April drone digest: Why militaries are rethinking high-end drones
The Aarok MALE UAV exemplifies France’s pivot towards low-cost capabilities. (Photo: author)
From France to Romania, there has been a clear shift away from expensive, vulnerable MALE UAVs in April towards lower-cost, expendable systems. Hard lessons from Ukraine and Iran have driven this shift.
Throughout April, countries have acted on the growing understanding that their needs may not be best met by larger, more expensive, more sophisticated uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) systems.
The Russo-Ukrainian War has highlighted that, however technically impressive, these systems are vulnerable to air defence in peer-to-peer conflicts. The Iran War has further emphasised this, with many reports indicating that the US has lost more than 24 General Atomics (GA-ASI) MQ-9 in the near-peer-to-peer conflict.
According to the US Air Force (USAF) FY2023 Budget Estimate document, the MQ-9 had a flyaway unit cost of US$22.25 million in FY2022, meaning these losses could amount
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