Cheap Attack Drones for Ukraine

In peacetime, democracies spend far too much on “defense.” Their weapons systems wax big and expensive because producing them is a profitable business, not a matter of national survival. So the weapons systems of democracies like the US and Turkey are a poor match for Ukraine’s needs today.

Consider drones, for example. Our American “workhorse” attack drone, the Predator, reportedly costs $40 million per unit (including the ground control unit). In comparison, Turkey’s Bayraktar TB2 attack drone, now well tested in battle, is a bargain. It reportedly costs between $1 million and $2 million per unit. But that’s still a lot of money.

This high cost is not just a matter of funding, although that matters, too. When things cost so much, a whole bureaucracy grows up around their production, distribution, preservation, use, maintenance and repair. Losing a single unit, whether by accident, sabotage, poor logistics or enemy action, is a big deal. And producing nations worry about their capture, lest enemies and potential enemies reverse-engineer them. The whole chain of supply and use becomes expensive and complicated.

Nations at war have different needs. In its Soviet guise, Russia started developing the AK-47 automatic rifle toward the end of WWII. The great inventor Kalashnikov finished its development in 1947, hence the “-47” suffix. (The “AK” stands for “Avtomat Kalashnikova,” or “Kalashnikov’s automatic rifle.”) Although inspired by German submachine guns, Kalashnikov drove for simplicity, reliability, ease of use, economy and hardiness. His weapon is still in use 75 years later, showing how well he did his job.

Could Ukraine do something similar with concept of attack drones? Could the Western world, as Ukraine’s backer and supplier? I think so.

America’s standard-issue fragmentation hand grenade, the M67, reportedly weighs less than a pound. It costs an average of $45. Match it up with a delivery drone costing $450 or less, and you have a lethal attack drone. For the price of one predator, you could buy nearly 89,000 of these drones. For the price of one Bayraktar TB2, you could buy at least 2,000.

At that price, it doesn’t much matter if a whole truckload of them gets blown up by the enemy. They meet the two most important criteria for wartime: they are affordable, and they are expendable. And they can be transported easily in any vehicle capable of carrying a load and/or a person.

In comparison to our shoulder-fired missiles—our Javelins for tanks and our Stingers for planes and helicopters—these drones would make their users less expendable. As long as each drone has a camera, its user doesn’t need a direct line of sight to the enemy. Users can be safe in a bunker, or they can control the drones while running and dodging through a forest or urban environment.

A quick Google search for “delivery drone” reveals over a dozen private companies that now make drones capable of carrying an M67 grenade. Any electromechanical engineer worth his or her salt could jury-rig a way to let the drone operator remotely pull the grenade’s safety pin and/or release the trigger while flying the drone.

Though hardly optimized for tanks or aircraft as targets, a grenade going off near an aircraft’s windshield or an open tank cover would do some damage and likely retard an attack. And with a little more electronics and coordination, these drones could fly in swarms, perhaps even with a single operator. So they would have all the theoretical strategic advantages of “accurate weapons,” which tend to get the bad guys while sparing civilians and useful infrastructure.

Cheap killer drones have still another practical advantage. The hand-held control modules for their delivery-drone components are small, light, cheap and designed for use by people with minimal training. Some are even designed for children. That’s exactly what Ukraine needs right now for its forces of non-veteran volunteers, including civilians and foreigners.

Why aren’t we supplying these cheap, accurate weapons to Ukraine right now? Beats me. But with quick action from the Pentagon, willing private drone suppliers and (if needed) Congress, we might get these weapons to Ukraine in time to do some good. I can’t think of any better way, more quickly and at reasonable expense, to make a difference in Vladimir Grozny’s vile war of choice against civilians in Ukraine. And supplying these weapons would not risk World War III, or even expose the designs of more expensive drone systems.


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