drones are massively cheaper and per-unit also more effective than these other anti-tank weapons you mention.
And because they are so massively more effective we know of tanks getting hit by a dozen of themn and just moving on… Oh, wait. Your reference for everything are old Russian tanks (not build for quality but quantity even back then) used badly because Russia sucks at combined arms. All while using support systems that are even older or have their supposed capability only on paper.
Pretending that the war in Ukraine is a modern war because there are mass amounts of drones used is constantly missing the point. That war is as much defined by using obsolete tech and tactics while severely lacking capable air defenses as it is by the addition of drones that incidently exactly exploit that gap.
The thinking you have in your post is the reason why the most advanced military on the earth wastes 7 pac3 missiles on a single Shahed in Iran.
Truth is, nobody have good solutions vs drones yet. Bigger ones like Shahed, yes, maybe, if you have a lot of practice and are capable to build layered AA grid. FPVs are uncounterable yet.
The US military is used to fighting adversaries way below their own capabilities and doesn’t worry about conserving resources, because they like imagining that their supply chain will just deliver more. Iran has spent decades preparing for just this fight, and developed weapons, capabilities, and strategies to specifically exploit this weakness. Sending countless waves of cheap drones to expend expensive and hard to replace interceptor missiles is an attack aimed at both magazine depth and production capabilities. Every drone that gets intercepted by an expensive missile is a victory for whoever launched the drone, because it does damage by the millions of dollars just by destroying an, (or worse, multiple) interceptor missile(s), and depletes the interceptor stockpile.
Ukraine has figured out counter drone tactics quite well already, and will get better out of sheer necessity.
Ukraine has figured out how to counter shaheds - and it’s not some silver bullet, it’s a huge system of quick responders AND some of them are antiair drones teams.
Ukraine haven’t figured out what to do with enemy FPVs. Neither did russia. Which created a deep killzone out of the frontlines. Any serious discussions about defense strategy should be taking this experience as a baseline, not as some incident only applicable for the poor countries.
You can make thousands of drones for the cost of a single modern tank. No amount of hand wringing is going to change the fact that it has gotten a lot cheaper and effective to destroy tanks because of them.
And because they are so massively more effective we know of tanks getting hit by a dozen of themn and just moving on… Oh, wait. Your reference for everything are old Russian tanks (not build for quality but quantity even back then) used badly because Russia sucks at combined arms. All while using support systems that are even older or have their supposed capability only on paper.
Pretending that the war in Ukraine is a modern war because there are mass amounts of drones used is constantly missing the point. That war is as much defined by using obsolete tech and tactics while severely lacking capable air defenses as it is by the addition of drones that incidently exactly exploit that gap.
The thinking you have in your post is the reason why the most advanced military on the earth wastes 7 pac3 missiles on a single Shahed in Iran.
Truth is, nobody have good solutions vs drones yet. Bigger ones like Shahed, yes, maybe, if you have a lot of practice and are capable to build layered AA grid. FPVs are uncounterable yet.
That’s because they are as wasteful and learning averse as they are capable on paper.
https://united24media.com/latest-news/eight-missile-for-one-drone-ukrainian-instructors-shocked-by-us-drone-defense-tactics-17085
The US military is used to fighting adversaries way below their own capabilities and doesn’t worry about conserving resources, because they like imagining that their supply chain will just deliver more. Iran has spent decades preparing for just this fight, and developed weapons, capabilities, and strategies to specifically exploit this weakness. Sending countless waves of cheap drones to expend expensive and hard to replace interceptor missiles is an attack aimed at both magazine depth and production capabilities. Every drone that gets intercepted by an expensive missile is a victory for whoever launched the drone, because it does damage by the millions of dollars just by destroying an, (or worse, multiple) interceptor missile(s), and depletes the interceptor stockpile.
Ukraine has figured out counter drone tactics quite well already, and will get better out of sheer necessity.
Ukraine has figured out how to counter shaheds - and it’s not some silver bullet, it’s a huge system of quick responders AND some of them are antiair drones teams.
Ukraine haven’t figured out what to do with enemy FPVs. Neither did russia. Which created a deep killzone out of the frontlines. Any serious discussions about defense strategy should be taking this experience as a baseline, not as some incident only applicable for the poor countries.
You can make thousands of drones for the cost of a single modern tank. No amount of hand wringing is going to change the fact that it has gotten a lot cheaper and effective to destroy tanks because of them.
An AT4 missile costs less than a tenth of what a lancet anti tank drone costs, have been around for 30 years and yet tanks still exist.
A bullet costs less than a soldier, why aren’t soldiers obsolete yet?
Because neither are as effective per unit.
And so defenses against that specific threat will improve (see: anti-air capable remote weapons stations, active defense, EW).
The same was said when RPGs were invented, then again for ATGMs, the again for their top-attack variants… yet here we are.