An ex US SOF guy is fighting in Ukraine for the Ukrainians. He's quite long in the tooth, but is pulling his weight in combat. He has been asked some questions which I think is quite informative. C, another US military veteran is his section commander.
Source:
“Untreated mortality is around 90%, somewhat short of C—’s standards.”
"Since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which emerging technologies, innovations or equipment have had the greatest impact on the course of the war, and why?
Up front I need to point out that my view and understanding of things is relatively narrow and limited by information I either see or get on a bit of a need-to-know basis. I am always hesitant with word-of-mouth info that does not come from an official source – and in a war of disinformation and misinformation (in the latter often amplifying misinformation to leverage it as disinformation, part of the confusion matrix, often from social media/OSINT sources) – even that source sometimes has to be taken with a grain of salt.
These are in no order of ranking per effectiveness or extent of use.
Disinformation and leveraging of misinformation: Some percentage of our job is spent working on the field nuts-and-bolts to enhance the ability to leverage these things on the battlefield. I can’t get into all aspects of it, but it basically uses real and false information to create the illusion that something else is happening, often something falsely claimed by people on social media. This has also been used on a wider scale, and seems to have been effective, both in forcing the enemy to react to something that does not exist, or just creating confusion in their ranks and effecting their timing and force commitment. This is not new, however, what is new is how it is developed and used in a multi-faceted way, from recon teams to regular forces, drones, cyber hacking, satellites, false messaging, and leading social media to say what you want them to say, then leverage these resources to make it seem real, or at a minimum, possible and thus requiring attention from enemy planners as well as field commanders.
Artificial Intelligence: AI, although in its current form is neither the technological panacea nor the doomsday tech some claim, it is being to put to significant use on the battlefield. Recognition and ID engines can use drone photos and combine that with other intel to get a picture of what units are in a particular area (examples being unit signs/patches, equipment type), and even possibly how large the force is. Geometry recognition engines can discriminate human-made shapes from natural ones, and in some cases use the pattern to ID equipment and trenches obscured by trees. We use it in the field on a small scale to modify battle maps.
With inputs from our observations, from drones and assumptions or solid intel on file, we can get a good statistical look at our surroundings. The issue here is jamming reduces the capability of gathering some intel, and all this stuff needs to be processed real-time to be most effective. I use a type of AI called fuzzy logic to help identify drones from presets and noise factors, which is about 50% successful.
Drones: Outside of highly effective military systems, drones are probably the star of the show, as far as machines go. I won’t go into detail of the commonly known things, but will touch on some fairly unique uses.
In addition to intel and direct attack, drones are used in diversionary tactics. Not only can they transmit false messages, they can create a false area of interest by their volume and emissions, if only for that reason. Munition dropping drones can also be used for diversion. We do not normally have munition-equipped drones with us, but we usually do have one observation drone and a few micro drones. Since we do not have a quick means of escape, we can sometimes sacrifice a micro drone by crashing it on their position and diverting attention, possible long enough to vacate the area, or to use surprise and heavy fire to reduce their combat effectiveness so we can withdraw.
In response to heavy EW jamming, drones are being modified to lock-in on a strong EW signal and crash into the source. The issue is they have to be able to get a lock from a flying position where they are still functional, and often have to deal with multiple jamming sources. This is where AI comes into play to parse signal strength and radiated direction.
Novel use of older tech: This type of “regression” is commonly looked-down upon by military experts and analysts. But, in circumstances where new technology is not available, it is often the most efficient method to leverage what you have on-hand. Weaponized drones are certainly not new, and the use of drones to drop older grenades as AP and AV/AE (anti-vehicle/anti-equipment–Ed.) munitions is also not new. What is new is their utilization rate and their multiple operational roles in a single platform.
An example is one drone can be used for injecting misinformation into the enemy comms, while taking intel photos and also carrying a munition. This leveraging of the platform means they can be designated single or multiple mission roles up-front, and their mission can be changed while they are in-flight. In a less dressed-out configuration, they can be used to drop supplies to troops. Their limit here is weight, of course, but we have been supplied multiple times by drones, almost always rifle ammunition.
Another use of older tech is moving to comms systems out of the frequency range of Russian jamming. This means less efficient comms, but adequate comm is much better than no comm. One way around this is by using drones as repeaters, and by using old school wire antennas that can be deployed and packed-up quickly. Some micro-drones are capable of ascending with a tiny wire antenna.
And which ones are promising, but employed in too small a scale to make an impact? Which of these have failed?
I would say the Switchblade 300 system was a significant failure – as compared to expectations- by both numbers provided and the small warhead and limited range. It is however useful for small teams to take-out antennas and personnel. The Switchblade 600 is more effective, as is the Phoenix Ghost, but the latter is by word of mouth, I have no experience with it.
And, although one of the biggest success stories, drones are to some degree also a failure. The reason for that is jamming. So, their success is really down to timing. Once the Russians started wide-area jamming and GPS stunting, drones became overall much less effective. The use of low-level flying, using active devices on the ground for route mapping, inertial in some systems and more sophisticated comm links have helped.
The best solution would be to reduce the jamming assets, but that requires weapons Ukraine does not have except for combating their very forward systems. On the flip side, the Russian jamming also effects some of their own drones."
The rest can be read at the source. I think that the points he makes are quite important, especially because of his background and the fact that he isn't a desk bound analyst, nor an officer.