By Murielle Delaporte
For thousands of years, military commanders have considered mass — having more troops and equipment than the enemy — a critical factor in winning battles.
The last fifty years have seen a shift from mass to precision, a trend that has accelerated since the end of the Cold War.
The period of peace dividends and the era of expeditionary operations that prevailed for thirty years were based on the concept of technological superiority.
Today, we are witnessing the collapse of this binary distinction between mass and precision, with emerging technologies now making it possible to deploy numerous and precise systems simultaneously, particularly in the field of drones, as current conflicts continue to demonstrate.
Both in Ukraine and in the Middle East, we are seeing this trend, which could in many ways be described as an asymmetric attrition strategy. At the start of the war in Ukraine, Ukrainian forces used a few Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones. Two years later, they are deploying a multitude of autonomous systems.
Another illustrative theater is the Red Sea, where the Houthis have targeted numerous commercial and military vessels, severely disrupting international maritime traffic. According to the French expertise center MICA Center for Maritime Information Cooperation & Awareness, in 2024 alone, the Houthis used approximately 700 munitions for their attacks, including 40% ballistic missiles, 2% cruise missiles, 56% aerial drones, and 2% surface drones.
This transformation fundamentally changes the cost-effectiveness of military operations, as relatively inexpensive missile or drone strikes can force the mobilization of much larger defense expenditures, thereby creating an unsustainable financial imbalance in the long term solely for defensive purposes.
From a strictly military point of view, this crisis highlights the characteristic equation of 21st-century conflicts, namely, how to balance the need for mass — or to counter mass —with the need for technological superiority: two strategies that seem to be at odds with each other in terms of defense spending.
Here I am exploring some of the hybrid strategies that Western countries are beginning to put in place to shape a new approach, first highlighting some examples of operational optimization that have already proven their worth in the past, then describing two concrete examples of adaptation: one by the French Army Aviation during Operation Barkhane in Sahel and the other, more recent, by the U.S. armed forces in response to the Houthis’ capacity for disruption.
Operational Optimization: A Few Proven Examples
There are, of course, many examples of innovative operational optimization of existing resources, both on the offensive and defensive sides, if we examine the lessons learned from a number of past conflicts.
Here are a few examples in the following areas:
The Use of Mines: Historically, relatively simple and inexpensive naval mines have often posed significant challenges to sophisticated and expensive warships. This is a classic example of low-cost asymmetric technology that has been able to counter effectively much more expensive systems.
Increased strike capability by adapting naval rockets for use against land targets: During the Gulf War, the U.S. Navy modified Harpoon anti-ship rockets to strike land targets. This inexpensive adaptation significantly expanded strike capabilities without requiring new weapons systems.
Countering Improvised Explosive Device (IED): Faced with improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Iraq and Afghanistan, the armed forces equipped their vehicles with jamming capabilities. These jammers were designed to disrupt remote detonation signals, offering a much less expensive (and often more tactically effective) protection than the acquisition and deployment of specialized armored vehicles.
Counter-Drone Solutions: The number of examples in this field continues to grow.
- Portable anti-drone devices such as the DroneDefender and DroneGun use RF jamming to neutralize commercial drones without destroying them. These systems cost only tens of thousands of dollars, compared to the hundreds of thousands of dollars required to purchase conventional military systems.
- Precision rifles against drones: Snipers have been deployed as a cost-effective solution against small drones. This approach uses existing skills and equipment rather than investing in expensive anti-drone technologies.
- Modified commercial drones: Ukraine has converted recreational drones into reconnaissance and attack platforms. These modified drones, costing a few thousand euros, have proven effective against Russian military equipment worth millions.
- Nets and eagles against drones: Some security forces have experimented with very low-cost, low-tech methods of capturing drones, such as nets fired from hand-held launchers or training eagles to intercept small drones.
- Directed energy anti-drone weapons: Low-power portable laser systems have been developed as a cost-effective alternative to interceptor missiles in anti-drone warfare. These systems can engage multiple targets at a much lower cost per shot than conventional missiles.
24/7 “participatory” intelligence or low-cost surveillance networks: Ukraine has developed a mobile app that allows civilians to report Russian troop and equipment movements. This participatory intelligence system runs on ordinary smartphones and provides valuable information at a much lower cost than traditional military surveillance systems required for permanent coverage.
These examples illustrate how ingenuity and adaptation can often provide effective and economical solutions to emerging threats by fine tuning the response in proportion to the value of the targets to be neutralized, where possible.
