It’s rare for military technology to completely “move on” to other things. Typically, the new just gets added to the old. So, yea, drones are new, but drones don’t cause artillery to become completely obsolete, in the same way that aerial bombs didn’t cause artillery to become obsolete. You’ll end up spending on both.

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tristanj 12 hours ago | parent [-]

Ukraine has essentially moved-on from artillery to drones, just last month (March 2026) drones caused 96% of Russian casualties. Artillery and small arms fire accounted for the rest.

Also, artillery has a maximum effective range of ~30km. Ukraine's drone kill-zone is 20km and with newer drones pushing to 50-100km. By next year it won't even possible to bring artillery and a large number of shells into the frontlines without being targeted.

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oezi 12 hours ago | parent [-]

Of the confirmed casualties. Much easier to give kill numbers if you have video evidence from a drone. Doesn't mean that artillery strikes are any less lethal even though they don't give such clear confirmation pictures.

	▲	tristanj 11 hours ago \| parent [-]
		This isn't correct at all. Artillery strikes are near-universally drone assisted, meaning there is a surveillance drone recording the strike and calling the exact target coordinates. Any casualties from artillery strikes would be recorded by drone, and added to the total casualty statistics.