Close students of the defense trade press will recently have noted the news that Anduril Industries has delivered its first Altius 600M kamikaze drones to the Taiwanese military. In a Taipei ceremony, Anduril founder and poster child Palmer Luckey marked the solemnity of the occasion by donning a jacket over his ubiquitous Hawaiian shirt, though the photo does not reveal whether he went to the lengths of shedding his customary shorts in favour of long pants. Signed in 2024, the deal calls for 291 of these machines to be delivered at a cost of $300 million. Speaking at the handover, Taiwanese defense minister Chiu Kuo cheng stated that the weapons would be indispensable for "asymmetric warfare.” Ukrainians, who have come to know a thing or two about drone warfare, were not necessarily impressed. A commentator on Ukrainian military Telegram quoted by the informative blog Events in Ukraine noted snidely: “More than a million bucks for one UAV with a payload capacity of 3.17 Kg? Damn, those powerful Americans are warming up the Taiwanese.” (According to the Events author, the original Telegram post used the derogatory term “pintos” for Americans, and explained that “warming up” is a slang term for “scamming.”) In other words, there is indeed a truly asymmetric difference between the much touted American product and the kinds of weapons in general use in Ukraine. The whole point of drones as demonstrated in Ukraine is that they are mass produced and cheap. Both sides can and do churn them out by the tens of thousands. The commonly used Russian Molniya kamikaze drone, which carries a 5 kg payload (and which the Ukrainians are now copying) costs a mere $300 to manufacture, though it sells at a healthy markup of $2000 - still a long way from the hefty price tag for the Anduril product, shown in a company video impacting on (but not totally destroying) a shipping container helpfully positioned for targeting purposes against a contrasting background of desert scrub. The Altius purportedly enjoys a "semi-autonomous" capability, meaning that it can carry out at least part of its mission independent of direct human control. Such self-directed weapons have generated much excited commentary, their potential advent seen as an AI powered answer to ever-more potent jamming technology (long a Russian speciality) neutralizing the radio-controlled FPV (First Person View) attack drones that have come to dominate the battlefield. However, in 2024, the Russians unveiled a low tech answer to the jamming problem: drones controlled by an operator via a hair-thin fibre-optic cable, and thus impervious to interference. The concept is certainly not new, having been first developed by the Germans in World War II and was a feature of the U.S. Army’s widely used TOW anti-tank missile first introduced in 1968. Rapidly copied and deployed by the Ukrainians, fiber-optic drones have proliferated across the front, so much so that whole stretches of the countryside are now festooned with the cables, and birds are building nests with them. Obviously, fiber-optic drones will not be the end of the story. As with the jamming that overwhelms so many radio controlled FPVs, counters will be found to the wire-guided variety (which are in any case more expensive, and vulnerable to the slightest imperfection in the preparation of its spool of cable that unwinds behind them as they fly.) Mobile radars that can detect incoming missiles are already appearing on the battlefield. The Russians have an elite drone unit, Rubikon, and claim it can clear the sky of all enemy drones prior to an attack. In a triumph for low tech, Russian soldiers have downed a Ukrainian drone by cutting the wire with a pair of scissors. Needless to say, “drone dominance” is the watchword at the Pentagon, as dramatised by Defense Secretary Hegseth in a fatuous performance, with drones buzzing about his head, in front of the building a few weeks ago heralding the billions that will pour into the coffers of the burgeoning domestic drone industry (currently 500 drone companies and counting). But an informative and hard-hitting piece by New York Times correspondent Farah Stockman told a doleful tale. Over a four day exercise in Alaska, one drone crashed 80 feet from a target it was programmed (autonomy!) to recognise. Another crashed on takeoff. More crashes followed. Others missed their targets, or hit the wrong one. A drone produced by AeroVironment, (which has inked its own 300 unit sale to Taiwan at $200,000 a pop) narrowly missed a group of soldiers who were trying to jam it. Engines failed. A giant “drone buster” gun was left unused because, as one soldier explained, “that thing never worked.” Before you go: Please do click that ♡ button. Invite your friends and earn rewardsIf you enjoy Spoils of War, share it with your friends and earn rewards when they subscribe. © 2025 Andrew Cockburn |