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Thoughts on drones inspired by a special kind of missile [1]

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Date: 2023-08-16

First diary: please be gentle. I’ve wanted to write a few but never found the time to sufficiently develop the idea.

Image is taken from third link in the story (mil.in.UA).

I have been inspired by a few diaries on this site and elsewhere detailing some of the platforms and technologies being made available to Ukraine, and these have seeded some ideas in my mind. This diary is simply “What a Cornelius Atherton-Tozer drone program would look like”. I don’t claim any original thoughts however I haven’t as yet seen this exact combination of ideas together in one place.

RO37 just recently detailed the German LUNA NG reconnaissance drone. This is a moderately priced (likely low 6 figure dollar) high altitude drone with fairly exquisite reconnaissance capability and low observability profile. Low observability is accomplished by small size and quiet & cool electric motor. The drone is resistant to most EW counter measures, largely because of pre-programmed flight paths and lack of reliance on spoofable navigation aids such as GPS.

Combined this makes it hard to detect, cost ineffective to destroy, but not recklessly disposable.

All in all in the drone arms race this looks to be the latest in evolutionary adaptations against which there is likely no cost effective in-theatre counter. At the cheaper end of the spectrum are the less capable commercial drones which are easily destroyed and have to be constantly replaced. At the more expensive end, multi-million dollar drones like the Bayrakter look to have their best days behind them and are barely present on the battlefield as best we can observe. LUNA NG looks to occupy the sweet spot in the middle. However, given how swiftly drone counter measures have reduced the utility/ effectiveness/ survivability of these lower and higher spec drones I fully expect there to be an efficacious and cost effective adaptation to this mid-tier drone in time. This will not be the last word in the drone arms race.

Another RO37 diary which captured my attention was about a proposed operation to take down the Kerch bridge. Amongst many things, his diary introduced me to the ADM-160 Miniature Air-Launched Decoy (MALD) missile. This missile is a dummy, contains no warhead nor anything sophisticated, and it is cheap. It is designed to be detected by anti-aircraft defence (AAD) and can “impersonate” aircraft by replicating their radar signature. I was quite taken by the possibilities this idea presents, as presumably were the Ukrainians when conceiving of the home grown Trembita cruise missile. This missile is cheap to make and is intended to be fired in a large barrage where many of the missiles do not contain warheads or other expensive components.

The purpose of these missile types is two fold. Overwhelm and paralyse the AAD target acquisition decision system, and/or exhaust the AAD missile stocks in a battle which strongly favours Ukraine in the ratio of comparative costs.

Very likely you now know exactly where I am going but I’m going to walk this story home regardless.

I have several premises to my thoughts about drones in warfare:

> As a relatively new capability there is a lot of adaptation and counter adaptation still to go in this arms race

> A high intensity conflict accelerates this adaptation due to evolutionary pressure

> Iterations are rapid due to the above plus low costs and wide ranges of applicable technologies

> Since drones are unmanned the appetite for risk and experimentation is extremely high

Putting these together I don’t necessarily see a prolonged period of invulnerability for the LUNA NG. If it is as effective as it promises to be then there will be evolutionary pressure for rapid development of a counter measure. A conceivable evolutionary branch (and note this isn’t a prediction, only musing on a possibility) would be the development of combat drones, or anti-drone drones. A projectile firing drone might make short work of slow and high flying reconnaissance drones like the LUNA NG. A counter to this counter might be LUNA NG accompanied by wings of its own protective combat drones (anti-anti-drone drones if you will). The above may sound familiar - it would be a mirror of roughly the same setup within manned military aircraft deployment.

However because drones are unmanned some of the constraints of manned aircraft are removed. All manned craft must have survivability foremost. Not so with drones. Yet it is not cost effective to have your relatively exquisite, higher end drones considered expendable. Drones, like missiles, can be cheap or they can be expensive, and they can look identical to outside observers despite very different capabilities housed inside.

So, the drone program I would initiate if I had my own military factory and needed to deliver the capabilities of LUNA NG would look like this:

> Drone size based on the cheapest design which meets the requirements (flight time, high altitude, payload). No need to try to make it small or reduce its radar cross-section. Indeed, I’d propose that the more detectable the better.

> Engine/motor based on the cheapest to meet the same above requirements (flight time, high altitude, payload). No need to be quiet nor to run cool. No need to be fast. Indeed noisy, hot and slow are again good things.

> Reconnaissance hardware, navigation & controls etc to be the cheapest that meets the requirements and fits within the airframe. No need for miniaturisation, or to squeeze into a constrained space. Cooling etc is less of a constraint requiring fewer design considerations.

> The blisters which contain the reconnaissance equipment can, of course, be left empty and usually will be.

The above drone would be cheap and would be highly observable. Rather than trying to hide a single exquisite drone by making it difficult to detect instead make a cheap drone which is easy to detect and protect it by other means.

Let’s think of a number N. For every N drones constructed only one contains the expensive reconnaissance equipment. The greater the number N the lower the average per unit cost per “true reconnaissance” drone. However, the greater the value of N the greater the total cost per “true reconnaissance” drone, although that cost increase is logarithmic therefore cost effective.

In order to conduct one reconnaissance drone operation Ukraine should launch N drones. Let’s now put a number on N, and let’s make it 20. What russia now sees is 20 large, noisy drones flying outside the range of cheaper AAD. The Hobson’s choice now presented to russia is:

a) do nothing and seeth that you’re under 24/7 observation, and that observation is obvious to all from the generals to the grunts in trenches

b) fire expensive medium/long range AAD missiles knowing that you’re being bled dry in a grossly asymmetric cost ratio, and you need to take out well over 10 drones to have any confidence that you’ve eliminated the reconnaissance drone. To add insult to injury you’d expose a load of AAD positions

From a Ukrainian perspective this is win-win. In the first scenario you can gradually increase the ratio of reconnaissance drones (decrease the value of N), improving your visibility of the battlefield. In the second scenario you can do the inverse (increase the value of N) and worsen the cost ratio for russia even further.

To my feeble mind applying the principles of the MALD and Trembita to high altitude drones is a reasonable proposition. They share many characteristic, namely:

> Unmanned

> Inexpensive when stripped of all the exquisite kit

> Currently only countered by expensive AAD

> Can be produced at the necessary scale (several hundred or thousand units)

One note to interject into my narrative in case it has crossed your mind: I see these drones as distinct from drone swarms. Swarms are intended to be comprised of like drones which all possess a degree of capability and act in concert with one another. My suggestion presents two completely different classes of drone, and each drone acts independently of all the others. Their “interdependence” is illusionary and no more than proximate flight plans.

Earlier I mentioned the drone arms race, and that I suspect that LUNA NG will be countered sooner or later. To close I need to make some reference to this. There’s no reason that my suggestion would be immune to counters. However I have struggled to think of any counters against which this arrangement would be the same or more vulnerable than the LUNA NG. Perhaps the “true reconnaissance” drone can be detected; perhaps it emits a radar signature. A counter to this would be to better simulate the profile in the sacrificial dummies (at increased cost of course). The drones would be just as vulnerable to anti-drone drones however the herd effect would protect the reconnaissance drone through simple probability until either missions are aborted or the anti-anti-drones are brought to bear. Perhaps there is an Achilles heel I have missed; feel free to tear into my thoughts in the comments.

If nothing else I hope I’ve diverted your mind for a few minutes and perhaps, if I’ve done a good enough job, stimulated a little thought and conversation on this topic.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/16/2187759/-Thoughts-on-drones-inspired-by-a-special-kind-of-missile

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