WELL, YES: Drones ‘change everything’ about combined arms combat, US Army aviation chief says.

While Army aviators are no strangers to unmanned systems, drones being fielded today are immensely different from those developed over the last two decades, many of which tended to be larger and required more manpower to operate, Gill said.

“In the last five to 10 years I would say we have seen a complete shift in what drone technology is and how it can be used,” Gill said. The net result, he added, is that drones are “no longer just the purview of Army aviation.”

“I would argue now with the proliferation of small drones and how cheap and effective they can be that Army aviation is just one minor user now. … Everybody is going to have drones in the airspace to some degree.

“It’s going to change everything. The nature of war is the same. It’s always an endeavor of human conflict. But the character of war is just fundamentally different.”

Whoever figures out first how to use drones to enhance maneuver warfare instead of shutting it down (as in the Russo-Ukraine War), probably wins the next major war.