Necessity is the mother of invention, as they say. There is a lot of genuine new innovation going on, but also its brought to the fore drones as a weapon system. I recall going to DSEI, about 2010-11. Among many other display was a live demonstration of (I think) Qinetiq's development of battlefield drones, demonstrating the use cases. Inside the exhibition centre, a replica of a bombed village was built, quite obviously a middle eastern setting, with an army footpatrol. The first use case was a droid ammunition carrier accompanying the patrol, with 500kg of additional ammunition, supplies, to sustain them. I think Ukraine has just started deploying wheeled drones to supply ammunition to units, but modeled on those Amazon delivery drones. Then there was a the close combat recce drone. This was a bit futuristic; a cricket ball sized drone that the patrol commander would toss like a hand grenade, it would deploy and provide live footage of the inside of buildings etc. Then there was the killer drone to finish off insurgents etc. When the Americans said they didn't need Ukrainian help in drone tactics, what they meant was they don't need help in the tactic the Ukrainians developed for essentially COTS drones that work well in Ukraine. NATO countries haven't been just sitting back, observing. People forget that in the early days of the war that Turkish drones were being used to great effect. A lot of the new weapons systems being fielded were developed by NATO engineers working at pace. Integrating US air to air missiles to MIG airframes? European work. Turning the Storm Shadow into a weapon launched from a pickup, UK. 10 years ago, BAE was playing around with loitering drones, that can stay 3-4 weeks in the air, with an AI-enabled target selection system.
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