BLUF: “If a member of a NATO military were hypothetically to ask me whether NATO countries should acquire first-person view drone capabilities, based on my experience and given the current state of the technology, I would probably say no.”

The author notes (with regard to UAS) that “[higher end] loitering munitions provide greater precision in day and night, more ease of use, and higher resistance to electronic interference than first-person view drones… The investment in quality seems to justify the greater expense.”

My take on 3 U.S. Navy implications: (1) Defensively, the author’s findings may prove instructive for Navy’s counter-UAS strategy, given these systems may be less effective and less operationally impactful than initial observations suggest (particularly for precision strike).

(2) Offensively, a critical observation here is the importance of understanding uncrewed systems as enablers operated in conjunction with other, often legacy systems (“the vast majority of our sorties were against targets that had already been struck successfully by a different weapons system”).

This is consistent with the findings from my own @warontherocks.bsky.social analysis last year, which observed that the operational effectiveness of UAS and USVs in the Black and Red seas were both highly dependent on integration with more conventional cruise and ballistic missiles.

(3) The author assesses that poor target/weapon pairing contributes to some meaningful portion of small UAS failures. Commanders in Ukraine use drones because they have them, regardless of whether they are the most economical or effective tool for a strike.