Drones.. How did they change the course of battles in 5 major wars?

On the morning of December 12 of last year 2022, inside a research center for testing and developing drones in the state of Tekirdag in northwestern Turkey, the engineers ignored the heavy fog that hung over the city, and began an initial test for the takeoff of a combat aircraft with stealth capabilities. Bayraktar Kızılelma, a model that has been working on secretly for more than ten years as part of the MIUS combat drone system project.

The project took place in full swing under the supervision of the forty-year-old Seljuk Bayraktar, the son-in-law of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the godfather of the drone industry technology in Turkey, with which Ankara bypassed the US ban imposed on exporting the latest combat aircraft.

At a defining moment, the fighter has already passed flight tests, thus becoming one of the few drones capable of "hostile maneuvering", which makes it capable of performing some of the tasks of conventional combat aircraft.

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A "Kızılelma" drone.

(Getty Images)

In recent years, the world has witnessed conflicts in which drones played decisive roles, including five important battles in Syria, Yemen and Libya, as well as in the "Nagorno-Karabakh" region between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and finally the ongoing war in Ukraine, in which the drones became more famous than any other. military conflict.

Ukraine has turned into a laboratory for drones for more than one country, which has come to believe that the key to modern warfare lies in air supremacy.

And with the intensive and increasing use of drones in the Ukrainian war, and in other regional and international conflicts recently, and the joining of many new players to the production and manufacture of this type of aircraft, and the investment of billions of dollars in this industry, it is expected that unmanned air wars will become the most important military phenomenon in the air for decades. coming.

The weapon of the twenty-first century

In February 2017, in a remote area in the Syrian province of Idlib, the deputy leader of al-Qaeda at the time, "Abu al-Khair al-Masri", Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law, went out to his car in the dead of night, but the darkness was not enough to protect him, as he was targeted by an American drone. The MQ-9 Reaper fired deadly laser-guided missiles, killing him and his comrades, without the United States getting involved in a direct military confrontation on the ground.

And in the past year, 2022, the scene was repeated in the heart of the Afghan capital, Kabul, where a march of the same type targeted al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri himself in his safe house, and before him also targeted “Qassem Soleimani,” the commander of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and with him the deputy chief of the crowd. Iraqi popular "Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis" by an air strike near Baghdad Airport in early 2020.

An American MQ-9 Reaper drone.

(Getty Images)

The method of previous assassinations of the most wanted men by the United States not only reflects a radical change in the strategy of ground confrontation on the ground, which it used two decades ago after the September 2001 attacks, but also represents another shift in the uses of drones, after it established itself as a central position in various regions. Armed conflicts around the world, and its role evolved from reconnaissance, espionage, monitoring, and surveillance to play a decisive role in the air and military strategy of the major powers, which prompted them all to enter the race to acquire those small pieces, by purchasing them at times, and setting ambitious plans for their production and manufacture at other times.

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NATO divides drones into three classes according to their speed and weight.

The weight of the first category drones is 150 kilograms or less, and they are small, lightweight and slow-moving aircraft, and are used for reconnaissance or surveillance missions, and sometimes they participate in the delivery of ammunition.

The American drone "Puma 3 AE" is one of the most prominent aircraft of this category, with a weight of no more than seven kilograms, and a flight time of approximately three hours.

As for the second category, its weight ranges between 150-600 kilograms, and it can be used in limited offensive or suicide operations. It has a faster engine than the first category, and a flight time of up to 24 hours. One of the most famous Turkish drones is the Bayraktar TB2, whose cost ranges from Between 1-5 million dollars.

The American MQ-1 Predator.

(Getty Images)

The expansion of the use of drones in military operations raises questions about the future of this industry, which has grown rapidly in the past five years, against the background of the US Federal Aviation Administration granting hundreds of new exemptions to companies to operate drones in the United States, and then the rise of its competitors in China, Turkey, Iran and Israel, and it was The drone industry before that date was in a slow growth phase due to the obstacles imposed by the laws related to its industry.

Although their use dates back to more than a century ago, when Britain used them in World War I in 1917, and the United States followed them a year later, those old drones only carried out reconnaissance and monitoring missions. As for direct combat missions and the ability to launch missiles, they only appeared with the “Predator” drone. The US in the war in Afghanistan, and then the interest in combat drones gradually grew and their types increased and their use in battles grew.

Who owns the small pieces of death?

Until the end of the nineties, the unique shift made by the drones was their ability to occupy an auxiliary position through espionage and intelligence missions, as the United States used them in the second Gulf War in 1991 to reconnaissance and discover Iraqi missile batteries, and then send the coordinates to the Joint Operations Center so that the forces can The US then carried out its tasks without obstacles.

But with the start of the new millennium, and the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, marches became a major weapon in the US fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Given the nature of the Afghan geography, which exhausted the Soviet Union before it in a war that lasted ten years, the United States was not ready to launch a large-scale ground invasion without resorting to those small pieces that were then able, for the first time, to launch a missile attack.

The version of the marches used at the time was dubbed the Predator, and it quickly took the lives of all those Washington considered its enemy.

The advantages granted by the drones to the United States in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq quickly sparked a race between major countries and regional powers to acquire this new technology.

While the United States sought to monopolize this technology and prevent other countries from accessing it, its efforts did not succeed after the race got out of control, and Turkey, Iran, China and Russia made great strides in making marches and exporting them to their allies.

