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Kamikaze Drones: US & Russia’s Common Solution Against Chinese Warships & Ukrainian Artillery

Loitering munitions are now central to the United States (US) and the Russian militaries for their respective theaters in the western Pacific and eastern Europe, according to its military leaders.

Private Military Company (PMC) Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin and US Marine Corps Commandant General David Berger have found a common solution in kamikaze Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) to overcome the particular techno-military challenges they face.

Prigozhin was quoted in a few Russia-friendly Telegram groups, which paraphrased him as saying that it was essential to mass produce “shock drones” for more “effective counter-battery combat” against Ukrainian artillery.

While Prigozhin’s statement could not be independently verified, parallel developments in Russia where the government has pushed a massive effort to become a drone power – formal industrial and technology policies, dozens of seminars, industry-academia meets, and setting up specialized manufacturing zones – lends credence to the claim.

Berger meanwhile wants to overcome China’s massive numerical and logistical superiority in the western Pacific by using “attack drones” from US Navy warships to hit Chinese naval vessels in a Taiwan crisis.

The UAVs, he said, could be used in conjunction with anti-ship missiles (AShM), suggesting a decoying tactic to engage and distract enemy air defenses and sensors.

US & Russia Need Kamikaze Drones Against China & Ukraine

Speaking at the Marine Barracks in Washington DC., Berger said the USMC would consider expanding the use of loitering munitions in the Indo-Pacific. The drones have less explosive force and speed but are easy to deploy and do not need elaborate logistics for transport and storage.

This is expensive, time-consuming, and risky since adversaries could always target logistic supply lines to degrade one’s long-term fighting potential.

This precise scenario is playing out in Ukraine, where Russia’s long-range gun and rocket artillery briefly lost its advantage when Ukraine targeted the supply lines that fed the weapons in November. This forced Russia to withdraw to the west side of the Dnieper River in Kherson in November last year.

Against China’s long-range anti-access/area-denial missiles that US military leaders admit threaten the US military, its away disadvantage is another drawback. US Marine Corps Assistant Commandant General Eric Smith admitted this last year in an online interview with the Stimson Center.




Zala Lancet-3
File Image: Zala Lancet-3

While the US has conceived a ‘swarm of swarm’ concept where groups of drones control several other drones and hypersonic and ballistic missiles as a part of its counter-A2/AD plan, both have their drawbacks.

Autonomous drone swarm control technology is yet to mature, while hypersonic missiles are prohibitively expensive, with a poor cost-benefit ratio.

“I think, in the coming years, both the US and the (Japanese) Self-Defense Forces will look for how to use that capability in ways that we haven’t used it so far,” Berger said. In a cross-strait crisis, the Chinese military could cut off Taiwan’s access to eastern sea routes, or Chinese forces could attempt to enter the Pacific by crossing the ‘first island chain’ of Okinawa, Taiwan, and the Philippines.

“Attack drones, in combination with anti-ship missiles, are expected to be effective in putting a stop to China’s naval mission in such scenarios,” the Nikkei Asia report added.




Switchblade 300 loitering munition. (via Twitter)

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