but this involves the Russian drones getting much more sophisticated (read: expensive) which is also a win.

It really frustrates me that this isn’t acknowledged by media coverage at all when this is a very basic strategic shift in power to understand. When Ukraine successfully evolves their flying bomb defenses and Russia is forced to make costlier flying bombs that fly faster and higher and utilize more sophisticated equipment to avoid defenses the media reports on this as if it is a sign of Russia’s superior inevitable strength because the Russian weapons are becoming more advanced. There is usually zero acknowledgement at all why Russia didn’t make those flying bombs more advanced in the past… i.e. they weren’t FORCED to devote more resources to each flying bomb to penetrate Ukraine’s defenses until Ukraine tipped the scales more in Ukraine’s favor.

There is a natural paradox here that as shahed type drones become more and more sophisticated they in a sense become less and less scary as costs rise faster and faster, the shahed strategy fundamentally relies upon extreme cost efficiency especially because they are basically weaponized target drones that train the opposing military to be extremely good at complex aerial interdiction which isn’t necessarily what you want to do when you are short on trained pilots/air defenses yourself. In a sense Russia is incurring a training deficit in favor of Ukraine every time they attack with shaheds instead of focusing on training and equipping their own pilots and air defense crews that they then have to spend MORE money making up for later (those could have been training target drones for Russia’s pilots and air defenses instead of Ukraine’s)… I understand that does nothing to comfort people afraid of being hit by these scarier more sophisticated flying bombs as we speak but the strategic dynamic I am pointing out here is nonetheless very real.

If there is one lesson in military power to take from the example of US military it is that an airpower advantage expressed in terms of functioning combined arms coordination has a non-linear impact upon the battlefield, drones are an echo of this expressed at the tactical level rather than the more operational level that fighter-bombers usually operate at, but the lesson is similar and when taking it into consideration the usual narrative around flying bombs is flipped on its head. Just because the consequences of Ukrainian forces not shooting down a flying bomb before it reaches its target are tragic doesn’t mean the experience gained by Ukrainian forces utilizing a diverse range of assets to combat mass aerial attacks isn’t the kind of experience that would take an unfathomable amount of military resources to replicate in peacetime live training exercises. I don’t stress this point to diminish the human cost here but rather to point out Russia faces an existential military risk in that they might accidentally train the nation they are trying to defeat to be far super in aerial operations to their own forces in a decisive way. I would argue that is already happening though Ukraine is of course “training” Russian aerial defenses as well, Russia just doesn’t have the material capacity to properly equip and fund aerial defense forces to the point that they would be taking full advantage of the experience gained from shooting down Ukrainian drones and monetizing that as a form of military experience that could be exported as part of arms sales to allies.

By comparison Ukraine is positioning itself to be an international expert on aerial defense against mass flying bomb attacks in technological terms but even more importantly in doctrine and tactical experience.

it also means more interceptions per sortie, because it’s 7 missiles in pod per hardpoint, instead of one. this also makes it all cheaper, on top of cost of missiles (fewer sorties = less pilot’s time, less strain and wear on plane)