The current media buzz about drones and how the Ukraine and Russia have advanced way past the US is a lot of BS media buzz.
The US is light years ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to drones, we just don't publicize our developments.
The current implementation of drones in Ukraine is a low tech solution to a war fought by adversaries who have run out of high tech weapons and high value targets.
The drones both sides are using would not have near the success against the US military.
What both the Ukrainians and the Russians have come up with are some innovative uses for marginally capable, low payload $2000-$10, 000 drones to stand in for weapons like the Javelin while still having an individual soldier real time ISR capability.
In fact, a lot of the ordnance that the Ukraine is using is bomblets and anti armor shaped charges pulled from US supplied ATACM cluster munition warheads that they have run out of US supplied missiles to deliver and either adapted to be dropped from drone or reverse engineered Ukraine produced knock offs. .
That said, the Ukraine and Russia have pioneered a new type of warfare capability that the US needs to evaluate, refine and implement.
“”””The US is light years ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to drones, we just don’t publicize our developments.””””
That is my impression as well, and a lot of it is defense against drones, we have been at it for many, many, years.
The current implementation of drones in Ukraine is a low tech solution to a war fought by adversaries who have run out of high tech weapons and high value targets.”
That's true but the Ukes have more practical experience of using drones in combat than anyone else and a lot of knowledge how russians are using them. The mass use of micro drones might be needed in case of full scale war as the stocks of those high-end weapons are limited + the micro drones are unfortunately the perfect weapon for terrorists, organized crime etc. so I'm afraid we're going to see more of it in the coming years.