Yes & No.
There is still vehicle combat going on.
Note I did list 3 billion, over 10% of entire procurement, for drones. 0 extra manned aircraft. For reference, if a F35 is 100 million, 35 planes comes to 3.5 billion. (does not include maintenance, pilots, various weaponry etc).
With the mention that after 10 years, this would go up.
But the jury is out on what type & capability of drones we as Belgium would be willing to ‘mass up’ on.
There is a latency in the EU on actually massing drones.
There is political oppossition to high degree of autonomy on lethal weapons.
At some point however, there is a strong cross-over between an Air-to-Air missile homing in on radar signature, a missile with ‘lock on after launch’ capability using a thermal imaging system, and a drone with a camera.
The 40mm CTA cannon has a significant airburst (and penetration) capability. Whilst having approx the same number of rounds as a 30mm cannon carried. So I’d hope it’d be quite capable vs the current drones (with sensors to actually target drones).
Modern vehicles should also increasingly be equipped with active protection systems that include countering drones.
What we are currently seeing is that it is very difficult to acquire hi-tech kit once a conflict is already happening. ‘you fight with what you have’. Not to mention training.
At EU & Nato level, it also simply won’t be accepted for Belgium to just not have ‘front line’ units. (‘don’t worry guys, we’ll play airport police’ is not going to fly anymore)
I also used ‘only’ (heh) 30% of a hypothetical budget doubling.
There should still be R&D and infrastructure setup going on.
But I think it’ll take another 10 years to truly accept the new drone reality and have a doctrinal implementation ready.
3 billion extra for drones in the mean time is not peanuts.
The GCAP is at least 10 years away. The FCAS is for 2040’s (and imo, after 2045), but might see a high-capability drone earlier.
What we should avoid in the meantime is more light infantry (= drone targets), lack of anti-air (4.5 billion in above proposal set aside for pure anti-air), buying more American kit (bad Theo! sit!), and buying very diverse/low numerical kit with different ammunition. (I’d hope Belgium can ‘standardize’ on the 40mm CTA now, and produce our own ammo. In fact, I’d be in favor of moving away from the 40mm Bofors for our ships to this gun, change our 30mm to this gun etc.)
Likewise, I’d hope the EU tank project sees a Leopard 2 successor become the ‘default European’ tank.
Currently this is not reaally the case for IFV’s, but the CV90, Boxer, and Patria AMV all have multiple users at least.
Yes & No.
There is still vehicle combat going on.
Note I did list 3 billion, over 10% of entire procurement, for drones. 0 extra manned aircraft. For reference, if a F35 is 100 million, 35 planes comes to 3.5 billion. (does not include maintenance, pilots, various weaponry etc).
With the mention that after 10 years, this would go up.
But the jury is out on what type & capability of drones we as Belgium would be willing to ‘mass up’ on.
There is a latency in the EU on actually massing drones.
There is political oppossition to high degree of autonomy on lethal weapons.
At some point however, there is a strong cross-over between an Air-to-Air missile homing in on radar signature, a missile with ‘lock on after launch’ capability using a thermal imaging system, and a drone with a camera.
The 40mm CTA cannon has a significant airburst (and penetration) capability. Whilst having approx the same number of rounds as a 30mm cannon carried. So I’d hope it’d be quite capable vs the current drones (with sensors to actually target drones).
Modern vehicles should also increasingly be equipped with active protection systems that include countering drones.
What we are currently seeing is that it is very difficult to acquire hi-tech kit once a conflict is already happening. ‘you fight with what you have’. Not to mention training.
At EU & Nato level, it also simply won’t be accepted for Belgium to just not have ‘front line’ units. (‘don’t worry guys, we’ll play airport police’ is not going to fly anymore)
I also used ‘only’ (heh) 30% of a hypothetical budget doubling.
There should still be R&D and infrastructure setup going on.
But I think it’ll take another 10 years to truly accept the new drone reality and have a doctrinal implementation ready.
3 billion extra for drones in the mean time is not peanuts.
The GCAP is at least 10 years away. The FCAS is for 2040’s (and imo, after 2045), but might see a high-capability drone earlier.
What we should avoid in the meantime is more light infantry (= drone targets), lack of anti-air (4.5 billion in above proposal set aside for pure anti-air), buying more American kit (bad Theo! sit!), and buying very diverse/low numerical kit with different ammunition. (I’d hope Belgium can ‘standardize’ on the 40mm CTA now, and produce our own ammo. In fact, I’d be in favor of moving away from the 40mm Bofors for our ships to this gun, change our 30mm to this gun etc.)
Likewise, I’d hope the EU tank project sees a Leopard 2 successor become the ‘default European’ tank.
Currently this is not reaally the case for IFV’s, but the CV90, Boxer, and Patria AMV all have multiple users at least.