By Scott Taylor
For anyone who has closely followed the conflict in Ukraine following Russia's invasion in February 2022, you will be aware of the fact that the face of modern warfare has drastically evolved.
The Russian armoured columns that were meant to overwhelm the Ukrainian defenders were turned into smouldering heaps of junk metal through NATO's provision to Ukraine of sophisticated anti-armour missile systems like the Javelin.
However it was after the war bogged down into a bloody stalemate that a new Queen of the battlefield emerged. This would be the preponderance of First Person View (FPV) drones which are being employed by both sides. The FPV drone is usually operated by a pilot using a headset which allows the user to gain the drone's perspective in real time. This allows combatants to either pinpoint targets for their artillery or in many cases to engage the enemy directly with a warhead attached to the drone itself. These are known as 'suicide' drones but as these platforms are uninhabited it is more of machine sacrificed by the operator who lives to fight another day.
At a cost of around $500, sacrificing an FPV drone to destroy a multi-million dollar armoured vehicle makes for good battlefield economic sense. These FPV drones have also been successfully employed in the Mideast by both the Israeli Defence Forces and Hamas and Hezbollah fighters.
Which is why I was astonished to read in a recent Ottawa Citizen article that the Canadian Armed Forces currently have no plans in place to purchase these low-cost, extremely efficient aerial vehicles.
When asked why the CAF would not be pursuing FPV technology at this time, the official response to the Citizen stated: "At this time, the Department of National Defence/Canadian Armed Forces does not have any current or planned procurements for First Person View drones for operational use. However, in Our North Strong and Free (policy) we committed to exploring options for acquiring a suite of surveillance and strike drones as well as counter-drone capabilities, sometime in the future."
Well that's that then. For more than two and a half years, FPV drones and their counter measures have dominated modern battlefield across the globe, but the Canadian military procurement team hopes to look into it "sometime in the future."
As for more conventional uninhabited aerial vehicles, it would seem the CAF remains woefully inept when it comes to purchasing deals. According to documents obtained by the Ottawa Citizen, last March the CAF took delivery of some 50 US built Teal 2 drones. These UAV's weigh just 1.25 kilograms, have a range of 5 kilometres and have a flight duration of 30 minutes. The Teal 2 drones can be used for limited surveillance and target acquisition.
So what separates these from the FPV drones being used in Ukraine and Gaza?
Well to begin with, they cost a boatload more. Canada says it paid $4 million for the 50 Teal 2 drones which would put the individual price tag at about $80,000 (CND) per drone. Keen eyed readers will note that commercial Teal 2 drones, complete with chargers and spare parts, retail for $16,000 (US) or roughly $22,000 (CDN).
When you factor in the potential for a volume discount on 50 units, or a Black Friday blowout discount, Canada paid nearly four times the list price for these drones.
When you focus on the larger drone fleet that Canada is in the process of acquiring, well the margin for error is naturally larger. In December 2023 Canada announced that the CAF would be acquiring 11 of General Atomics MQ-9B Reaper strike drones at a cost $2.5 billion. The original delivery timeline was 2025 but that has now been bumped to 2028 as modifications will need to be made to allow the Canadian MQ-9B's to operate in the Arctic. Surely the procurement officials thought of that before they signed a contract for $2.5 billion?
