Equipped with self-protection electronic warfare suites, standoff precision-guided weapons, antiradiation missiles, and infused with growing mission autonomy, armed drones are about to make a comeback in contested battlespaces.
Armed drones – specifically medium-altitude long endurance remotely piloted aircraft (or MALE RPA) – have been used to great effect across different combat zones since the early 2000s. Famously, the US employed its now-ubiquitous MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper RPAs throughout Washington’s “Global War on Terror”, spanning from South Asia and the Middle East to North Africa and the Horn of Africa, and most recently in Iran. Additionally, Turkish and Chinese platforms, such as the TB-2 Bayraktar and Wing Loong II, have become common tools in interstate and proxy wars, seeing action from the Caucasus to North and Sub-Saharan Africa, and Ukraine.
However, despite their effectiveness in non-contested environments, RPAs have proven highly vulnerable in contested battlespaces too. The proliferation and concentration of electronic warfare (EW) systems and ground-based air defences (GBAD) have rendered both the legacy and current generation MALE RPAs increasingly susceptible to interception.
Importantly, RPAs were not originally designed to penetrate well-defended airspace. Instead, they were intended to operate within permissive airspace and exploit the air superiority established by dedicated crewed combat aircraft.
Structurally, most RPAs sport very high-aspect ratio wings (the ratio of its span to its mean chord), resembling sailplanes, which enables efficient high-altitude cruise and long endurance over speed and manoeuvrability. Consequently, they are not designed to perform high-G evasive manoeuvres, which their crewed counterparts use to evade incoming surface-to-air missiles.
To make matters worse, early-generation RPAs were typically not equipped with radar warning receivers or missile approach warning systems. This lack of situational awareness regarding hostile radar lock or incoming missile is often exacerbated by a total absence of both passive and active countermeasures.
This deficiency in basic survivability has led to significant RPA losses across various conflict zones. In Libya, scores of Turkish-made TB2s, Chinese Wing Loong I/IIs, and American MQ-9 Reapers have been lost to ground-based air defenses. Similarly, in Ukraine, the early success of the TB-2 was met with substantial losses; by late 2022, it had nearly disappeared from the frontlines due to the concentration of Russian EW and brigade-level defenses. Most recently in Yemen, the Houthis have reportedly downed seven MQ-9 Reapers since March 2025 alone, bringing the total to at least 15 aircraft lost over the country since October 2023.
In addition, during the first week of the US-Israel Operation Epic Fury / Roaring Lion, which commenced on 28 February 2026, the US lost three MQ-9 Reapers, while Israeli losses amounted to three Heron and four Hermes 900 RPAs. According to US officials, a total of 11 MQ-9s had already fallen to Iranian defenses by March 9.
Nevertheless, states have accepted the relatively high loss rate of RPAs as a preferable option over the deployment of crewed combat aircraft or putting “boots on the ground”. As armed RPAs have become an increasingly common tool of statecraft – and a low-risk, low-cost alternative to direct military intervention – demands to improve RPA survivability in contested battlespaces have also grown.
Technological adaptation
To improve RPA’s survivability in contested airspace, new technological solutions have been applied.
These can include:
- Improvements in operating performance
- Enabling GNSS-free navigation
- Automated target recognition, tracking and prioritization
- Air-launched standoff effects
- Air-launched scout drones
- Anti-radiation missiles
- Integration of podded ESM / EP capabilities
The new generation MALE RPAs features significantly improved operating performance thanks to improvements in propulsion and aerodynamic efficiency. New generation of more powerful turboprop engines, propellors, and miniaturised turbofan engines enables significantly higher operating altitudes and speed. These improvements allow RPAs to operate above the reach of most short-range surface to air missiles and air defence artillery, shortening transition time over high-risk areas, and reducing exposure to pop-up threats.
To protect RPAs against increasingly sophisticated EW systems – which can be used to jam a drone’s uplink and downlink – technological adaptations necessitate ever-greater autonomy in navigation and mission execution with reduced human operator input. However, Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) -independent navigation, using a form of terrain-referenced visual navigation, depends on fair weather and an established terrain contour database for imagery reference to be effective. Conversely, the use of terrain mapping radar or Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) technology would allow all-weather navigation. Besides, offering GNSS-free navigation, imagery recognition and referencing technology, enables AI-enabled autonomous target recognition and tracking (ATR/T).
Another major improvement to RPA survivability in contested environments is the integration of podded EW effects, which can provide early-warning and protection against various threat emitters, such as engagement radars and missile radar seekers. Electronic intelligence (ELINT) and support measures pod-equipped RPAs allow intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and targeting in areas where the deployment of a manned ISR aircraft would be too risky. ELINT systems are used to ‘vacuum’ airwaves of radio frequency signals of interest, specifically related to hostile radars and air defence systems. Moreover, the use of multiple RPAs in concert helps geolocate threat emitters through triangulation for subsequent prosecution.
