The All-Seeing Eye: Drone Reconnaissance and Artillery Spotting

The combination of a small, tactical drone and a long-range artillery piece has become one of the most lethal duos on the modern battlefield. This SITREP explores the tactical revolution of drone-based artillery spotting, from the simple use of commercial drones to provide real-time targeting data, to the development of more advanced, AI-powered systems that can automatically identify targets, calculate firing solutions, and even assess battle damage.

For centuries, artillery has been the king of battle. But it has always had an Achilles' heel: it can only hit what it can see. For most of history, this has meant relying on forward observers, brave soldiers who had to expose themselves to enemy fire to direct the guns. But today, the king of battle has a new set of eyes, an all-seeing eye in the sky that can see everything, and expose itself to very little risk. The simple, yet profound, combination of a small, tactical drone and a long-range artillery piece has become one of the most lethal duos on the modern battlefield.

The war in Ukraine has been a stark demonstration of this new reality. We have seen countless videos of small, commercial drones hovering over enemy positions, providing real-time video feeds to artillery crews located miles away. The artillery can then adjust its fire with a level of precision that was previously unimaginable, raining down shells with devastating accuracy. This has turned the battlefield into a transparent, lethal environment, where any soldier who is not under cover is at risk of being seen, and being killed.

But we are only at the beginning of this tactical revolution. The simple use of drones for manual artillery spotting is just the first step. The real game-changer will be the integration of AI into this process. We can use computer vision to automatically identify and classify targets, to distinguish between a tank and a truck, or a soldier and a civilian. We can use AI to calculate the optimal firing solution, taking into account wind, weather, and the curvature of the earth. And we can use AI to assess the battle damage, to confirm that a target has been destroyed, and to recommend a re-attack if it has not.

This will create a new, hyper-efficient kill chain, a seamless, automated process that goes from target detection to target destruction in a matter of seconds. It will allow us to service a much larger number of targets, with a much smaller number of guns. And it will give us a decisive advantage in the artillery duel that is at the heart of any peer-level conflict.

The all-seeing eye of the drone has given the king of battle a new lease on life. It has made artillery more lethal, more precise, and more important than ever before. At ROE Defense, we are building the tools that will make this new reality possible.