> wreck a $300million weapon with a slingshot.
I don't think "slingshot" is the right analogy here. There is a big change towards intelligent, small, and cheap drones. If it were just a slingshot, other countries could pick up what Ukraine is doing in no time, but they can't. Instead, there's an absolutely massive industry behind Ukraine's drone manufacturing, growing at 2x per year, which no other nation can currently match, including Russia.
The drone manufacturing has gone so exponential that they now have a shortage of drone operators. It's completely changed the war in the past few months, with Russia now losing ground, at basically zero additional Ukrainian casualties, and with Russia continuing to have massive ground casualties from sending poorly trained troops to die while hiding in a 30 mile wide kill zone ruled by drones.
The quantity of drones allows new tactics, reminiscent of rolling wave artillery. And deployment of a wide variety of types of drones has led to the depletion of Russian anti-air defense in both occupied Ukraine and in Russia itself, allowing the destruction of much of Russia's oil infrastructure. The recent Baltic port hit will be felt for a long long time, and nearly completely neutralizes the lifting of sanctions on Russia. All from novel weapons, which are decidedly more sophisticated than slingshots both in their construction and application. And the US is way behind, and too proud to let Ukraine share their knowledge and capabilities.
> I don't think "slingshot" is the right analogy here.
I think it's perfect - a very valid "David vs Goliath" reference.
Note that it is wrong to think that David was at a disadvantage. I know that is not how the story is taught today, but slingshot troops of that age we the snipers of their age: very deadly (not at the range of a modern sniper, but...).
If the fight between them was started at some distance, the David should have been the expected winner by pretty much everyone on the field. Think "bright a club to a gun fight" sort of vibes.
David had a sling, not a slingshot. They are very different tools. slings need more skill, but are easy for a shepard to learn. (I suspect more powerful as well but I'm not an expert)
Ah, I hadn't thought of that sort of slingshot! I was thinking more "primitive rock throwing."
There is also a cost aspect of it as well.
The long range drones that are being shot down are the "expensive products" of a military industrial complex.
The US solution to this problem is even more expensive.
For the cost the Ukraine's solution might as well be a rock: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sting_(drone)
> If it were just a slingshot, other countries could pick up what Ukraine is doing in no time, but they can't. Instead, there's an absolutely massive industry behind Ukraine's drone manufacturing, growing at 2x per year, which no other nation can currently match, including Russia.
I'm all for good guys winning, but what are your sources? And why do you think Russia can't match Ukraine in this regard?
I think whatever advantage Russia has (size and resources) is being squandered by corruption and incompetence.
In terms of russias strategic goals Russia lost in month one when they pulled out of kyiv and admitted regime change wasn't going to happen. Everything since then has just been a very expensive face saving exercise and a hope thay somehow Ukraine would collapse.
There's no single source, it's basically all the war reporting. My claims are not contentious. Even Russia's war bloggers are repeating the same now.
Russia could, in theory, use it's greater number of people towards producing drones. But it hasn't. Russia could, in theory, train its new recruits properly before throwing them into hopeless situations. But it hasn't. Russia could, in theory, operate by rewarding production contracts to the most capable teams rather than the ones with the best connections. But it hasn't. And even if Russia does, they'll have to catch up. They could!
Even the US could, in theory, start learning from Ukraine or even following in its footsteps, independently, but it hasn't.
Ukraine is fighting for its life, it's on Death Ground, in the terms of Sun Tzu. In Russia, perhaps only Putin is on Death Ground, and even then, there's many ways Putin could give up on the war and still stay in power. That produces far different results in people. And the cultures of Ukraine and Russia are fundamentally incompatible, which also produces very different results from people.
You're talking about the hardware. That is critical.
But what's evolving even faster is the software. And in real world use cases.
They arent paying for tank models and people to run around and try to chase to "test". They are very literally doing it live, with live fire testing day in and day out.
Furthermore they are rewarding results on both ends. Successful operators get to buy gear for kills in an amazon like store (talk about gamification). And there are paths for "innovation" to make its way to the front quickly: see https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/how-a-ukrainian-gam... for an example.
Precisely, they both go hand in hand.
Ukrainian society is also very bottom up, and individual units are empowered to procure what they want, based on price or quality, from online systems that operate like Amazon. No general issue, just customization all the way to soldiers getting to choose from a wide variety of drone models from many manufacturers, and the manufacturers are competing to supply to the needs of individual units:
https://youtu.be/zlSMz_vtSwg
US military leadership is all about empowering units to solve problems on their own, at least whenever I read their books that's the message I get. Ukraine seems to have taken it even further.
absolute drivel, zero-substantiated, zero-value.