"We have come a long way since a gunner trying to get a lucky shot off with a high powered rifle. Now it comes down to a soldier carrying a lightweight tube, launching a suicide drone, and then waiting for the fireworks to happen."
In the early days of WW II, when the Nazis invaded Poland, Germany had a strong tank presence. Poland did not. With this advantage weighing so heavily with the Nazis, it was incumbent upon the Poles to come up with something - and fast! They found out Nazi tanks were lightly armored - just thick enough to keep out enemy rounds.
So the Polish Army came up with a "super rifle" - the wz 35, which could fire a larger caliber round with enough velocity to pernitrate the skin of a Nazi tank. It did not take the Nazis very long to figure what was happening - so they simply put some extra armor on their tanks. The rest is history. Poland fell quickly to Nazi advances.
Flash forward to today. Being a "tanker" in an enemy tank, going up against forces supplied by the United States, is not a good place to be. The skies have become littered with very smart, very lethal, anti armor drones. The new ones are called "suicide drones" as they are cheap, lightweight, and can be launched from just about anywhere.
From the wire guided TOW missile (very expensive), to the Javelin missile (not as expensive), to the Switchblade (very cheap and deadly), to the Phoenix Ghost missile (also very cheap and deadly), our menu of anti armor solutions keeps growing. What do the Russians think about this menu of death? They HATE it! The Ukrainian landscape is strewn with dead carcasses of Russian armor - many of which fell victim to Javelins or suicide drones.
Our DOD is way excited about the success our drones are having in the skies over Ukraine. So much so, they are now looking for contractors who can also make them, only with "longer legs". Why? To really take the fight to Russia. Start destroying Russian armor even before it crosses the border of Ukraine.
We have come a long way since a gunner trying to get a lucky shot off with a high powered rifle. Now it comes down to a soldier carrying a lightweight tube, launching a suicide drone, and then waiting for the fireworks to happen.
If this is what the battlefield landscape is looking like in 2022, I can't even imaging what it will look like in 2030. And it won't just be the United States which has drones like this - the proliferation of these things will probably be close to endless.
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