad like the US did in '03 if the enemy has thousands of FPV drones? And thousands isn't even that large of a number. If they stockpiled in peacetime, it could be tens of thousands, of several hundred different model types operating on different frequencies. Consider the rather lackluster EW setup of many even modern western militaries' ground forces. How quickly could any of them saturate a front line of a size comparable to that of the war in Ukraine or the area of a country like Iraq?

Second off the question of fighting a modern adversary. A civilian drone broadcasts an operators position only if the enemy has some sort of radio-technical reconnaissance in the area ready to step in. Remember, Russia has considerable ground-based SIGINT/ELINT capability, and they can't provide it consistently across this front line. Could a country like Germany or France or even the US using present force organizations? How long does the drone spend in flight, and how much time does the operator spend in one spot? Is there anything preventing operators from being mobile? We've seen mobile set ups for Russian Lancets, how significant is it to know the location of the operator if the operator is in a moving vehicle, and once the drone hits, the location drops off?

On to the question of old tanks. First off I would question the claim that the Leo-2A6s and Strv-122s (Swedish modified Leo-2A5s) aren't modern tanks. Ditto for the T-90Ms Russia is using. They might not be cutting edge, but they are well on the newer side of what's rolling around the battlefields today. But realistically, how many countries are using exclusively tanks more modern then a T-80BVM, T-90M, or T72B3 mod'22? Last I checked even the US still operates some M1A1s. A few small European countries can afford a tiny but highly modern tank force, but for Israel, Merkava Mk. 2s have been spotted in combat. For most of the world a M1A1/A2, Leo-2A5 and newer, and post-Soviet upgraded T-72/80/90 variants are all generally modern tanks. All of these are on the Ukrainian battlefield. Second off, what exactly is the difference? What does a Merkava Mk4 offer in terms of protection from an FPV drone strike that a Merkava Mk2 doesn't? What would an M1A3 have that an M1A2 doesn't that specifically protects it from an FPV drone strike? A decent size warhead carefully aimed at the engine compartment, or rear of the hull, is likely to do some substantial damage on pretty much any tank current or future. If anything Russia's approach of rear-facing ERA screens might give the tank a chance, but a stock US M1A2 as it exists today would eat the hit straight to the rear. Now if the FPV drone has a surplus RPG-2 warhead zip-tied to it, it might simply not penetrate (or fail to explode). But some of this is the result of wartime desperation. In a more normal peacetime framework you can attach a much more effective munition. Now you might say the protection of tanks comes from the force organization and additional support assets rather then just more armor on the tanks. That's all good and well, but then it doesn't matter if it's an M1A9000 or a T-55.

And this brings me to my main issue with restricting analysis and discussion to what cutting edge first world militaries can do. This is simply not what most of the world looks like. Most wars being fought today and in the forseeable future won't be between a couple of peer adversaries with highly modern arsenals. In Syria a giant war was fought with mostly ~50 year old technology and methods with only limited innovations. Any first world country would have outperformed any of the sides in that war by a huge margin. But it didn't matter what some first world military somewhere could do in theory. What matterred was the reality of that battlefield. If FPV drones shape real wars to come, they matter. How well would India or Pakistan, Iran or Saudi Arabia, China or Taiwan deal with an FPV drone threat? Consider someone like Armenia, a state with some state-level capabilities, acquiring several thousand FPV drones over the next ~1-2 years to prepare for any possible Azeri offensive. Would someone like Azerbaijan be able to deal with this effectively? What would their response look like?

To talk about Gaza specifically. I'm not sold that Hamas had prepared the kind of drone arsenal that we're seeing in Ukraine. I haven't seen any evidence of it. We've seen some use of drones, but on a scale that's frankly pathetic. I suspect your analysis was spot on, in that Hamas hadn't really prepared for or expected a war. I don't know how well Israel would have done if Hamas had used thousands of FPV drones in the opening weeks of the fight.

Fair to say many tier 1 military analysts are evaluating future options for the battle space. Given the high costs of armoured vehicles, a better combination of tactics and anti-drone/SHORAD kit will be needed along with EW kit. EW and laser advances could render FPVs to the back burner, probably the most wished for solution. However the sheer volume of FPVs and their minimal costs, troubling.