Tanmay Kadam
The modern battlefield is rapidly ushering into an era when cheap drones infused with Artificial Intelligence (AI) would be the next favoured weapon for large-scale long-range precision strikes after missiles, warplanes and artillery.
For centuries, artillery was known as the ‘King of Battle’ relied upon by military commanders to rain hell on their adversaries. However, with the introduction of combat airplanes in the mid-1940s, also called as ‘flying artillery’, big guns got a bit sidelined, especially in the advanced Western-style militaries like the United States, NATO countries and Israel.
With the war in Ukraine, artillery rose back to prominence with airpower playing a very limited role due to Ukraine’s small fleet of aircraft and the reluctance of the Russian military to deploy its warplanes in the face of the threat posed by a wide array of air defense systems fielded by Ukraine.
However, alongside artillery, another category of weapon that rose to prominence in the Ukraine conflict is the armed unmanned aerial systems (UAS), especially the cheap off-the-shelf commercial drones and one-way kamikaze drones that are emerging as an expendable and cost-effective alternative to expensive warplanes, cruise and ballistic missiles, and artillery munitions.
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