For example, Turkish and Iranian drone strikes played a major role in the recent battles on Ukrainian soil, as well as in supporting Azerbaijan and Ethiopia against Armenia and the Tigray Liberation Front, respectively.

According to estimates, "Paul Schar"

Despite this wide spread, the technology of manufacturing small die parts is still monopolized by a limited number of countries, and the United States is at the forefront of the leading countries in the field of manufacturing drones, the most important of which are the "MQ-9 Reaper" and "MQ-1 Predator".

Then comes China as one of the largest exporters of drones in the world, and in 2013 China tested the first combat drone called "Sharp Sword" (meaning the sharp sword), and a decade after that date, China had delivered 220 drones to 16 countries, the most important of which are the two drones. "Wing Loong 1 and 2", according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, and these drones are much cheaper than their American counterpart.

Israel is also one of the largest producers and exporters of drones, the most famous of which is the "Eitan", which can stay in the air for 36 continuous hours and carry 1,000 kilograms of explosive missiles, in addition to the two "Hermes 450" and "Hermes 900", which were used by Tel Aviv in its wars on Gaza. And in launching specific attacks, assassinations and operations.During the Gaza war in 2021, the Israeli occupation used swarms of combat drones to locate and attack Hamas fighters without direct Israeli intervention.

As for Turkey, whose program succeeded after years in producing a successful version of the "Bayraktar TB2" model in 2015, its superiority was quickly reflected externally, and gave Ankara regional influence and weight in the labor market.

According to Turkish official data, in 2022 the company "Baykar", which produces marches, signed export contracts with 27 countries, with total revenues amounting to $ 1.18 billion, and the most prominent buyers are Ukraine, Poland, Azerbaijan, Morocco, Kuwait, the Emirates, Ethiopia, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Romania and Albania.

How did the course of battles change in 5 major wars?

At a time when Washington has set strict conditions for exporting its high-tech drones to other countries, even its allies, the market for low-cost armed drones created by Turkey, China and Iran has reshaped the battlefields and turned the balance of battles, and even imposed a new situation on traditional equipment. Such as armored vehicles, tanks and air defense systems, which can no longer withstand small fighters.

For example, since March 2015, Saudi Arabia has been fighting a war in Yemen to restore the government that was overthrown by the Houthi group.

The United Nations says that the Houthis' arsenal includes anti-ship missiles and watercraft loaded with explosives, but the drones had a special status in that battle.

According to official Saudi data, the number of drones that targeted strategic facilities inside the Kingdom until the end of 2021 amounted to about 851 aircraft that the group obtained from Iran, most notably the “Shahed 136”, which Russia also uses in the Ukraine war, in addition to the “Samad 2 and 3” and “Samad 3” drones. Qasef 1 and 2.

The Turkish drone "Bayraktar" was also on a date with its first mission in northern Syria during the "Olive Branch" operation launched by Turkey in 2018. Two years later, the city of Idlib, the stronghold of the Syrian opposition, almost fell had it not been for the onslaught of the Turkish drones and the destruction of more than 100 vehicles. armored vehicles, halting Assad's initially successful assault on the opposition stronghold.

In the end, Bayraktar gave Turkey a long hand on the northern Syrian border, and enabled it to seize control of the strategic international M4 highway, which was previously under the control of Russian forces and the Syrian regime.

The Turkish march "Bayraktar".

(Anatolia)

"Bayraktar" was also present in Libya. In April 2019, the Libyan general "Khalifa Haftar" launched a battle to overthrow the Libyan capital, Tripoli, which forced the GNA to sign a security agreement with Ankara, which enabled the latter to send Turkish trainers with "Bayraktar" planes that appeared. in the skies of Libya, and was instrumental in restoring air sovereignty for the government.

Meanwhile, the Russian "Pantsir" air defense system, which Haftar secretly owned, was unable to confront those drones that turned the course of the war and forced Haftar to withdraw to the city of Sirte.

Then, in the Caucasus, at a major crossroads between Europe and Asia, a military conflict took place between Azerbaijan and Armenia in September 2020 over the disputed territory of "Nagorno-Karabakh". Turkey rushed to provide its ally, Azerbaijan, with drones, while Russia refrained from helping its ally, Armenia. The result was that "Bayraktar" resolved the conflict in a month and a half in favor of Azerbaijan, which imposed a "treaty" on its adversary, described as humiliating by the Armenian president himself.

Barely two years had passed since that war, when Russia launched its war against Ukraine, in which each country used drones that prolong the fighting until the moment, and the balance of the war continued to fluctuate time after time.

The drones outperformed the "cruise" missiles, and seemed more effective and less expensive in the theater of operations. During the first eight months of the invasion, the launch of Russian cruise missiles cost the Russian army about $1 million each, according to American estimates, which prompted Moscow to resort to drones. Iranian "witness", which costs only $20,000 each.

Ukraine says it was able to destroy about 70% or more of the 400 Iranian-made drones, yet the drones were able to target the electricity grid and other infrastructure components.

In Ukraine specifically, the Turkish and Iranian drones are still waging their fierce war in one of the fiercest battles in the air. The American and the European, in which the Turkish and Iranian roles appeared clearly, although Tehran and Ankara are just two regional powers without a prominent presence in Eastern Europe or in the traditional arms market.

This tells us not only that the nature of wars changed after the spread of drones, but that these small planes made decisive air power easy to obtain by medium and even economically distressed powers, and also easy to export to their allies in a way that redraws the course of battles in countries thousands of miles away.

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