That's just the end effect though, you still need support from artillery, air defense, anti armor, combat engineering, and a ton more to enable those rates. Drones are the tip of the force multiplying stack, they wouldn't be effective by themselves.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 days ago (1 children)

That's the other 15% of course.

Drones are replacing artillery and aircraft as the primary weapon of power on the battlefield. That 85% number is truly remarkable.

In previous conflicts that's about the percentage of casualties and equipment losses that aircraft and artillery combined caused.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Air defense for example causes very few casualties, only a couple of pilots. But it enables the drones to fly without being shot down quickly. It's an enabler, a force multiplier for the drones. If you didn't have air defense, you'd get a lot less effective than just the 1% fewer direct casualties would suggest.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

I assumed these are small fpv drones? They have kind of broken the traditional warfare dynamics and are more like ground force+ without the traditional air to air susceptibility.

[–] Devanismyname 11 points 3 days ago

Part of the combat activity is missile defense though. Maybe other things that aren't just taking out soldiers and tanks.