The U.S. army is said to have been busy analyzing footage from the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in order to share lessons learned from Turkey’s successful drone strategy with military leaders and soldiers, according to a report by Foreign Policy (FP).
According to the website article, titled “The U.S. Army Goes to School on Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict,” generals are being briefed on what has been “learned from hours of poring over footage from the Nagorno-Karabakh fight,” where Turkey’s globally lauded drones played a decisive role in securing victory for allied Azerbaijan.
“You can see video of tanks being hit by an unmanned aerial system, artillery positions being hit by an unmanned aerial system, troops being hit by an unmanned aerial system,” Col. Scott Shaw, the outgoing head of the Army’s Asymmetric Warfare Group, was quoted as saying in the FP report.
Turkey’s drone strategy has garnered worldwide praise, prompting many countries to reassess their defense strategies in light of Ankara’s recent success in altering the balance on the battlefield in Libya, Syria and Nagorno-Karabakh.
“When Azerbaijan took over the skies in its fight with Armenia over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh last fall, winning the air war with commercial Turkish and kamikaze drones, one thing started to become clear to U.S. Army strategists: It’s becoming easier to hunt and kill troops than ever before—and to do so on the cheap,” read the FP report.
The report went on to point that Azerbaijan relied on Turkish-made TB2 drones to shrink the battlefield and obliterate Armenia’s armored forces.
“During the six-week conflict, Azerbaijan deployed Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones and loitering munitions to shrink the battlefield and chip away at Armenia’s armored forces as well as the logistical tail that hadn’t even reached the front lines.”
The Bayraktar TB2 armed UAV was developed and manufactured by Turkish defense company Baykar Technologies.
It has been used by the Turkish Armed Forces and Turkey's Security Directorate since 2015, most recently credited for Azerbaijan’s military success in the Karabakh conflict.
Earlier this month, Ankara’s “imaginative employment” of UAVs in Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh was highlighted as a model for the U.K. to emulate, according to a recent report by the British Ministry of Defense, as Turkey’s role in NATO was highlighted and its use of drones in Libya and the Karabakh conflict served as an example of new defense technologies.
