I think this comment should feature higher in the discussion. Drone swarms are bound to play critical roles in upcoming conflicts, as already attested by Ukraine's destruction of Russia's black sea fleet. This is what can be done with COTS gear, but in the past few decades the US has been showing off glimpses of its drone-based war strategy and already showcased capabilities such as F16s deploying mid-air and commanding drone swarms. I also recall news reports of Ukraine also using adapted crop duster drones modified to serve as relay hubs and carry and drop-off FPV drones. Thus this capability is already present today, except the aircraft are unmanned.

Superficially, my opinion makes me sound like a 'pootin properganhist'. However, my perspective is not that, I am a campaigner against the arms trade, and I would prefer to have the potholes fixed in the UK roads rather than potholes get made in the Donbass. I do not fetishise these stupid weapons of war, but I do count the bullets, with an outsider perspective.

Russia has the upper hand in the skies. They send out the drones, the Patriot systems shoot their load to get them down, the air defence is defeated and then the hypersonic missiles come in.

Sure, the UK/France have had some success taking down some of their Black Sea fleet but I think you are over-egging the pudding to claim 'destruction of the fleet', particularly when it is NATO shooting their very expensive missiles.

There is a long list of Western toys that you no longer hear about because they are not any more useful than any of the flying aircraft carriers. Things just get shot down all too easily. At the start they had those Turkish Bayraktar drones and they were seen as a serious weapon, nowadays nobody would send that junk into the sky. It is not just drones, things like HIMARS are now relegated to trash too. Remember Challenger 2, Bradley and whatever those French wheeled tanks were? Lancet FPV drones saw to them all. It was a complete waste of taxpayer money. And yes, I pay taxes.

This joke of sending F-16s has been going on for a while, with excuses about no pilots trained. They won't be deploying drone swarms with them, that is boy's comic fantasy stuff.

Neither side has the air superiority that NATO/USA/UK has when bombing wedding parties in Afghanistan. Things like the Baba-yaga crop duster drone are able to get some kills and NATO are able to FPV drone any tanks that Russia sends out into the open, but you never see Javelin or other wonder weapons these days, and they were designed for that job specifically.

Lives are lost in this conflict and at considerable economic cost. "Who started it" is not the point, we had that one a century ago with WW1. Why repeat the stupidity, for weapons fetish reasons?

While I don't think it detracts from your position that perhaps funds would be better spent at home fixing domestic issues approaching crisis, you don't really seem to be that up-to-date about developments in the war. I suggest you write to a local MP and ask to meet with them about accounting for equipment losses of loaned equipment - it is intensively well documented, to try to avoid corruption. All MPs have access to the full papers on request.

Challenger 2 tanks, for example, have only had one loss as far as i'm aware. They've mainly been used in a short-range artillery role, firing at field fortifications from 3km or so away, a role in which i've heard they are considered capable. They cannot operate in a frontline role, no tank on either side has or can.

HIMARS has singlehandedly caused a full russian shift in tactics, placing their fuel depots, ammunition dumps, and supply lines more than 100km away from the front line, which has contributed massively to their ongoing supply issues.

Yes, evolution of tactics of drone warfare has changed the face of the battle considerably, leaving some weapons less useful. They would also be useless in the hands of our own millitary. They have already been paid for, there is no "spending", we are literally sending kit that the regular army has had for decades to the frontlines. If it proves useless, then we can be glad that the ukranians found that out for us.

Yes, some equipment is lost in war. It's perhaps worth noting that a weapon used in combat and lost is a much more worthwhile one than something sitting in storage and brought out once a year for training. That scenario, to me, is "weapons fetishism", and contributes to inane cost bloat.

Way off the main thread, however, they did not send the best Challenger 2 tanks, they sent the ones with the limited ammunition supply that use the old gun. Only one was ever spotted in the wild, that did not last long. The idea was that with Leopard tanks, those Abrams, Bradley and French things, Zelensky would be seeing the sea again in the Crimea, some time in summer 2023. A very small dent in the Surovkin Line was made near Rabotino and that was about all the Great Summer Offensive amounted to.

With HIMARS there was a problem with shooting down the missiles and taking out the launchers, but Russia got there in the end. That is why they are now using Vampire instead. They also ran out of ammo for HIMARS and had to switch up to cluster weapons, which resulted in the Russians bringing out their own cluster weapons.

The entire front is only moving one way, west. This has been at a cost of many thousands of lives, sent to this meat grinder that benefits only the arms companies.

> They send out the drones, the Patriot systems shoot their load to get them down, the air defence is defeated and then the hypersonic missiles come in.

Patriot is not used to shoot down drones.

> Why repeat the stupidity, for weapons fetish reasons?

It's a good reminder that Ukraine has no wish for this war.

We are way off the original post here, however, Russia sends the Soviet Era (cruise) missiles out as decoys for taking out the air defence, whilst stocks last.

Who is Ukraine anyway? They don't have elections and the people supplying the weapons tend to have residence in London and Washington. They certainly wish for war. In April 2022 'Ukraine' was ready to sign on the dotted line for a peace deal brokered by Turkey but Boris Johnson flew out and nixed the deal. This is documented, so, in a way, you are right, and on both accounts.