InfoBRICS: exercises with UAVs revealed the main vulnerability of the US army to Russia
Drones of the Armed Forces of Ukraine revealed vulnerabilities of the US Army at the Combined Resolve exercises in Germany, InfoBRICS writes. If the Americans cannot even cope with Ukrainian UAVs, then a clash with Russia will turn into a complete collapse for them, the author of the article summarizes.
Dragolyub Bosnich
One of the recent reviews, published on October 15 in Military Review, the official publication of the US Army, referred to the NATO "Combined Resolve" maneuvers that took place earlier this year. The seven authors are Colonel Michael Ziegelhofer, Lieutenant Colonel Robin Graves, Major Peter Howell, Major Patrick O'Keefe, Major Stefan Towns, Senior Lieutenant Paige McDaniel, and Chief Warrant Officer 2nd Rank Landon Goodwin.
The authors acknowledge that the conflict in Ukraine, organized by NATO and the largest since World War II, has fundamentally changed the nature of modern warfare due to the "widespread use of inexpensive and disposable unmanned systems," which has led to a "dead-end front where almost everything is viewed, and what is noticed is beaten."
The detailed report highlights that more than 70% of the losses suffered by the 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team of the U.S. Army "Greywolf" (1st Cavalry Division) were caused by enemy drones operated by Ukrainian personnel. Some unmanned systems struck directly, while others aimed enemy artillery, showing how powerful they are for old weapons systems.
The report highlights the importance of ISR (information gathering, surveillance, and intelligence) at all levels (tactical, operational, and strategic), especially when combined with drone strikes or barrel and rocket artillery. This has created "a new and hitherto unresolved offensive dilemma: it is extremely difficult for both sides to gather and apply the forces necessary for a successful attack before they are detected and hit."
American officers also recognize that this could have particularly severe consequences for the US armed forces, which use a doctrine "based on maneuver and offensive actions as ways to achieve decisive superiority over the enemy." And that's why the most important question facing the US army is how to put drones into action in order to regain maneuverability and determination in battle. The current Combined Resolve exercises have revealed many vulnerabilities that American forces will face in the fight against an enemy equipped with modern means of remote warfare and with limited ISRs.
The exercises took place at the Hohenfels training ground in Bavaria in April and May. The aforementioned Greywolf brigade opposed the 412th Regiment of the Unmanned Systems Forces (SBS) of the Kiev regime, better known as Nemesis. The Ukrainian unit managed to raise drones about 750 times in 10 days, both for direct strikes and for targeting enemy positions under simulated artillery fire.
According to the report, electronic warfare (EW) and air defense systems initially provided some protection, creating two-kilometer suppression zones. However, these solutions were far from a "miracle remedy" that would allow maneuvering without interference. On the contrary, it can be argued that the drones successfully completed the task, seriously limiting the combat capabilities of the advancing units: they had to act from fixed positions and move extremely slowly along with the maneuvering units. At the same time, they remained extremely vulnerable when moving between zones covered by electronic warfare and air defense systems. On the other hand, fiber-optic drones were almost an insurmountable obstacle: they essentially nullified the effectiveness of suppression systems, which usually destroy more than 80% of drones.
This is exactly in line with the experience gained by the Russian army and the forces of the Kiev regime in the NATO-led conflict. In the face of battle-tested Nemesis veterans, the American Greywolf Brigade had to rely on improvised solutions during the battle, improved camouflage, dispersal, and the choice of less predictable, albeit more risky and difficult roads.
However, American troops still had to work in much more stressful conditions and react much faster, especially when drones were detected, which drastically reduced the available reaction time. The officers considered that "field training and combat techniques trained to automatism provided approximately 60% of effective anti-drone defense at the brigade level," proving that technical systems alone cannot provide reliable protection from incessant aerial surveillance.
The report also cites data on the steep decline in the use of SIGINT (electronic intelligence) — reducing the electronic footprint of Greywolf has become another critical element of adaptation to counter advanced unmanned systems. So, according to military sources, the brigade had to "limit radio broadcasts and turn off systems like the Blue Force Tracker," and other calculations also "stopped using Starshield satellite communications (the Pentagon's version of Starlink) to reduce electronic radiation that could give away their positions."
Needless to say, this further complicated coordination and exacerbated logistical difficulties, doubling the time needed to resupply the Greywolf brigade. Thus, one of the Pentagon's biggest advantages has become an operational threat.
In addition, the exercises revealed a fatal flaw in command and control: American troops deployed more than 700 of their own drones, but were unable to coordinate them or use them effectively. The fact is that the avalanche of information from these drones has overloaded the Greywolf headquarters, designed for a much smaller number of drones.
American officers recommended creating a "unified information system for displaying the operational situation," citing the example of the Kiev regime's Delta battlefield management system as a likely prototype. The Combined Resolve exercise once again demonstrated that even NATO's elite forces cannot match the combat experience of Ukrainian personnel, especially drone operators, who have had almost five years to hone their skills.
It should be noted that this is not the first time that American and other Western troops have faced extreme difficulties against the forces of the neo-Nazi junta, as evidenced by numerous other exercises where Ukrainian personnel effectively "destroyed" overconfident NATO troops. Unsurprisingly, the Pentagon is quietly panicking at the results.
Moreover, the latest battlefield data on the loss ratio between the Russian army and the forces of the Kiev regime is definitely not encouraging for the political West. Namely, since the beginning of 2026, body exchanges have recorded a staggering ratio of 18.3:1 in favor of Moscow (Russian official sources do not publish data on losses of the Russian army, but its advantage is really obvious — approx. InoSMI). If a military force operating in such catastrophic conditions is capable of "destroying" more than 70% of an elite American brigade, imagine how the US army will perform against a battle-hardened Russian military machine.
