Well....
...you can buy them off the usual suspects for $100,000,000 each. Or just ask Ukraine if you can buy some battle proven ones for a fraction of that price.
Pentagon wants to water down drone program with autonomous subs
Drones: they're not just for the sky anymore. DARPA is seeking compact deep-ocean autonomous craft developed faster, smaller, and cheaper than today's full-ocean-depth AUV systems. DARPA's Deep Thoughts program, for which the agency issued a solicitation on Thursday, is looking to change the autonomous undersea vehicle (AUV, …
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Sunday 26th April 2026 08:22 GMT Like a badger
Re: Well....
Depends what capability the US want. Drones have stalemated attacks by more powerful adversaries in both Ukraine and Iran, but i can't see how drone warfare is any realistic use case for the Yanks. They already spend more than the civilised world put together on their military, and have massive overkill in conventional weapons. As both wars show, neither drones not advanced aerial and standoff weapons can force the hand of a determined opponent. Things might be different if supported by two things: overwhelming ground forces, and a valid strategy.
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Sunday 26th April 2026 18:55 GMT retiredFool
Re: Well....
Just saw an article where Ukraine is now using land based drones, sort of like that quirky comedy Short circuit Johnny 5, except these have guns and shoot. Apparently in quantity as they are being used to hold off Russian soldiers. The Ukraine minister's quote was "Drone's don't bleed".The article went on to talk about how Ukraine is forging agreements with ME countries to supply anti-drone technologies in exchange for missiles.
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Monday 27th April 2026 10:59 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: Well....
British doctrine in WWII amounted to the phrase "steel not flesh". They'd all been involved in WWI - and so the idea was to use artillery, air power, firepower of any kind - rather than head-on infantry charges to try and take ground. If that meant achieving the objective more slowly (something Montgomery is heavily criticised for by post-war commenters) - then so be it. As a counter-example, Patton is the darling of many people who talk about WWII history on the Western front, and he was more dashing. He also suffered the highest casualties of any major commander on the Western allied side. Mostly the US were following similar doctrine though.
By 1944 Britain was running out of manpower. We disbanded 2½ divisions in Autumn 44. During the break-out from Normandy, Montgomery was informed in July 44 that at the rate of infantry losses they were suffering, we'd run out of infantry replacements in August.
It also helped that the Germans were absolutely fanatical about counter-attacking - and so if you could take a position from them and then line up lots of firepower - they'd often helpfully come out in to the open to try and take it back. Much easier to shoot an enemy who's out in the open - than one who's dug in.
In WWI, the Germans were using similar tactics to Ukraine by 1917. Instead of strongly held defensive trenches, there were small machinegun nests with bunkers to hide in across the frontline, with lots of barbed wire and obstacles, and then several defensive lines further back - because Allied artillery had got very good. In Ukraine it's small drone and observation teams in a very thinly held front, with lots of minefields and obstacles, and more strongly held lines much further back. But the troop densities are much lower than in WWI, and Russia rarely attacks in even platoon strength.
Neither side is yet able to throw a defensive bubble against drones round a larger scale unit, to allow them to break through the main defensive lines, in any meaningful way - so it's just slow grind and slow attrition. Maybe with all Ukraine's success with Counter drone drones (C-UAS), they might be the first to do so, but then they've still got the problem of lack of mine-clearing kit and combat engineering resources. I don't know if they've improved their staff work, to give them the capacity to organise large offensives.
Russia can do the staff work, and probably still has the gear to clear minefields - but seems to me to be further behind in the ability to defend against drones.
The question is who's going to win in the race between anti-drone tech and attacking drone tech. This year it looks like going towards drone defence? But that could all change again. Were I in government, I'd be buying self-propelled anti-drone/anti-aircraft guns as a matter of priority. As well as drone interceptors and all the radars and detectors and electronic warfare. And talking to Ukraine about how to integrate it all, at which they really are the experts.
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Sunday 26th April 2026 19:11 GMT MachDiamond
Re: Well....
"They already spend more than the civilised world put together on their military, and have massive overkill in conventional weapons."
Reminds me of a saying, hmmmmmm, oh yeah, "better is the enemy of good enough".
A simple spell is all you need to be able to get what you need.
