Are Expensive Droned Numbered?

Abstract

The first two decades of the 21st century may be remembered as the golden age of expensive drones. The reason is uncomplicated: they were largely flown against enemies with limited or no air defenses.  But what happens when the enemy can defend? This question has been raised in Ukraine, as well as in Yemen and Iran. When faced with non-permissive environments, expensive drones face challenging cost-survivability problems. The article examines the record and questions whether contested environments are reducing the utility of expensive non-attritable drones and increasing the value of cheaper, replaceable systems.

The Conflicts in Yemen and Iran

In March 2025, in response to Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping, Central Command (CENTCOM) mounted Operation Rough Rider. To general surprise, over the next six weeks, seven MQ-9 Reapers were downed or more than $200 million worth of aircraft. Over the next 12 months, operations continued intermittently against the Houthis. In May this year, Yemeni forces released footage of another downed Reaper. Counting both MQ-9s and MQ-1s, this was the 27th shoot-down since US forces began operating against the Houthis in 2016.

In February this year, Washington mounted Operation Epic Fury against Iran. Eleven Reapers were downed by 9 March. Another eight were lost in early April. By June, the number of reported Reaper losses had risen to 30. In mid-August, The Washington Post reported at least 45 Reapers had been lost in operations against Iran.

In total, over 70 MQ-1s and MQ-9s have been lost against two enemies with limited air defenses but which have proved sufficient to impose disproportionate costs through the loss of expensive drones. Over $1 billion worth of aircraft have been downed. The losses have created a supply crisis. General Atomics recently commented: ‘Between parts in stock for new builds, and company-owned Reapers with some number of flight hours on them, there are less than 10 total ‘new’ MQ-9As available to any customers anywhere in the world.’

Ukraine – the World’s First Mass Drone Attrition War

At the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, the Turkish Bayraktar TB2 enhanced its reputation from the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War (2020) in operations against Russian forces. However, by the summer it had stopped flying. Twenty-six were lost; the $5 million drone proved too vulnerable.

Today, the Oryx database (which tallies overall Russian-Ukrainian losses) has stopped counting lost tactical reconnaissance drones and no longer lists the historic losses on its website; the numbers are too large (the smaller handheld drones have never been counted; around 16-17,000 are launched every day and roughly 80-90% are shot down, jammed, suffer technical failures or otherwise are unable to complete their missions). Before counting stopped and the data was removed from the website, Oryx had recorded more than 230 downed Russian Orlan-10s and over 300 Zalas and Supercams. Ukrainian forces had lost more than 560 reconnaissance drones in total, including around 300 Leleka-100s and A1-SM Furys – two popular types.

The United Kingdom – a Cautionary Tale

The British Army has had a difficult relationship with drones. Since the 1980s, drone procurements have been plagued with technical problems, delays, and cost overruns. It has taken longer to procure individual drones than the aircraft have been in service.  Combined with the low number of drones procured, these factors have made the British Army vulnerable on operations where losses have mounted quickly, leaving commanders with fewer drones than desirable to sustain operations.

Losses have been embarrassing and triggered Defence Select Committee inquiries. On Operation Allied Force (Kosovo 1999), 13 of 27 deployed Phoenix were lost in 90 days. On Operation Telic 1 (Iraq 2003), just 138 sorties were flown. 23 Phoenix were lost and 13 damaged (from a total fleet of 89, or 32%).  The losses led to the retirement of Phoenix three years later. The Israeli Hermes 450 filled the gap for operations in Afghanistan (Operation Herrick 2006-2014),

Concurrently, the Army pursued the £1.2 billion Watchkeeper procurement (2000-2025). By the time the program was terminated last year, Watchkeeper had flown just under 4,000 hours, and eight were lost in accidents (nine Hermes 450s were lost in Iraq and Afghanistan from 86,000 flight hours). Only 11 of 54 aircraft were actually operational at the time of retirement, and the drone was mostly being flown in simulation anyway. The £1.2 billion spend had yielded just 146 flight hours on live operations.

Is there a More Cost-effective Answer?

Faced with a grinding war of attrition and constrained budgets, Ukrainian Unmanned System Forces have discovered (or re-discovered) that cheap does not mean less effective.  Handing soldiers exorbitantly expensive kit is a recent phenomenon anyway. Good was good enough even one generation ago.

In the Ukrainian experience, reconnaissance drones that previously flew a few hundred hours began to be lost after one or two sorties. Every NATO country, with the possible exception of the United States, would be drone-less within a matter of 2-3 weeks in Ukraine – the few, expensive aircraft would be downed, and divisions and brigades would be left blind. For Kyiv, the only financially viable solution has been to mass-produce cheap drones that are not too costly to lose.

‘If we do not get a cheap and mass-produced system in large numbers, we will simply be left blind or run out of money…Losing systems like these, which are supposed to operate deep behind enemy lines, is not economically viable.’

Oleksii Babenko, CEO of Vyriy Industries

Alternatives to the more expensive drones – and no less effective – have appeared on the front lines. Two examples are Sokil (‘Hawk’) $3,900, and Babka (‘Grandmother’) $3,000. These cheaper drones can be trained in one week to a month. If the crew is already experienced, the manufacturer of Babka claims ‘5-7 days is enough to fine-tune operations.’ This is unimaginable in NATO armies that take months and even as long as a year to get single pilots through training courses.

Concurrently, the Ukrainian drone strike campaign has ramped up and is being executed at a cost inconceivable in NATO.  Since the beginning of the year, Ukrainian Unmanned Systems Forces have carried out 2,359 deep strike (l,500-2,000 km), 3,406 middle strike (150-300 km), and 3,747 near-strike (25-150 km) missions – at an economical cost. By way of example, attacks on Russian logistic routes in occupied Ukraine mostly use the $5,000 Swift Beat Hornet drone. For comparison, US forces burned through an estimated $3.1 billion worth of munitions in the first 100 hours of Operation Epic Fury.

Attritable Versus Non-attritable

The lesson is clear: armies require a mix of cheap, attritable drones to sustain divisional and brigade ISR in contested environments, as well as more expensive drones with utility in permissive environments. However, for countries with constrained defense budgets, this option is not necessarily available. The United Kingdom offers the example where few expensive drones are preferred to many cheap drones, most recently demonstrated in the choice of successor drone to Watchkeeper – a £400 ($545) million procurement for just 24 drones.

National leaders and governments are naturally inclined to make announcements over how they are providing the nation’s armed forces with the best, world-beating kit. Unfortunately, world-beating drones also cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

Industry also gravitates toward the best. High-end equipment means large-value contracts; building a reputation for leading technology; and outpacing competitors also seeking to demonstrate technological superiority. A race to an economic bottom with cheap technology is highly unappealing to a Western defense firm.

But which NATO country – even the United States – is comfortable with the spectacle of billions worth of drones falling out of the sky in a matter of a few weeks, downed by supposedly ‘obliterated’ enemies?

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