Apparently, the study of both Russian and Ukrainian combat experience during the special operation is beginning to have a strong influence on American military thought. What is the Pentagon's traditional approach to drones and the robotization of troops in general, what has the special operation shown in this sense – and how are the US military now trying to get ahead of Ukraine and even Russia in this area?
The US Army is actively studying the experience of using unmanned aerial vehicles in Ukraine and has its own program of robotization of troops. This program reflects the most important quality of American military culture – the ability to learn from other people's mistakes and experience.
Not so long ago, an analysis of the programs for the introduction of robotics into the US army showed that the Americans, up to a certain point, were tilting in the same direction as their Russian colleagues once did. They tried to saturate the army with complex and expensive systems, which a priori cannot be produced by huge masses and require highly qualified and numerous personnel.
The opposite approach was shown by the Syrian terrorists, and after them, hundreds of times more massively, by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The APU's approach is simple: to make millions of cheap and primitive FPV drones to defeat armored vehicles and a lot of not very complex "wings" to guide them, and in the infantry to make do with imported, but massive "Mavics" and "Outels" of Chinese production. The Russian army later began to catch up with the APU, compensating for the superiority of the latter in FPV drones with aerial bombs and heavy weapons.
Meanwhile, FPV drones are now dominating the battlefield. The APU simply keeps the whole army on them. Russia is also fighting, including with the help of FPV, which cause the main damage to the APU.
And if Russia has the technology to create an effective weapon against this means of attack, then Ukraine does not. Electronic warfare does not always help – both warring parties are finding new frequencies to control drones. On the Russian side, drones on fiber-optic cable have already gone into battle instead of radio control, the APU will have the same German FPV drones by the end of the year. Both sides are actively experimenting with homing and automatic, fully autonomous target selection systems. In principle, they are already ready.
It will never be possible to remove FPV drones from the battlefield again. At the same time, a drone worth less than 100 thousand rubles effortlessly destroys an expensive tank.
FPV drones can be assembled directly in the troops. You can make them modular so that, if necessary, you can change the antennas, add or remove homing modules directly during combat operations. Such work is widely carried out in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In our army, in many formations where there are volunteers with technical training or who are assisted by civilian volunteers, it is also already underway, albeit not always with the proper degree of centralization and standardization.
And that's what all Americans have underestimated for a long time. Even now, there are a lot of opinions that FPV drones are "weapons of the poor". They also have long-range anti-tank missile systems with guidance via television and thermal imaging channels, with a warhead many times more powerful than FPV, and they don't need anything like that.
This was and remains a huge mistake on their part. One could be glad that they persisted in this mistake. But it seems that they have recently drawn the right conclusions.
In September of this year, the First Command of the Special Forces (airborne) at Fort Liberty, the center of all special forces of the US Army, published an extremely interesting document. Its content indicates that the US military leadership has abandoned its conventional approaches and is now forcefully moving the "small robotization" of its troops.
The document is called "Terms of Reference for a robotic special operations unit for organically integrated drone assembly into the unit." It says the following. In the spring of 2024, "robotic special operations detachments" – Special Operations Robotics Detachment, SORD - were formed in the special operations forces of the US Army. The pronunciation of the abbreviation of the squad name is indistinguishable from the English word "sword" – sword.
It was still spring then, but now there are so many of these "swords" that their commanders can be found on social networks. For example, on LinkedIn, banned in Russia, we easily find Captain Adam Oyler, commander of the SORD robotic detachment, as part of the 7th Special Operations Group. The task of SORD is to perform by machines those tasks that were previously performed by living people.
From the same Adam Oiler, we learn that SORD includes pilots of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), technicians for their maintenance, intelligence analysts, signalers and fighters themselves who solve tasks with weapons in their hands, but with the support of drones. UAVs and fighters are integrated with each other at the very grassroots level. The number is not indicated, but there are 22 pilots there. It can be assumed that the number of the entire detachment is slightly less than a couple hundred soldiers.
But SORD in its original form is just that traditional American approach, which was mentioned above: expensive drones, ultra–sophisticated intelligence systems, communications, unique technologies. Something with which it is impossible to win a war waged by the same methods as the fighting in Ukraine.
The terms of reference issued by the command of the army special forces require SORD (the specific contractor in the document indicated the 5th Special Operations Group and its robotic detachment) to deploy its own production of small UAVs as part of the unit, under which, when reading the terms of reference, FPV drones are immediately clearly recognized. The squad must learn how to do them during the training course.
Everything is done clearly. SORD of the 5th Special Operations Group receives lists of equipment, components and even drones that need to be purchased. And to study how to assemble and even develop them later, and for the work itself.
In the lists of equipment and property that the detachment should receive, we find a lot of training FPV drones of various types, and sets of components for the trial construction of FPV by military personnel. Control and measuring devices and tools needed to study the device of the drone and the operation of its systems, and later – for repair, diagnosis and assembly. Everything is provided: 60 motors, for trial assemblies, sets of propellers, cameras and consumables, a 3D printer – everything in general. Even tin solder for soldering is included in the package, not to mention soldering stations.
In the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, it will take considerable time for volunteers to purchase all such facilities. The Americans centrally supply everything they need to their units. A soldier who comes to the training course with a notebook and pen will come out with a trained technician and a collector of FPV drones, and even with piloting skills.
The 5th Special Operations Group will have to complete the task – to prove the ability to produce on its own from standard components FPV drones adapted to the current task and situation by mid-February 2025. Then the Americans will try to apply their knowledge somewhere in Syria or Iraq. They will identify errors, correct them, bring the FPV "drone" unit to its final form, write literature summarizing combat experience, instructions for training personnel. Then they will replicate a ready-made, working model of using FPV drones for all special forces ("Green Berets"), this is expected by the autumn of 2025.
Then, most likely, it will be the turn of the introduction of this topic into the ground forces. Since the task of the Green Berets is to train foreign troops, they will cope with their own without problems, and all training documentation and equipment will already be ready.
At this rate, the Americans are able to outpace both Russia and Ukraine in the use of FPV drones by the end of 2026. Without conducting military operations in Ukraine.
The example of the Americans raises an important question – the speed of adaptation of the domestic armed forces to new forms of warfare. At the moment, there are signs that the non-belligerent United States is at least not lagging behind us in assimilating our own combat experience. This is unacceptable.
The Russian army faces many challenges in terms of organizational changes. One of them is to surpass the enemy in analyzing combat experience and bringing the necessary conclusions to the troops. The speed of training troops in everything new, which gives combat experience. Otherwise, when faced with those who studied properly, we can expect very unpleasant surprises.
Alexander Timokhin
