Did you catch Beaten Zone Venture Partners advisor Mick Ryan, AM on School of War podcast? All things Ukraine and the adaption battle ⬇️
If you don’t already we highly recommend adding the School of War podcast to your listen list – a must for any solider-scholar, mil-tech entrepreneur or Defence Industrialist. Mick Ryan vividly describes what it is like to be in the danger zone – behind the front line with a depth between 5 – 10 km where Russian drones proliferate the air littoral to choke supplies and support to the Ukrainian front line positions:
“It’s like Mad Max: it’s dirt roads, there’s hundreds of small vehicles rushing about because the Russians target large logistics vehicles. People are moving at very high speeds, every vehicle has antennas to jam drones, and everyone’s very aware of their signatures. So, everyone knows that at any point in time, there’s medium and high altitude surveillance drones above them, and there’s lower altitude lethal drones that can reach out and touch people with very little warning.”
The proliferation of drones has seen rapid uptake of electronic warfare devices, decoys, camouflage and physical countermeasures. Digging in and moving positions and supply routes underground has become essential in a region where anything above ground is targeted. Fiber optic drones continue to increase in number but this doesn’t mean armour, artillery or combined arms tactics are irrelevant – just evolving:
“the thing with artillery is that firstly it remains a cheap way to bring firepower and weight of fires onto the battlefield. Remember, it’s 24/7 service where there is lots of circumstances in which drones can’t fly: heavy fog, heavy rain, those kinds of thing, which will be a problem in the Pacific. They’re complementary with each other. They’re not competitive, and if you talk to any Ukrainian brigade commander, he’ll tell you drones don’t replace any part of the combined arms team, they complement it, and enhance what the combined arms team can do.”
We recommend Mick’s recent occasional paper for the Australian Army Research Centre ‘Translating Ukraine Lessons for the Pacific Theatre‘ for further in depth analysis. We’ll add a short Kyiv independent YouTube story on fiber optic drones, the School of War podcast and Mick’s occasional paper in the comments.
Food for thought as always!
📷 via Reuters Investigations