UK military drone capabilities

[Ayahuasca]

So the war in Azerbaijan a couple of years ago, and now in Ukraine, demonstrates the game-changing nature of militarised drones. Not just the big sophisticated Predator types, but small almost hobbyist drones capable of scouting enemy positions and dropping grenades down tank hatches.

So, has the British Army updated its infantry tactics? I remember being trained to take out enemy trenches by crawling up to them and tossing a grenade in. This required coordinating lots of infantry and putting them in danger.

Now, in Ukraine, a drone operator would simply fly over the trench and drop a grenade in. No infantry at risk.

So has the British army updated its doctrine to include small drone attacks?

[Spare tyre]

I have a hobby grade drone

In theory I can click on something on a map and tell it to fly there, all for £200

What the Ukrainians are doing with the cheap hoody grade drones is fitting a relay to the lights, when you turn the lights on, the relay releases it’s payload and you are off

If someone was to release swarms of these it could be very nasty very quickly

I am very nervous of the Chinese

[ATG]

No idea what the Army does or doesn't have, so, swerving off-topic, I rather doubt that hobby drones or small commercial ones would be much use against a competent adversary on the battle field because they rely on GPS/Glosnass/Galileo to determine their positions and a standard set of radio frequencies to communicate with their operator. Both of those are very easily spoofed and jammed, particularly over very short ranges which is all you'd need to protect infantry from a grenade. For guerrilla activity, probably much more of a problem.

[Ayahuasca]

Are there anti-drone drones?

Some of the small drone footage is horrific, like hovering over some Russian infantry cosily asleep in their harbour area, clearly visible to the drone’s IR camera, and dropping a grenade onto their sleeping bags.

At the very least our sleeping bags and bivvy bags should be made IR invisible.

[aeropilot]

Ayahuasca said:

So has the British army updated its doctrine to include small drone attacks?

I would imagine, there are lots of Armies around the world that are currently developing and evaluating new tactics as more and more information and footage from Ukraine becomes available.

I would think that the training that is being given to Ukraine troops here in UK, is a two way thing, and the knowledge and experience that is brought out by those that have already been on the front line in Ukraine is being evaluated by the British Forces.

[Tony1963]

All military forces around the world are involved in the never ending fight to be one step ahead of the perceived enemy’s technology and tactics. Drones are no different in this respect. There’ll be many extremely clever people scratching their heads while thinking up ideas that most of us can’t imagine.

[GliderRider]

Ayahuasca said:

Are there anti-drone drones?

Some of the small drone footage is horrific, like hovering over some Russian infantry cosily asleep in their harbour area, clearly visible to the drone’s IR camera, and dropping a grenade onto their sleeping bags.

At the very least our sleeping bags and bivvy bags should be made IR invisible.

There certainly are anti-drone drones, for multirotor and fixed wing types. Videos of them in action in Ukraine are on Youtube.

The footage of the bombing of Russian trenches is even more horrific when you read the comments. in many cases the soldiers being bombed were considered by people who recognised the signs, to have made little effort to react or move away from the bombs before they went off because they were already suffering from hypothermia. Most of the Russians in the trenches are as much victims of this war as anyone else.

The difference between drones now and the ones I worked on in the 1980s is that now most of the clever stuff is done on one or two chips as the market is so large for them. In the 1980s every bit of electronics, with the exception of the servos, had to be built from scratch.
For years only the Israelis had any real world fixed wing UAV experience with their Pioneer and Scout UAVs, only when the GEC Phoenix was deployed in Gulf 1 did our military start to take what they could do seriously, and Phoenix had some pretty major shortcomings.
The hand launched Desert Hawk was the closest we had to modern drones, and that came in in 2007.
It is reaching the stage that every soldier can have his own 'eye in the sky' or even 'grenadier in the sky', with small multi-rotor drones, and the advantage that gives against an enemy without the same is immense.

Edited by GliderRider on Thursday 30th March 12:12

[Krupp88]

ATG said:

No idea what the Army does or doesn't have, so, swerving off-topic, I rather doubt that hobby drones or small commercial ones would be much use against a competent adversary on the battle field because they rely on GPS/Glosnass/Galileo to determine their positions and a standard set of radio frequencies to communicate with their operator. Both of those are very easily spoofed and jammed, particularly over very short ranges which is all you'd need to protect infantry from a grenade. For guerrilla activity, probably much more of a problem.

The smaller drones are also are not going to be battle winning, damaging to moral but the effects are limited (unless you leave the hatch on your tank open). The greater threat would be the new generation of loitering suicide drones, for example Lancet. What is needed is a cost effective way to engage without using expensive countermeasures that cost far more than the target.

[Spare tyre]

Ayahuasca said:

Are there anti-drone drones?

Some of the small drone footage is horrific, like hovering over some Russian infantry cosily asleep in their harbour area, clearly visible to the drone’s IR camera, and dropping a grenade onto their sleeping bags.

At the very least our sleeping bags and bivvy bags should be made IR invisible.

I may have seen in central London a while back (or might have been on the tv, I’m getting old) a large drone with a net type arrangement hanging underneath, the idea is it would fly about over whatever was of interest and snare the smaller naughty drones

May have even made all that up, who knows

[Spare tyre]

Ayahuasca said:

Are there anti-drone drones?

Some of the small drone footage is horrific, like hovering over some Russian infantry cosily asleep in their harbour area, clearly visible to the drone’s IR camera, and dropping a grenade onto their sleeping bags.

At the very least our sleeping bags and bivvy bags should be made IR invisible.

I may have seen in central London a while back (or might have been on the tv, I’m getting old) a large drone with a net type arrangement hanging underneath, the idea is it would fly about over whatever was of interest and snare the smaller naughty drones

May have even made all that up, who knows


Edit, this was it

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2948062/T...