The US bankrupted the USSR through an arms race and should remember that. If the US has to expend $400,000 interceptors to repel a $10,000 drone, the other side has won as it won't take long to deplete the stockpile of those interceptors since they won't be stocked very deep. It's similar to an argument I make for more F-16's and A-10's rather than F-35's. The former are much less expensive to build and operate. The F-35 would be useful in a conflict with China or Russia, but the battlefields are often comprised of proxies that aren't at the same level. 20 loaded A-10's pointed at the little island that's so important to the future of Iran would send a very clear message. They'd see them in every possible way. Sure, not seeing the F-35 until somebody puts some binoculars on it has a certain scary aspect, but one or two aren't as impressive as 20+ with exceptional ability to put depleted U downrange.
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Monday 27th April 2026 12:41 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: Well....
Ukraine actually buys most of their UAVs from the UK.
I don't think so. If I remember correctly Ukraine is now producing 4 million drones a year! The MoD made an announcement last week that we were due to ship 100,000 drones to Ukraine by the end of the year. That's aid from the government, including an entire factory that we're paying for which is making Ukraine-designed drones. But we're shipping a bunch of higher-end, more expensive drones. Also, that 100k doesn't include ones bought directly by the Ukrainian government (or the many Ukrainian brigades who do their own procurement).
A couple of those factories are planning to keep on scaling up production, so we could be sending 2-400,000 by this time next y
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Monday 27th April 2026 13:52 GMT retiredFool
Re: Well....
I believe you are correct. I've seen multiple stories about Ukraine producing its own weapons, from bullets to drones. Necessity. The drone thing could be there best option. As another poster mentioned about the UK in WWII running out of manpower, Ukraine too is running out of soldiers. Necessity may end up building a wall of guns that shoots to kill anything that comes in the land based drone sights and the drones just roll slowly to the Ukraine/Russian border.
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Saturday 25th April 2026 00:31 GMT An_Old_Dog
... And it Must Provide a Unicorn, Too
What happens with these pie-in-the-sky DARPA RFPs when some company wins a contract, and delivers something(s) obviously not meeting the spec?
Are they ever substantially penalized?
Or were those contracts all just poorly-disguised gifts to certain special mates, anyway?
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Sunday 26th April 2026 19:16 GMT MachDiamond
Re: ... And it Must Provide a Unicorn, Too
"Are they ever substantially penalized?"
They can't be as that contractor is likely one of their few favorites that will be working on other important contracts already. Sanctioning them could have an affect on those other programs.
Sometimes it's "gifts", but there is a limited number of companies that can credibly bid on these sorts of projects. Of those, not all will be interested in yet another contract that is complicated, gets changed every other day and where the payments are mostly 90 days late (on a 120 day invoice) when the government isn't shut down and not cutting checks at all.
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Saturday 25th April 2026 05:57 GMT Bebu sa Ware
As usual there is an elephant squatting…
Unlike aerial craft you cannot use radio to remote control completely undersea craft and trailing extremely thin fibre optics at sea is likely impractical.
So arguably these craft no matter how constructed will require truly autonomous systems. A gig for Musk's self driving vehicles ? Taking out a US carrier might be a slightly bigger own goal than a Tesla T-boning a firetruck. :)
The surprising thing to me is that no one seems to have noticed that unmanned undersea vehicles with some degree of autonomy have been developed for scientific, natural resource exploitation and industrial purposes for decades. A least one Western Australian company has been flogging the kit for that long.
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Sunday 26th April 2026 16:28 GMT Paul Hovnanian
Re: As usual there is an elephant squatting…
Torpedos, self-propelled mines, etc.
This technology is also implemented in autonomous research "drones" that can drift for days/weeks/months and then surface to upload data and recharge. Just buy the same technology from the oceanographic labs, add a few zeros and sell them to the Pentagon.
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Sunday 26th April 2026 19:21 GMT MachDiamond
"I believe those unconventional organizations already have the semi-subs, missing only the software and guidance integration."
The lack of the tech is a head scratcher. After formal country governments, those entities have the cash to fund that sort of R&D. While it may lead to a more expensive sub, increasing the success rate just a wee bit has a massive payoff. I don't think the US Coast Guard will get billion dollar submarines to interdict $250,000 cartel watercraft.
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