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When speed of engagement and area lethality count, the Ukrainian Army has learned tube artillery is often a better solution than drones. Consider the facts. An artillery shell is a drone of sorts—an unsmart, intentionally self-destructive, one-way drone, but a drone that can get to the target quickly and is available 24/7, even in the worst weather. A Ukrainian officer recently told Western reporters that 12 Russian soldiers might take 12 drones to engage, which leads to several other things for Ukrainians and observant U.S. Army tacticians to think about. How often can an infantry company have a dozen drones constantly loitering over an enemy axis of advance? Have you got the drones and battery power to go 24/7? If the drones aren’t loitering, then it takes time—as in multiple minutes of precious time, as the enemy probe turns into an attack—to fly the drones to the suspected area of enemy advance. This scenario assumes recon drones have correctly identified the advance and not a feint. Even an average logistician ought to conclude that having one recon drone scout an area is much more cost-effective. So, the solution: support the recon drone with tube or rocket artillery. Five or six 155mm arty rounds just obliterate soft targets—as in the bodies of probing infantry soldiers. Standard high-explosive arty shells are cheaper than drones—smart shells can get very expensive, but drones capable of carrying tank-disabling warheads and with batteries big enough to enable them to loiter and ambush armored vehicles can cost over $10,000. Cheaper drones (circa $1,000) don’t have the power to loiter for long or carry payloads capable of killing heavy armor. 155mm arty shells cost from $2,800 to $3,200. No, high-explosive arty shells aren’t heavy armor killers, but they are mass infantry killers, and a volley will rattle tankers. 155mm arty shell fragments can kill exposed soldiers for 50 meters in every direction. Most drones are point-target killers—essentially First Person View (FPV) sniping at one or two enemy soldiers. Yes, that definitely has its place. But high-quality RUMINT says Ukrainian soldiers swear the “big guns,” properly employed, are still the God of War. (AB)