NATO Struggles to Keep Up as Drone Warfare Gets Gamified
And more on the development of new battlefield tactics.
We continue our series of looking ahead at the changing face of warfare and ‘revolution in military affairs’ taking place in Ukraine, and how it’s affecting all other militaries of the world.
We’ve of course heard ad nauseam about the supremacy of drones of all kinds, in particular how Ukraine has been increasingly leveraging a drone-centric style of defensive warfare. The latest logical progression of that is reported to be a ‘gamification’ of drone warfare, where Ukrainian units are awarded ‘points’ for certain type of drone kills, and a national ‘leaderboard’ system can be used to ‘cash out’ for important supplies:
It bears resemblance to modern transactional game design, where you accumulate tokens or credits in exchange for important upgrades. Sure, it may seem barbaric and crude on the surface—even Politico dubs it “macabre”—but it is only a natural extension to Ukraine’s necessary min-maxing of their only military trump card.
The program — called Army of Drones bonus — rewards soldiers with points if they upload videos proving their drones have hit Russian targets. It will soon be integrated with a new online marketplace called Brave 1 Market, which will allow troops to convert those points into new equipment for their units.
Listen to the explanation below:
The latest developments have forced every Western nation to scramble to urgently reconfigure their forces for the ‘fight of the future’. After becoming Secretary of Defense, Hegseth launched a large-scale reorientation of the US military, starting with the axing of a wide array of ‘wasteful’ programs—likely due to the realization that drones would have obsoleted many of these newer systems.
The most notable has been the cancellation of the vaunted M10 Booker ‘light tank’ program.
The US Army under SECDEF Hegseth will cancel any further procurement of "excess" vehicles like the M10 Booker, HMMWV and JLTV while also divesting of "outdated" MQ-1C Grey Eagle and AH-64D Apache without any concrete plan on replacing these systems with newer variants.
Meanwhile, WSJ reports:
The U.S. Army is embarking on its largest overhaul since the end of the Cold War, with plans to equip each of its combat divisions with around 1,000 drones and to shed outmoded weapons and other equipment.
The plan, the product of more than a year of experimentation at this huge training range in Bavaria and other U.S. bases, draws heavily on lessons from the war in Ukraine, where small unmanned aircraft used in large numbers have transformed the battlefield.
The commander of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment expresses the urgency of the pivot:
“We’ve got to learn how to use drones, how to fight with them, how to scale them, produce them, and employ them in our fights so we can see beyond line of sight,” said Col. Donald Neal, the commander of the U.S. 2nd Cavalry Regiment. “We’ve always had drones since I’ve been in the Army, but it has been very few.”
The article notes that current US divisions (made up of 3 or more brigades) are equipped with about a dozen long range drones each—a far cry from the required amount. But US’ copycatting of Russian tactics goes deeper than merely drone volumes.
The article reiterates that the US Army is dumping many of its older vehicles, and will now equip infantry squads with the Infantry Squad Vehicle (ISV), which bears more than a passing resemblance to the various lightweight open air tactical vehicles—like the Chinese Desertcross-1000—the Russians have been favoring in Ukraine:
The above instructive thread gives a glimpse at some of the new restructured US Army units:
They will ride on the M1301 ISVs, and according to the Army's TiC 1.0 plan, all IBCTs will be converted to Mobile Brigade Combat Teams (MBCTs). Even the National Guard's ABCTs will be converted to MBCTs.
Retired US Army Major General Patrick Donahoe lashed out at the ‘backwards’ changes:
As a former Deputy Commanding General of the 10th Mountain Division, I saw up close that the Infantry Brigade Combat Team (IBCT) couldn’t fight on the modern battlefield. It was too slow, too vulnerable, and lacked firepower. The Army had a fix. Until this week.
His summary:
The plan was smart:
•ISVs to move rifle squads quickly
•LRVs to give Cavalry squadrons mobility and sensors
•M10 Bookers to restore firepower to the dismounted fight. It wasn’t perfect, but it made the IBCT relevant again.
Now the Army has canceled the M10. The LRV is nowhere in sight. And what’s left? An “MBCT” concept with no protected firepower, no recon platform, and a few light vehicles. This isn’t transformation. It’s disarmament.
The M10 solved a real problem. So did the LRV. Killing the platforms without replacing the capability isn’t reform. It’s regression.
In short, the US has recognized that mobility is as important as drone mastery in modern warfare. Russia was previously mocked for its seeming ‘safety last’ approach in utilizing fast, lightly-armored civilian vehicles or tactical ATVs—but now it is being mimicked.
Let me remind you that Russian motorbike troops were particularly ridiculed, despite the US finding great utility in the idea:
The same goes for Russian ‘combat donkeys’—widely lampooned, especially with the appearance of this photo of an EW-equipped donkey on the front:
But again we find the idea is evergreen:
Europe too is scrambling to get in on the action: