HII is pushing hard to get eyes on its new Romulus unmanned/minimally manned surface vessel concept, and for good reason, as it looks like it has potential as a “sea truck” that can act alongside a more conventional battle group to add more missiles, UAVs, and UUVs to the fight. The “high-endurance, 25+ knot” Romulus is 190 feet long and uses a commercial-standard hull “for durability and rapid production.” It has an advertised range of 2,500nm and can rearm/refuel at sea.
A large payload deck behind its superstructure has enough space for six 40-foot ISO shipping containers, which logically allows for six Typhon SMRF (Mk 70 Mod 1 Payload Delivery System) erector launchers, each of which can hold four Tomahawks or SM-6 missiles.
There is also enough open deck over the stern for a vertical launch drone system– a Shield AI MQ-35A V-BAT is depicted lifting off– as well as twin deployment cradles for HII’s Remus series UUVs. As the Navy is currently running an undisclosed number of Remus 100 (Mk 18 Swordfish) and at least 90 larger Remus 600 (Mk 18 Mod 2 Knifefish) models for UXO/EOD/MCM, this is not a stretch.
While shown as part of a carrier battle group, I think it could be interesting to pair up 2-3 of these with a Flight IIA/III DDG and perhaps a couple of Independence-class LCSs for extra helicopters as a surface action group.
With just 500~ bluejackets, you would have as many as six embarked MH-60s, room for a few vertical-launched drones, some decent UUV capability, a 5-inch gun, two 57s, 144-168 strike length VLS cells, three Sea RAMs, and potentially eight NSMs (on the Indies), as well as smaller weapons. Add to that three VBSS teams if on an interdiction mission.
That’s a lot of sea control at the fingertips of an O-5/O-6.
So it looks like the DOD (and the Coast Guard) is finally getting serious about UAVs and USVs. Lots of recent developments.
To kick it off, a recent Congressional Research Service report on the U.S. Army’s Small Uncrewed Aircraft Systems Programs highlights the increase in funding for the UAS, with the Army requesting $803.9 million for procurement and research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) for FY26. Compare this to just $99.9 million in FY24.
In a nod to the increase, the Army formally established the Joint Interagency Task Force 401 (JIATF 401) with a mission to enhance the DOD’s unmanned systems and affordable C-sUAS capabilities.
Further, Fort Rucker has established its first Unmanned Advanced Lethality Course.
Speaking of Rucker, during the Army’s Unmanned Aerial Systems and Launched Effects Summit, held Aug. 11-15 on the base, a paratrooper from the 173rd Airborne Brigade “achieved a milestone once unimaginable for conventional Army units: destroying an aircraft in flight using a first-person-view drone carrying an explosive charge.” In short, strapping a remote detonated claymore to a Skydio.
The service has been using small FPVs with charges in exercises in Europe in recent months.
U.S. Army paratroopers assigned to the 173rd Airborne Brigade prepare to operate and detonate a live First Person View (FPV) drone at Pabradė Training Area, Lithuania, during a joint forcible entry operation as part of Swift Response 2025 (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Jose Lora)
And in Poland, as part of Project Flytrap 4.0, an evolving C-UAS training event, troopers with the 2nd Cavalry Regiment “detected, tracked, engaged and defeated multiple drones at ranges between 500 and 800 meters using the Ballistic Low Altitude Drone Engagement system from a Stryker vehicle.”
BLADE has been fielded slowly since 2019, and is interesting.
Ballistic Low Altitude Drone Engagement, or BLADE, prototypes are mounted on trucks during an engineering test in June at Fort Dix, New Jersey. BLADE is integrated with an armament system to shoot down smaller unmanned aerial systems at close ranges. The test proved that the BLADE system can hit them with only a short burst of fire. (Photo by Marian Popescu, CCDC Armaments Center BLADE team)
“Some of those [drone] threats were being flown simultaneously, so the system defeated one target then quickly targeted and defeated a second target in a matter of seconds,” said David Goldstein, counter-unmanned aerial systems lead for the Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Armaments Center at Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey.
With BLADE, a precision radar and C-UAS fire control software are integrated with CROWS hardware and software to assist operators in identifying, tracking, and pointing the weapon to a continually calculated intercept point, enabling the difficult challenge of destroying enemy drones.
Capable of functioning with numerous weapons, the BLADE/CROWS combination at Project Flytrap included an M2 .50-caliber machine gun firing multiround bursts.
The Army has also initiated production of the second tranche of its short-range reconnaissance (SRR) unmanned aircraft systems, and has “selected two vendors to manufacture the SRR system, which will equip the Army’s Transformation in Contact units with advanced, networked communication systems designed to address emerging threats.”
Initial fielding of SRR tranche one began in September 2022, and, to date, the Army has fielded over 16 brigades with this capability. Critical lessons learned and soldier feedback from tranche one were incorporated into tranche two. This strategy of integrating new technologies into future tranches will continue to provide the best UAS capabilities on an accelerated schedule.
Meanwhile, with the Coast Guard
The U.S. Coast Guard announced recently the Initial Operating Capability of the Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS) Program Executive Office (PEO), “dedicated to the rapid operationalization of the Unmanned Systems Strategic Plan.”
While the service has been sending cutters overseas with contractor-operated Scan Eagle UAVs since 2018 and has been trialing other platforms, a USCG LCDR who has been flying an MQ-9 with the Department of Homeland Security Customs and Border Patrol’s Air and Maritime Operations Division out of San Antonio just earned his wings, becoming the Coast Guard’s first aviation vehicle pilot. The service plans to spend $266 million to acquire its own MQ-9 Alphas in the coming months.
And finally, DARPA’s USX-1 Defiant, the No Manning Required Ship (NOMARS) platform, was recently christened in Everett, Washington.
The 180-foot-long, 240-ton lightship, which “can handle operations in sea state 5 with no degradation and survive much higher seas,” is completing final systems testing in preparation for an extended at-sea demonstration of reliability and endurance.
One of the biggest shifts in combat in Ukraine for the past 18 months has been tethered fiber-optic-equipped FPV drones. The cable supplies continuous power from the ground, allowing the drone can fly for hours or even days (some spools carry as much as 50km of cable); allows the transfer of real-time high-speed data, such as live video feeds via fiber optics, and, most importantly, is far more jam-resistant than previous generations of radio-controlled UAVs.
Priced as low as $1,200 and used by both sides, with upwards of 10,000 drones lost each month across the battlefront, this has left the countryside bathed in discarded fiber optic cable.
The unnatural spiderwebs of the modern battlefield.
Even the birds are using it
Ukraine now claims that they have dispatched 1 million enemy troops by their own records, a figure that can be taken with a pallet of salt.
Still, even if overestimated by 300 percent, that is a lot of empty chairs at tables in Russia.
The Ryan Model 124, today best known as the BQM-34A Firebee, has been around since the 1950s and has been the most common American jet-powered gunnery target for the past 75 years or so. In short, it has been shot at by just about every weapon in the NATO arsenal.
The humble Firebee has also been used offensively from time to time, used in Vietnam as “SAM sniffer” and in photo recon and psyops roles, and in the 2003 invasion of Iraq to lay chaff corridors for SEAD strikes while the BGM-34 offshoot was tested to drop Shrike and Maverick missiles in remote strike missions.
So it should come as no surprise that a BQM-34 was used this week by the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division to air-launch a Solid Fuel Integral Rocket Ramjet (SFIRR) for the first time.
A BQM-34 unmanned aerial vehicle launches from Point Mugu during a test of the Navy’s Solid Fuel Integral Rocket Ramjet (SFIRR) demonstrator, developed by Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division. The test marked the first air launch of SFIRR from an unmanned platform. (U.S. Navy photo)
A BQM-34 unmanned aerial vehicle launches from Point Mugu during a test of the Navy’s Solid Fuel Integral Rocket Ramjet (SFIRR) demonstrator, developed by Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division. The test marked the first air launch of SFIRR from an unmanned platform. (U.S. Navy photo)
A BQM-34 unmanned aerial target, which is remotely piloted during flight, releases a test missile over the Point Mugu Sea Range. The test advanced a missile design aimed at improving range and targeting for future Navy missions. (U.S. Navy photo)
The test also integrated the use of a fire control system on a BQM-34 unmanned target vehicle for live firing, demonstrating advancements in high-speed, long-range weapon capabilities. Launching the missile from an unmanned vehicle can allow warfighters to safely engage targets from greater distances.
As the Lead Prototype Integrator, NAWCWD combined advanced propulsion, avionics, and fire control technologies into the technology demonstrator in just 12 months. Rapidly transitioning technologies from research to operational use is critical for maintaining a warfighting advantage.
“This successful integration validates key aspects of our design and moves us closer to delivering an advanced propulsion system that will provide warfighters with greater range and speed,” said Abbey Horning, product director of NAWCWD’s Advanced Concepts, Prototyping and Experimentation office.
A few interesting stories that help add color to what warfare is in 2025.
In Poland, Soldiers of the 15th Giżycko “Zawiszy Czarnego” Mechanized Brigade have been “testing new technologies for MEDEVAC procedures, notification systems, and modern teleinformation tools for planning and managing medical evacuations during both operations and emergencies.”
Drone troops are the future of the Polish army, the future of all types of armed forces. They will have hundreds of thousands of drones: flying, ground, surface, and underwater – said Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of National Defence Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz on Wednesday during the annual task and settlement briefing of the management of the Ministry of National Defence and the command staff of the Polish Army.
Now, flash to the Sinai along the Israeli-Egyptian border, where the IDF recently intercepted and captured a UAV entering Israeli airspace. After downing the drone (which still looks intact, so it was probably via a soft kill ECM device) 10 M-16 style rifles and ammunition were recovered, no doubt being smuggled to Palestinian militant groups.
The rifles appear to be ChiCom Norinco CQs, which have been widely used and are available for sale in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, and Libya. The Iranians even make a variant of the CQ domestically (as the Sayyad 5.56) for the Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
And from the wastes of the Mojave Desert, where the 11th “Blackhorse” Armored Cavalry Regiment has been routinely beating the tracks off folks as the OPFOR at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin for the past 30 years, drones are well in hand to shake things up.
According to the Blackhorse’s social media team, they have been integrating FPV drones of the type often seen in use as simple munitions droppers and unmanned kamikazes in Ukraine and Syria, drone-deployed minefields, and their own legacy systems to lay waste to visiting units and making it look easy.
Footage from “somewhere in Ukraine” shows an improvised drone-buster made from six Kalashnikovs.
The system, first seen in early July, is made from a half-dozen AK74s assembled in a rough circle along a hexagonal brace with the tops of the receivers facing inward. It includes a central charging handle and trigger solenoid as well as a simple circle-T anti-aircraft style iron reticle fitted to the top centerline.
The initial design included guns still with their canvas slings.
Another short clip, posted last week, shows the gun in action against two low-flying target drones alongside a WWII-vintage DP28.
The testing prototype was a little better arranged
The Armorer’s Bench, calling the device the “Ukrainian Minigun,” dives more into it in the below video, including some video of the mount being constructed in a shop.
The primary source of counter-drone, counter-missile, and anti-aircraft weapons to Ukraine since 2021 has been the U.S. In addition to undefined “Equipment to sustain Ukraine’s existing air defense capabilities” as well as “Anti-aircraft guns and ammunition,” the $41.3 billion in counter-air weapons transferred from Pentagon stockpiles to the country include:
One Patriot air defense battery and munitions
Eight National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) and munitions
HAWK air defense systems and munitions
RIM-7 missiles for air defense
20 Avenger air defense systems
Nine c-UAS gun trucks and ammunition
10 mobile c-UAS laser-guided rocket systems
Over 2,000 Stinger anti-aircraft systems
Plus, NATO allies have given the Ukrainians Cold War-era RBS-70s, Mistrals, Gephards, Orelikons, et. al. by the trainloads.
However, it should be noted that in 2023 with Iranian-made Shahed 136 “kamikaze drones” only costing the Russians about $20K a pop, systems like the “Ukrainian Minigun” may be a low-cost solution.
This dovetails with reports that Ukraine is running short of AAA ammo and SAMs:
I’d recommend bringing back the old M45 Maxson “Meat Chopper,” which used a four-pack of M2 .50-cals on a battery-powered chassis.
We checked out one back in 2020 and such a concept, updated with better mechanics and the addition of an EW jammer for countering small drones (CUAS) should be something that could be CAD’ed up overnight and built from off-the-shelf components.
Meanwhile, in Britain, the Army just took possession of the first of a planned 225 Smartshooter SMASH fire control systems, an add-on see-through optics with a lock and track system that can recognize a target and maintain a lock even if it or the user moves. It has a dedicated “drone hard kill mode” and will be employed in such a role.
If spread across the 33 active duty combat battalions of the Regular army, this gives about six SMASH-equipped rifles per battalion, or two per company, which seems about right, and could point towards Designated C-sUAS Marksmen being a thing. (Photo: British Army)
It is no wonder that companies such as Rheinmetall are now marketing SPAAGs like the Oerlikon Skyranger 30, platforms that look very 1980s but with a new twist.
“This highly mobile air defence system with integrated active and passive search and tracking sensors is a powerful, autonomous shooter with both gun and missiles. It is capable of engaging modern battlefield threats with a special focus on small unmanned aerial targets. It combines superior firepower with the dynamics and elevation needed to successfully engage highly agile single or swarming targets performing loiter, pop up or dive attacks.”
Earlier this summer, members of Task Force 61 Naval Amphibious Forces Europe/2d Marine Division (TF-61/2), operating under U.S. Sixth Fleet, joined their Estonian counterparts to kick off exercise Siil 22, also known in English as Exercise Hedgehog 22. While not a large force of Marines involved, TF-61/2 took advantage of the deployment to test out the new Commandant’s concept for Stand-in Forces (SIF) to generate small, highly versatile units that integrate Marine Corps and Navy forces and have “multi-domain reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance (RXR)” capabilities.
When talking of Maritime Awareness in 2022, the above references little groups of Marines– a team small enough to be inserted in a UH-1Y Venom which can only lift 8-10 combat-loaded men– equipped with back-packable/UTV-mountable Small Form Factor surface search radars, SATCOM, small UAS, and enhanced observation telescopes/binos to provide actionable intelligence and targeting data to upper headquarters.
Check out the highlight reel:
Highly mobile SATCOM on a UTV:
U.S. Marines with 2nd Marine Division test a Small Form Factor Satellite Communication (SATCOM) on the move (SOTM) device, while it’s attached to a Utility Task Vehicle (UTV) on Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, April 10, 2019. The CopaSAT STORM is a replacement for the current Networking on the move (NOTM) system, which will allow Marines better communication services while stationary or forward deployed. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Nathaniel Q. Hamilton)
The Marines in the video are shown with Lockheed-Martin’s Stalker VXE Block 30 VTOL UAV, which can be shipped in three large pelican-style cases.
Another new tool is the Next-Generation Handheld Targeting System, or NGHTS, which allows the deployment of laser designation and target location at extended ranges, day and night, in a GPS-denied environment with high accuracy and “allows Marines to prosecute targets at increased standoff ranges.”
MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va. – Marine peers through a prototype version of the Next-Generation Handheld Targeting System, March 2021 at U.S. Army Garrison Fort A.P. Hill, Virginia. The Next-Generation Handheld Targeting System, or NGHTS, is an innovative, man-portable targeting system allowing Marines to rapidly and accurately conduct target location and laser guidance during combat operations. Photo By: MCSC_OPAC
More on NGHTS:
Years of market research, technology maturity and miniaturization resulted in NGHTS. The unit, lighter and less bulky than past targeting systems, includes a selective availability anti-spoofing module GPS, a celestial day and night compass, a digital magnetic compass, a laser designator and a laser range finder, all in a single handheld system weighing less than ten pounds.
The Marines have recently been fielding more AN/TPS-80 Ground/Air Task Oriented Radar (GATOR) systems, including one in Estonia but there may be something smaller at play here that was kept off-camera.
GATOR, for reference:
All in all, this all seems right on point for use across nameless Pacific atolls in addition to its already-interesting use in the Baltic.
Right around the corner from me, in the green “dark space” that is Stennis, the Navy has NAVSCIATTS, the old small boat schoolhouse that moved there after Rodman Naval Station went full-Panama in the 1990s. Co-located with Special Boat Unit TWENTY-TWO (SBU 22), the direct descendent of Coastal River Division TWENTY-TWO and the only NSW Riverine unit, NAVSCIATTS trains riverine and coastal patrol students from around the world, all from the muddy banks of the Pearl River.
It’s another day of maritime specialized training for our international partners from Ukraine, Romania, and Mauritius, who are participating in our seven-week Patrol Craft Officer-Coastal (PCOC) course.
Then, last month, of course, came the Russian invasion and the Ukrainian small boat guys were still over here, no doubt wishing to get back home to the fight. Well, it seems they are soon to be on their way, and as subject matter experts on the Switchblade.
U.S. Marines with 1st Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company (ANGLICO), I Marine Expeditionary Force Information Group, launch a [AeroVironment Switchblade] lethal miniature aerial missile system during an exercise at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California, Sept. 2, 2020. (U.S. Marine Corps Photo by Lance Cpl. Tyler Forti)
Rapidly deployable loitering missile systems, designed as a “kamikaze” being able to crash into its target with an explosive warhead, are the “hot new thing.” However, as witnessed in the recent five-week Nagorno-Karabakh war, between Azerbaijan– supported by Syrian mercenaries and Turkey — and the so-called Republic of Artsakh together with Armenia (who had the low-key support of Moscow), they are a 21st Century game changer. In a nutshell, the Azerbaijanis claim to have smoked almost 400 high-value military vehicles– ranging from main battle tanks to SAM batteries– with such munitions, for zero lives traded.
The U.S. Army, Marines, and Naval Special Warfare Command have been experimenting with such systems over the past decade, such as the Switchblade shown above. The small (6-pound) Switchblade 300 and the larger 50-pound Switchblade 600 both use the same Ground Control Station (GCS) as other small UAVs in the military’s arsenal such as the Wasp, RQ-11 Raven, and RQ-20 Puma. Quiet, due to their electric motors, and capable of hitting a target with extreme accuracy out to 50 nm with a 100-knot closing speed in the case of the larger munition, they could easily target ship’s bridges or soft points with lots of flammable things such as hangars and small boat decks.
From DOD on Sunday:
This morning, via videoconference, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III spoke to a small number of Ukrainian forces who are returning to Ukraine from the United States. The forces were in the United States as part of the Defense Department’s long history of hosting Ukrainian service members for training and education.
The Ukrainian soldiers were participating in a pre-scheduled professional military education program at the Naval Small Craft Instruction and Technical Training School in Biloxi, Mississippi, when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began on Feb. 24, according to Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby.
That school is a security cooperation school, operating under the U.S. Special Operations Command in support of foreign security assistance and geographic combatant commanders’ theater security cooperation priorities.
The Ukrainian forces received training on patrol craft operations, communications and maintenance, Kirby said.
Since the conclusion of the course in early March, the DOD provided the group additional advanced tactical training on the systems the United States has provided to Ukraine, including on the Switchblade unmanned aerial vehicle, Kirby said.
Today was the group’s last day in the United States. They spoke to Austin from the Navy’s base at Little Creek, Virginia, where they completed additional advanced tactical training.
Odds are, the Ukrainian swabbies, fueled by crawfish and Barqs root beer, probably won’t be seeing any more boats for a minute.
One of the most inspiring, and telling in my opinion, modern battles was the morning-long scrap between LT Keith Mills and 22 of his Royal Marines against an Argentine force on remote South Georgia Island. Ordered to give the Argies a “bloody nose,” on 3rd April 1982 his sub-platoon-sized unit did better than that.
Mills’ Marauders
Outfitted only with small arms and man-portable anti-tank weapons (an 84mm Carl G recoilless rifle and 66mm LAWs), they downed an Argentine helicopter and mauled ARA Guerrico, a corvette that came in to the harbor to support the invasion of the British territory.
ARA Guerrico, showing one of her two 84mm holes at her waterline. The other destroyed her Exocet launcher whilst a 66mm round wrecked the elevation mechanism on her main gun. She also had been raked by over 1,200 rounds of 7.62mm. Only the Carl Gustav misfiring prevented more hits.
A great, and lengthy, interview with Mills was filmed earlier this year, as we approach the 40th anniversary of the Falklands Islands War. :
Let’s talk about Loitering Munitions
U.S. Marines with 1st Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company (ANGLICO), I Marine Expeditionary Force Information Group, launch a [AeroVironment Switchblade] lethal miniature aerial missile system during an exercise at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California, Sept. 2, 2020. (U.S. Marine Corps Photo by Lance Cpl. Tyler Forti)
Rapidly deployable loitering missile systems, designed as a “kamikaze” being able to crash into its target with an explosive warhead, are the “hot new thing.” However, as witnessed in the recent five-week Nagorno-Karabakh war, between Azerbaijan– supported by Syrian mercenaries and Turkey — and the so-called Republic of Artsakh together with Armenia (who had the low-key support of Moscow), they are a 21st Century game changer. In a nutshell, the Azerbaijanis claim to have smoked almost 400 high-value military vehicles– ranging from main battle tanks to SAM batteries– with such munitions, for zero lives traded.
The U.S. Army, Marines, and Naval Special Warfare Command have been experimenting with such systems over the past decade, such as the Switchblade shown above. The small (6-pound) Switchblade 300 and the larger 50-pound Switchblade 600 both use the same Ground Control Station (GCS) as other small UAVs in the military’s arsenal such as the Wasp, RQ-11 Raven, and RQ-20 Puma. Quiet, due to their electric motors, and capable of hitting a target with extreme accuracy out to 50 nm with a 100-knot closing speed in the case of the larger munition, they could easily target ship’s bridges or soft points with lots of flammable things such as hangars and small boat decks.
Introducing loitering munitions that the Marine Corps can use to strike warships creates combined-arms opportunities—a flight of loitering munitions autonomously launched from a small rocky outcropping could knock some of an enemy ship’s self-defense weapons offline, sending that ship home for repairs or setting conditions for a strike by larger CDCMs that deliver the coup de grace. Loitering munitions also can strike ships at close range—inside the minimum-engagement range for larger missiles. With smaller, cheaper, and more mobile loitering munitions, small units and teams operating as “stand-in forces” can contribute to sea denial and expand the threats the Marines pose to an enemy. The case for employing these weapons goes beyond speculation—loitering munitions have already been used with great effect in recent history and have proved their worth on the future battlefield.
In the recent five-week Nagorno-Karabakh war, between Azerbaijan– supported by Syrian mercenaries and Turkey — and the so-called Republic of Artsakh together with Armenia (who had the low-key support of Moscow), cheap drones proved absolutely decisive. The Azerbaijani relied heavily on Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 and Israeli Harop/Orbiter/SkyStryker kamikaze drones to strike at the Armenian/Artsakh forces.
Besides tanks and APCs, the Azerbaijan Department of Defense said that several Osa, Strela-10, and S-300 air defense systems were also destroyed by TB2s. Azerbaijan also reportedly modified its slowpoke 1950s-era Antonov An-2 Colt biplanes with remote-control systems, flying them to the front lines to draw out Armenian air defenses. In short, SEAD by UAV, showing these craft as the modern Wild Weasels.
The Bayraktar TB2, with a max takeoff weight of just 1,400-pounds, isn’t fast, pedaling around at just 120 knots, roughly the same speed as a Great War biplane. However, it can carry four laser-guided smart munitions, each capable of zapping a tank. (Photo via wiki commons)
In all, the former Soviet republic had less than 200 drones of all kinds on hand, but they proved the key to battle.
Azerbaijani drones provided significant advantages in ISR as well as long-range strike capabilities. They enabled Azerbaijani forces to find, fix, track, and kill targets with precise strikes far beyond the front lines. UAVs were operationally integrated with fires from manned aircraft and land-based artillery but also frequently used their own ordinance to destroy various high-value military assets. Open-source reporting suggests that drones contributed to disabling a huge number of Armenian tanks, fighting vehicles, artillery units, and air defenses. Their penetration of Nagorno-Karabakh’s deep rear also weakened Armenian supply lines and logistics, facilitating later Azerbaijani success in battle.
So for cheap, UAVs stand to flip the battlespace in favor of low power states.
For instance, Iran, which has both reverse-engineered downed U.S. drones and acquired other designs as needed, has shown off hundreds of indigenous craft of late.
