- Ukraine's drones capabilities were built internally using consumer grade hardware
- US tried to supply some cutting edge military grade drones(switchblade 300/600), but there is no much reports about them, and program has been canceled since then, I speculate those drones were having significant issues
My suspicion is that US small combat drones programs are weak and ineffective.
“Tried”?
> but there is no much reports about them,
There are lots of reports about them.
> and program has been canceled since then
US acquisition of the anti-personnel Switchblade 300 was cancelled recently, the anti-armor 600 was stepped up, both for deliveries to Ukraine and for deployment with US forces on a wide scale.
And, yes, the cancellation seems largely due to experience in Ukraine and the superiority of cheaper, adapted-from-consumer-models drones for anti-personnel use, but its important to note that's not an absence of combat experience—the 300 was rush developed and deployed to combat in Afghanistan in the early 2010s, and used extrnsively there. This is just the learning that happens with different approaches guided by different constraints finding different solutions.
I am kinda following this topic, and have seen maybe 2.
> the anti-armor 600 was stepped up
my reading of the news is that army ordered 100 units for testing
but the point is that despite claims of decades of intensive research, etc, US's only visible program is some small third party company with questionable quality, no other projects are visible, while other players (Israel with spike nlos, Russia with lancet, Iran with shahed) have several gens of battle proven tech already.
I think people have already forgotten that many of the early small-format drone capabilities used in Ukraine were provided by the US. An issue is that many of these types of drone systems developed by the US are export controlled, particularly the sensors and electronics, which limits the types available to Ukraine. Much of the equipment given to Ukraine by the US is obsolete or downgraded prior to delivery.
Ukraine and Russia are speed-running drone warfare that the US has been trying to perfect for decades. The US military has solutions to particular drone warfare problems that Ukraine/Russia have not yet solved.