How did low-tech, cheap weapons completely change the face of modern warfare – twice?
Between 2003 and 2007, British military fatalities in Iraq from Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) rose every single year, quickly becoming the most common cause of death at the hands of the enemy. They were cheap, easy to deploy at scale, and devastatingly effective against incredibly expensive military hardware.
Fast forward to the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, and a new asymmetric threat has emerged: First-Person View (FPV) drones. Despite the decades separating roadside bombs from consumer drones, the shared characteristics between them are striking. Both weaponized commercial technology, both caught modern militaries by surprise, and both completely flipped the economics of the battlefield.
https://www.forcesnews.com/operations/iraq/cheap-and-scalable-were-roadside-bombs-iraq-warning-drone-threat-faced-today
#drones #iraq #optelic #uk #weapons
