October 13, 2025: In the last twenty years there has been tremendous evolution of small unmanned ground-based robots. In the beginning there was RoBattle, a seven-ton wheeled modular drone transport vehicle, that can carry three tons of cargo. A great Israeli concept that never entered service.

PackBot 510 entered service in 2002. It operates on tracks and can climb stairs, move through rubble, mud, snow and so on. It weighs 24 kg. Accessories included cable cutters, a hook and the ability to probe for and remove buried obstacles. Battery-operated, the tracked drone can operate four hours on one charge. The drone is operated remotely via a wireless link using a touchscreen tablet controller. This drone is still in service with several countries.

The similar but smaller 13 kg XM1216 SUGV also operates on tracks and each one can carry 2.7 kg of accessories. Its capabilities are like that of the Packbot 510.

Talon is a 27-45 kg drone that operates similarly to Packbot and SUGV, but with additional capabilities. Entering service in 2000, it was mainly used to disable roadside bombs and other explosive devices. A combat version is armed with a 7.62 or 12.7 mm machine-gun to provide protective fire for infantry. The drone can also operate a 12.7mm sniper rifle, 40mm grenade launcher and several other weapons. The lighter reconnaissance version can be equipped with chemical weapons, temperature and radiation sensors. When operating it has an eight hour life between recharge for its lithium-ion batteries. It is operated remotely using a game-type controller. The operator can be up to 1,200 meters from the robot and day/night color cameras on the drone provide sufficient detail for the operator to guide the drone over rubble and into wreckage. Talon was used during the recovery effort after the 2001 Islamic terrorist attack on the twin towers in New York City. Talon’s cost up to $6 million each and are still in servic

Between 2004 and 2007, over 6,000 ground drones were shipped to Iraq and Afghanistan. Most were of the small, under 25 kg types. They were used to check for roadside bombs, and to lead searches into buildings and caves suspected of enemy activity.

In 2025 Ukraine equipped its combat brigades with ground-based combat and transport robots in addition to drones. The ground robots come in different versions. Some are used for planting and removing landmines. Others advance along the ground while firing remotely controlled machine guns. These systems can fire accurately at moving targets during the day and at night. There are also drones for transporting supplies to the front lines and carrying casualties back to first aid stations and field hospitals. The growing number of Ukrainian drone systems were developed based on reports from the front line troops. Those ideas were quickly put to use because of wartime urgency.

In 2024 Ukraine created a new branch of their military, the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Force. This is in addition to the Ukrainian Air Force that consists of manned aircraft. This Drone Force does not control the drones Ukrainian forces use regularly but contributes to developing new drone models and organizing mass production for those new models that are successful. Such drones have been an unexpected development that had a huge impact on how battles in Ukraine's current war are fought. Drones were successful because they were cheap, easily modified, and expendable.

Both Russian and Ukrainian forces were soon using cheap quadcopter drones controlled by soldiers a kilometer or more away using First Person Viewing or FPV goggles to see what the video camera on the drone can see. Each of these drones carries half a kilogram of explosives, so it can instantly turn the drone into a flying bomb that can fly into a target and detonate. This is an awesome and debilitating weapon when used in large numbers over the combat zone. If a target isn’t moving or requires more explosive power that the drones can supply, one of the drone operators can call in artillery, rocket, or missile fire, or even an airstrike. Larger, fixed wing drones are used for long range, often over a thousand kilometers, operations against targets deep inside Russia.

These small drones are difficult to shoot down until they get close to the ground and the shooter is close enough, as in less than a few hundred meters, away to successfully target a drone with a bullet or two and bring it down. Troops are rarely in position to do this, so most of these drones are able to complete their mission, whether it is a one-way attack or a reconnaissance and surveillance mission. The recon missions are usually survivable and enable the drone to be reused. All these drones are constantly performing surveillance, which means that both sides commit enough drones to maintain constant surveillance over a portion of the front line, to a depth, into enemy territory, of at least a few kilometers. Ukrainian drones have pretty much ended Russian motorized transport with 20-30 kilometers of the front lines.

This massive use of FPV-armed drones revolutionized warfare in Ukraine and both sides are producing as many as they can. Ukrainian drone proliferation began when many individual Ukrainians or small teams designed and built drones. The drones served as potential candidates for widespread use and mass production. This proliferation of designers and manufacturers led to rapid evolution of drone capabilities and uses. Those who could not keep up were less successful in combat and suffered higher losses.

One countermeasure that can work for a while is electronic jamming of the drones control signal. Drone guidance systems are constantly modified or upgraded to cope with this, and many use multiple modes of communications. Most drones have flight control software that sends drones with jammed control signals back to where they took off from to land for later use. The jammers are on the ground and can be attacked by drones programmed to home in on the jamming signal. Countermeasures can be overcome and the side that can do this more quickly and completely has an advantage. That advantage is usually temporary because both sides are putting a lot of effort into keeping their combat drones effective on the battlefield.

Western armed forces, after a century of trying, still cannot get the air force people up there to come down and get a much needed reality check on what is happening down below where battles and wars are decided. Meanwhile the proliferation of surveillance and armed drones have in many cases replaced conventional air forces, at least for operations close to the ground and requiring more urgency to find and attack targets.