- Low-cost drones have been used as cheap and effective weapons in conflicts like Ukraine.
- The US military is rapidly developing its own tactics and ways to counter them.
- In January, Marines conducted live-fire training exercises using a new anti-drone system.
In footage released last year, a Ukrainian drone is filmed approaching a Russian tank. But instead of flying into its protective shield, the drone flies under it, exploding and obliterating the vehicle.
It was a vivid example of how off-the-shelf drones, which can cost as little as $1,000, are transforming the battlefield.
Ukraine has used drones to overcome Russia's major advantages in manpower and equipment, and Pentagon military planners have watched closely — drawing their own lessons.
The US military is now testing a range of equipment and tactics to defend against aerial drone attacks.
In January, US Marines conducted live-fire training exercises in Hawaii using a new anti-drone system, the Marine Air Defense Integrated System, or MADIS.
The system allows Marines to detect, identify, and destroy drones using an arsenal of weapons, including canons, jammers, and machine guns, Stars and Stripes reported.
Last year, Defense One reported that the Pentagon was also planning to equip troops with handheld drone detection and jamming devices.
And in December, the Pentagon released a new counter-drone strategy aimed at coordinating how different branches of the military respond to the threat, and making "countering unmanned systems a key element of our thinking."
"Some of the character of warfare is changing right now," Col. John Lehane, commander of the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment, told The Honolulu Star-Advertiser this month, of the MADIS test.
"And if we don't change, we're going to find ourselves in a bad spot," he said.
Drone tactics develop rapidly
Clayton Swope, a senior fellow in the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Business Insider that anti-drone defenses have two core challenges — to detect drones and to neutralize them.
Systems like MADIS, which can travel with front-line forces and integrate drone detectors and interceptors, are an important development, he said.
"MADIS is a solution that operates at the pointiest end of the spear, providing air protections to marines who might have to storm the beaches in a future conflict," Swope said.
The system is carried by a pair of light, tactical vehicles, Stars and Stripes reported in January, and will next be used in joint exercises in the Philippines, to see how it handles humid conditions.
No 'silver bullet' for tackling drones
Zak Kallenborn, a drone analyst and affiliate of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told BI that there was no "silver bullet" for tackling drones, and that defenses "need to accommodate that variability."
"Drones vary greatly in capability and present threats across the whole of the military," he said.
"One big problem is we're only really learning about aerial drone tactics," Kallenborn added, "but drones also fly, swim, and swarm. It's tough to develop counter tactics against technologies that are only just beginning to be used."
The relative novelty of using drones in war also means tactics must evolve fast.
Russia has developed a sophisticated electronic warfare capability to counter drones by jamming the signals used to guide them. Meanwhile, Ukraine claims to have tested laser weapons to take out drones used by Russia to attack its cities and infrastructure.
According to The War Zone, multiple branches of the US military are experimenting with laser or microwave weapons to take down drones.
Ukraine, with the help of allies including the US and Germany, is also reportedly seeking to develop new drones to overcome Russia's jamming.
Raising the drone threat, Business Insider reported last year that a new type of attack might involve drones operated as part of a coordinated swarm. China is among the countries believed to be developing this technology.
To counter this, Swope said militaries like the US' might need to use AI as part of drone defenses, to analyze complex data beyond the capability of humans.
"Defensive systems will need to make decisions at a speed and scale that might challenge a human operator," he said.
In the short term, "MADIS and other systems like it will be critical to protecting infantry and artillery units from small drones," Swope said, "which Ukraine has shown are an impossible-to-ignore emerging threat to ground forces."
