Might also have something to do with the war in Ukraine completely changing our understanding of modern warfare. Defense projects take decades to design and build and now out doctrine is somewhat impacted by how effective drones are proving to be.
Do you discount the impact of drones, or did you put a lot of value in them before the war and still do? I find the tactics around using expendable troops to attrit expensive troops a bit humbling too.
Drones have always been in extensive use during warfare. Though in the past it was only very high altitude gliders of the american military whereas today there are countless low-altitude consumer grade drones.
I think this is a little pedantic or maybe I'm just being too ambiguous lol. I'll try to make my thoughts more clear as it's likely the latter.
You're absolutely right that drones have been used for awhile, but that has mainly been for reconnaissance and some extremely expensive predator drones. The idea of having thousands of small consumer grade drones mass produced cheaply to terrorize a much larger army by dropping grenades on soldiers and live streaming it on the internet is definitely a new development. There are drone swarms covering our major military ships as well and it's unknown whether it's our own military doing it as part of a black ops program (I assume it's possible, but highly unlikely) or a hostile foreign power doing recon. Russian tanks are also getting dissected by RPGs at an unexpected rate. The Ukrainians took out major Russian warships by distracting the ship with drones and then ramming it with a jet ski torpedo.
Modern militaries are scrambling to find new technology and strategies for how to handle these new capabilities.
> Do you discount the impact of drones, or did you put a lot of value in them before the war and still do?
I don't discount the impact of drones, quite the opposite. I did, and still do, put a lot of value in them. Point in fact: I worked in the commercial UAV industry (in the USA) before and during the war, though recently laid off. I feel like I was underutilized.
As a matter of fact, drones aren't being used as much as I expect them to be, nor in all the theatres that I expect them to be.
For air:
UAVs for surveillance? Yes, we've seen plenty of videos of this. But not to the extent that I expect. Color and thermal video? Yup. Ground radar? Not so much. Air radar? Nope. Radio signal extension/repeaters? Sort-of, not really. Decoys? Recently yes but not quite used for the purposes that I expect.
UAVs for dropping bombs? Yes, plenty of this. But the examples I see are typically quite crude compared to what I expect... with an emphasis on cheaply produced vehicles capable of dropping generically-attached bombs. Makes sense given the economics of the war. But these are IMO over-represented compared to what other capabilities UAVs could have. Dropping incendiaries (eg, dragon burning a forest) seems to be an evolution in kind but not really a revolution of new tech.
UAVs for suicidal destruction? Yes, we see this too, mostly against ground vehicles. These are crude, but seem to be quite effective.
UAVs for ground strafing? I see very little, if any, of it. I think this would probably be more effective than dropping grenades (let the computer do the aiming) so I'm surprised I don't see this concept used much.
UAVs for air superiority? Very little, very crude. I don't see many weapons mounted on drones shooting at other manned or unmanned air vehicles. I see more UAVs trying to ram other UAVs instead. I don't see UAVs having missiles mounted on them (though the UAV itself might be a missile...). I think there's a lot of underrepresented opportunity for UAVs to have light missiles for air-to-air capability. Conversely, I do hear a lot of complaints from both sides about the other side's use of UAVs, which tells me that UAV air-to-air capabilities aren't as well developed or deployed as I'd expect.
UAVs for logistics? Some, but it doesn't seem to be as much as I'd expect. Ammunition is too heavy for current generation UAVs to move a meaniningful amount. But I think there's plenty of opportunity for UAVs to move food parcels, medical components, limited amounts of technical components, and limited amounts of water. I suspect that UAVs are under-utilized for this purpose, but I don't have access to battlefield data to understand risk/reward tradeoffs here.
Then, for ground:
UGVs for fire suppression? Some, but not much. Small little rovers mostly and the ones I've seen in public videos seem much more mechanically complicated than a UAV. The biggest limitation here might be fuel or power. Knowing the current state of computer vision, and given that a ground vehicle can be a spectacularly stable platform from which to fire a gun, and a computer can aim quite quickly and precisely from a calibrated and stable platform, I think that unmanned ground vehicles are significantly under-utilized and/or under-developed especially in defensive capabilities.
UGVs for ground-to-air? Significantly less than I expect.
UGVs for ground logistics? Not really much at all. I suppose the amount of materiel (fairly insignificant) they can move around is not worth the cost to build/maintain.
And, for sea:
USVs for naval combat? Less in total numbers than I expect, but the ones I do see seem to have an outsized impact and are far more sophisticated than I expect when compared to other types of unmanned vehicles I see. It seems (from my perspective) that navies have invested significantly into unmanned vehicle capabilities.
More speculation, more research, and with citations, and that would take a couple of weeks at least. Then it's not really something I'd want to put online for free nor for all sides to see.
Starcraft is a real-time strategy game, and Zerg is one of three factions you can play in the game. Zerg units are individually weak but cheap compared to the other factions, so Zerg players typically compose swarms of disposable units when staging and conducting attacks. It’s also quicker to make large swarms, since there isn’t a sequential build queue for Zerg unit construction. It makes for a pretty interesting switch in mindset compared to the other sides, where there is much more emphasis on preserving one’s units. Some of the more obnoxious strategies, like the Zerg rush, have become memes among gamers.
The term "Zerg Rush", or "zerging", is now commonly used to describe sacrificing economic development in favor of using many cheap, yet weak units to overwhelm an enemy by attrition or sheer numbers.
"The Zerg Swarm is a terrifying and ruthless amalgamation of biologically advanced, arthropodal aliens. [...] They are named "the Swarm" per their ability to rapidly create strains, and the relentless assaults they employ to overwhelm their foes."
