Reading the headline made me think of one thing:
That Ukraine even needs so many unmanned weapons points to a deep manpower shortage.
Another possibility is that the Ukrainian government values it’s manpower more than Russian government.
That would be a possibility if we didn’t know exactly how bad is Ukraine with manpower right now, and that it’s so bad in part due to their failed major offensives, done in exactly the Russian way.
They are, right now, pulling “replaceable” personnel from things like AD to infantry.
They are being overwhelmed. In that exact dirty wasteful way Westerners in the Interwebs are laughing about, because they are not going to be drafted to a frontline to show how it’s done right.
Ukraine loses the war if no Western country commits its troops directly.
You can bet western countries already have troops and advisors helping in Ukraine.
I was talking about mass. Cannon fodder. That thing Ukraine is running out of, and that Western countries are not supplying.
Any army that treats their troops as “cannon fodder” deserves not only all the casualties they rack up, but the long term social, political, and economic hardship that is pretty much a guaranteed result of such a policy.
The constant rounding up & minimal training of “cannon fodder” is expensive both in the short and long term. Better to protect well trained resources and have them continue to gain experience by using more advanced weaponry that minimizes risk to them.
Ukraine has no interest in putting even more of its population into Russia’s meat grinder… because they will obviously lose a war of attrition.
That’s not exactly a high bar
Only because they have fewer men. Have you seen the draft gangpress measures? People are being sent to be cannon fodder, under-equipped and underprepared.
No no no, Ukraine is the one that doesn’t
oh just like how everyone got to test out their new weapons in the Spanish civil war
The part of me that has read a lot of sci-fi thinks this is super cool from a technological viewpoint.
The other part of me, which also reads sci-fi thinks thinks it’s a scary sign of things to come from an ethical perspective.
All sides agree fuck Russia.
Apparently not
As someone from Russia - this was super cool 10 years ago, now this is just the obvious making its way to battlefields, and Middle-Eastern ones long before Ukraine.
Also it’s good to be far enough from the events to talk about “scary things” only in the ethical context, but I’m going to disappoint you - warfare revolutions usually affect warfare geography too. You may see killer drones near you home in 20 years or so.
You may see killer drones near you home in 20 years or so.
Operated by your friendly local police force.
Or your friendly local militia movement. Or your friendly local “Christian state of Americas and the Pacific”. ISIS has surely made a cultural imprint. The question is what will they use instead of nasheeds.