The war in Ukraine has shown that one does need mass to counter mass, a reality that has been virtually absent from Western armed forces’ thinking on the nature of warfare since the end of the Cold War.
In a world where a growing number of actors can deploy drones and missiles and access inexpensive satellites and cutting-edge commercial technologies, many countries are demonstrating ingenuity in countering threats that are “not worth the cost” of sacrificing expensive missiles or ammunition or exposing valuable military assets to disproportionate risks, by combining mass and technological sophistication in a disruptive way.
This concept could be described as “smart mass,” by analogy to the concept of “precision mass” developed by some military analysts in the United States.
The tactical adaptation of French forces in Mali is an excellent example of operational innovation and optimization to deal with asymmetric threats using economic means. Such an approach of favoring the use of conventional weapons (cannons, machine guns) over expensive missiles is consistent with the more recent example of the U.S. F-16s using APKWS II rockets against Houthi drones.
In both cases, this is an adaptive and economical response to threats that do not justify the use of expensive ammunition at the risk of rapid attrition.
Providing a response proportionate to the value of the targets to be neutralized: the example of the French Army Aviation in Sahel.
During the Barkhane Operation in Sahel in the 2010’s, helicopters proved particularly effective against targets such as pickup trucks, thanks to their ability to loiter and engage such targets with more suitable low-cost weapons such as rockets, 30 mm cannons, and 20 mm cannons.
As the ALAT opted to use onboard cannons rather than expensive missiles to neutralize armed terrorist groups, Gazelle, Puma, and Cougar helicopters, as well as Tiger helicopters, were able to support operations in the Sahel and neutralize these groups.
One of the main tactics involved the use of the Puma “Pirate” equipped with a 20 mm gun in a gun port. This configuration has regularly provided valuable support to units in contact with armed terrorist groups in Mali. This was particularly the case during fighting in 2013.
An innovative weapon configuration in anti-drone warfare in the Red Sea: the example of the US Air Force against the Houthis.
To save expensive anti-missile weapons, the U.S. Air Force adapted its F-16s with laser-guided rocket pods, a combination that has led to economically viable anti-drone warfare F-16s operating in the Middle East were able to use their LITENING targeting pods to identify and neutralize targets with laser-guided weapons traditionally used in air-to-ground operations.
This new weapon configuration features F-16s carrying two seven-shot 70mm rocket pods on a single pylon under the right wing using a triple ejection rack (TER). These rockets are equipped with the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System II (APKWS II), which converts standard unguided 70mm rockets into precision munitions by adding laser guidance kits.
The complete configuration includes:
- 2 seven-shot 70mm rocket pods (14 rockets in total);
- 2 AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles;
- 2 AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles;
- 1 LITENING targeting pod;
- 1 HARM Targeting System (HTS) pod;
- 2 external fuel tanks.
What makes this configuration particularly noteworthy is that it significantly increases the aircraft’s strike capability compared to traditional air-to-air configurations. While a typical air defense configuration might include only 6 missiles in total, this adapted configuration offers up to 14 engagement opportunities with laser-guided rockets alone, plus additional conventional air-to-air missiles.
The economic benefits of this approach are considerable. Each APKWS II guidance kit costs approximately $15,000 to $20,000, with complete rockets totaling approximately $25,000 including warheads and motors. In comparison, traditional air-to-air missiles cost hundreds of thousands of dollars each: an AIM-120 AMRAAM missile costs approximately $1 million and an AIM-9X Sidewinder approximately $400,000.
This cost difference makes the APKWS II solution particularly attractive for engaging lower-value targets such as unmanned aerial vehicles, allowing forces to reserve their inventory of expensive missiles for higher-threat scenarios.
The targeting methodology uses the F-16’s LITENING pod to “light up” or designate targets. The pod’s sensor can be connected to the aircraft’s radar, enabling accurate tracking and engagement of relatively slow-moving targets such as drones and cruise missiles. The targeting system can also support wingman tactics, in which one aircraft designates targets while another performs the attack run.
These adaptations represent more than just a tactical solution to an immediate threat. They demonstrate how creativity and operational flexibility can leverage existing technologies in new ways to meet emerging challenges. By reconfiguring proven systems rather than developing entirely new platforms, armed forces achieve both cost savings and rapid deployment of capabilities.
This article was first published in French and English by Eurosatory.
The article was published on May 5, 2025 and is republished by permission of the author.