The last part is ominous.
Drones started by being kamikazes, then grenade droppers, and now they're gun-armed.
Robots are taking over.
@Aldo2 I honestly believe this Russo-Ukranian conflict is going to be last war with such heavy drone usage. Since all the major (western) powers have caught on to this meta, you see upgrade packages for armoured vehicles and new armoured vehicles come of the assembly line with anti-drone weaponry built in.
While Russia now seems to use passive slat armour (read: cope cages) to great effect. The west is now aiming for a more active approach by firing DEW or AAA towards the pesky little bastards.
@xyfdi much of the anti-drone stuff is just stop-gap measures.
Russia and Ukraine both use slat-armour. Ukraine just does it more professionally I guess. The Russian way to do it is haphazardly.
Regarding EW and AAA, EW is more effective, but you have to switch it off to use your own drones. It's a purely defensive measure.
All drones use the same frequency, ergo you can't use EW on the offensive unless you accept that you won't have your own drone cover (potentially deadly mistake). It's why Israel didn't deploy EW in Gaza, and why the Palestinian resistance were able to spoof signals and hijack Israeli drones easily and regularly.
AAA is largely ineffective against drones unless they're coming from high up. Low-level fiber optic drones are wrecking havoc on both Ukrainian and Russian positions.
@xyfdi and fiber optic drones are designed so that EW has no effect on them to begin with (cables = no jamming).
*Edit: Here is an interesting article from last year which elaborates on fiber optic drones.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2024/03/08/russian-fiber-optic-drone-can-beat-any-jammer/
