In Reply to: To state the obvious, this war has changed the battlefield posted by TheHappyBurgermeister on November 02, 2025 at 13:25:31
At this point, drones are more important than artillery in Ukraine since they are more accurate. Where artillery is better is when there is bad weather or you need a volume of destruction.
When talking about drones, we are taking different levels. You have small POV drones that take multiple ones to take out armor, which are good mostly for killing an individual, that can be jammed unless they are limited in distance by using fiber optic cables. There are also predator drones that are like a mini-bomber. We are seeing prototypes of drones the size of just smaller than fighters (since you don't need a cockpit). We already have carrier drones where a mothership carries a bunch of smaller drones long distances. There has been some thought that the next-generation fighter will work in combination with drones.
Other future innovations are AI swarms of drones and drones that hunt larger drones like suicide fighters. England and Ukraine just signed a deal to make thousands of these small drone killers, since the EU and Baltic countries have no cheap way of shooting down the Russian drones that they keep flying over Poland, Germany, Lithuania, the Baltics, etc.
Drones are not taking out helicopters or fighters in the air unless the helicopter is simply not moving forward and blindsided, but that will be coming soon. The A-10s, however, would have a hard time with all of hand handheld man-pads not drones.
Talking to an air force analyst, he said we will always have fighters because there are some missions that require them. If you removed the pilot, the drone could go faster, maneuver more, and carry more fuel, but sometimes you need a person to decide a mission with the assurance that the connection to the plane can't be jammed.
I sold my S&P from my brokerage account and focused partly on European aerospace/defense ETFs since they are the ones making deals with Ukraine, not the US, for these joint factories. I figure, even in a recession, Europe is still buying drone defense.
Earlier this year, Europe canceled many of its military contracts with the US. I bought Korean military defense since they are the Kia of military planes/armor: inexpensive but good quality. Russia showed that its tech is not elite, so why buy an F-35 when you can buy multiple fighters from Korea at the same cost? Unless you are going to war with the US, you probably are going to do better with a larger cost cost-effective air force/army than an elite one.
While there is still a place for fighters; attack helicopters and tanks are showing to be limited in use when Ukraine is properly armed and not starved of missiles by Mike Johnson. He cost Ukraine Advika, which had held since Russia's previous invasion, and is the most successful thrust of the Russians. The US Marines had already foreseen this and had removed tanks from their inventory 5 years ago.
In the future, imo, attack helicopters and tanks will only be used for very non-technical enemies.