Ukraine vs Russia: Lessons from the first drone war
The credit for 'the first drone war' goes to the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian conflict. The India-Pakistan faceoff was just another bead in a long chain that began 176 years ago, when pilotless hot-air balloons bombed Venice during the 1848-49 Italian revolution.
It took 68 years to progress from the wind to radio-control—an 'aerial torpedo' against zeppelins and submarines designed by Archibald Low, the 'father of aerial guidance systems'.
In 1935, the de Havilland DH.82 Queen Bee made its debut—a yellow-and-black liveried, radio-controlled biplane that not only became a testbed for future designs but also fathered the appellation 'drone'.
During the Second World War, the US Navy converted four-engined B-24 Liberator bombers to radio-control for bombing missions. During the Cold War, the US used AQM-34 Firebee for photography missions over China and Vietnam, with China shooting down one in 1964. Iraq first used its ubiquitous Mohajer-1 for battlefield surveillance in 1986, explosively multiplying the use of drones in West Asia.
But these were large and spottable, and therefore more stoppable. Today, drones come in all shapes and sizes, from palm-width playthings to quadcopters and hexacopters that can be assembled by non-state actors—such as guerrillas in Myanmar and insurgents in Syria.
In Myanmar, the Karenni Nationalities Defence Force uses drones made with 3D printers and mechanics stripped from Chinese pesticide-sprayers. In Syria, the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), now in power, began producing winged drones in 2019. In Gaza, Hamas used hobbyists' first-person-view (FPV) drones to scope out Israeli border posts.
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