Wellbeing Group - Drone Warfare in the Ukraine - David Archibald

We are very pleased to announce that our guest speaker for this session is David Archibald, on the topic of advances in Drone warfare in teh Ukraine.

David has extrensively researched this topic and we are delighted to have him come and present his talk on this extremely topical subject which should be of interest to many Sheddies and friends.

David's Synopsis of his talk follows;

The US military introduced purpose-built drones in war twenty years ago but the initiative failed due to the cost of these exquisite systems. The Switchblade drone, for example, cost US$14,500 per kg, about 15 times the price of silver. The Middle Eastern wars over the last 15 years saw some desultory use of drones and the in last war between Armenia and Azerbaijan they enabled the victory of the Azeris.

Drones have come into their own in the Ukraine War since mid-2023 and are more cost-effective than traditional tube artillery. Some 85% of Russian casualties are now caused by Urkainian drones. Ukraine is now making four million drones per annum. Ukainian naval drones have had a similar impact in the war at sea with Russian vessels now driven 1,000 km from the nearest Ukainian-controlled coastline.

Anti-drone systems have been developed but have yet to be adopted in the battlefield. In theory, minimum entropy will be reached when what is spent on attack drones is matched by what is spent in defending against them. The current state of the technology will be detailed in 70 slides over 60 minutes.

This should prove to be a fascinating and pertinent talk so please register with a free ticket and come along and be informed.

Don't forget to stay a while after the talk to share in some Shed fellowship with drinks and nibbles available and to participate in the 2025 inititive for a Door Prize for some lucky participant which will be drawn at approximately 5:45pm