For example, the Turkish company Baykar has integrated the Aselsan Antidot-2U/S-family electronic support and countermeasures pods on its TB-2. The system can detect, identify, and classify emissions, and geolocate their emitters. The Antidot-2-equipped TB-2 is also capable of employing sophisticated electronic attack techniques to suppress and deceive air defence radars in self-protection or “escort” jamming roles.
Moreover, a single RPA can carry multiple pods, allowing for coverage of different wavebands (Low/Medium/High-Band) to target different systems during a single mission. This essentially transforms the TB-2 into an affordable suppression of enemy air defences (SEAD) asset, which helps mitigate the threat of adversary GBAD systems to friendly forces and improves the survivability of the platform.
Similarly, the Chinese defence industry offers various EW solutions to improve the survivability of its Wing Loong and CH-family armed RPAs in contested battlespaces. Equipped with electronic and communications intelligence (ELINT/COMINT), and electronic countermeasures pods, Chinese RPAs are used to collect intelligence on adversary radar and communications emissions while working to disrupt, degrade, deny, and deceive those emitters.
In a conflict, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is expected to employ various RPAs to carry out suppression of enemy air defense (SEAD) missions in support of other crewed and uncrewed platforms. As part of the PLA’s “systems destruction warfare” campaign, anti-radiation missile-armed RPAs will help open safe ‘corridors’ through enemy air defences for follow-on strikes. The use of uncrewed aircraft in support of SEAD and EW efforts helps reduce the risk to more difficult-to-replace crewed aircraft and their crews in a highly contested airspace.
The US has responded to growing losses of its Reaper drones over Yemen by integrating electronic countermeasures pods and miniaturised standoff weapons onto the aircraft, significantly improving the platform’s survivability against GBAD threats.
In addition to non-kinetic protection against RF threats, Chinese manufacturers provide RPAs with various antiradiation missiles (ARM), which offer operators an organic capability to suppress threat emitters at range. The Chinese RPAs can be armed with more conventional ARMs and with air-launched antiradiation quasi-ballistic missiles, turning them into persistent low-risk SEAD platforms.
The RPAs are also equipped with ever-longer-range precision-guided munitions (PGM), including miniaturised cruise missiles, air-launched loitering munitions and scout drones.
For example, Turkish Baykar’s Kemankeş is a new line of miniaturised precision-guided standoff weapons integrated on Bayraktar and Akinci drones. The new PGM features an autonomous target recognition and targeting capability and has a range of 250 km. The extended range is a significant improvement over the current PGMs, which arm the TB-2, which can only reach up to 25 km distance.
The Chinese defence industry has developed a wide variety of air-launched standoff effects, including miniaturised standoff PGMs, small cruise missiles, and loitering munitions. At the Zhuhai airshow in November 2024, CASC (China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp.) showcased the company’s CH-9 RPA fitted with the ANTPOD2 electronic protection system and AR-5 miniaturized cruise missiles. The PLA Ground Forces demonstrated the FX-800A Sky Saker RPA integrated with air-launched scout drones / loitering munitions, which can help substantially increase target detection and engagement ranges.
Perhaps most interestingly, the TENDGEN’s Twin-Tailed Scorpion-B was presented with a range of long-range PGMs and a family of air-launched loitering munitions/drones. The TS-family of air-launched autonomous platforms included the TS-10, TS-15, and TS-20, each with different ranges, payload capabilities, and guidance. Used in a scouting role, effectors can deploy far ahead of the RPA and scout areas of interest for threats and targets, while other effectors can loiter and wait for targets to be prosecuted. In such scenarios, the RPA acts as a ‘mothership’ and a relay station between forward-operating effectors and human operators.
The US is advancing similar ideas, including tests of Anduril’s Altius-600 and -700 loitering munitions and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc.’s (GA-ASI) air-launched small UAS, launched from crewed and uncrewed aircraft. The GA-ASI carried out flight tests of the remotely piloted MQ-9 Reaper toting the company’s captive-carry Sparrowhawk small UAS (SUAS) in September 2020. The company has also tested its Eaglet SUAS, deployed from an MQ-1C Gray Eagle. In November 2023, GA-ASI tested another SUAS as part of the Advanced Air-Launched Effects (A2LE) project, this time deployed from the company’s jet-powered MQ-20 Avenger RPA.
Conclusion
While historically effective in permissive environments, MALE RPAs have proven increasingly vulnerable in contested battlespaces. Recent conflicts in Ukraine and Yemen have seen significant losses due to advanced air defenses and electronic warfare. To restore their viability, a new generation of RPAs is emerging that integrates self-protection EW suites, anti-radiation missiles, and improved performance. By adopting greater mission autonomy—such as GNSS-independent navigation and AI-driven target recognition—and acting as "motherships" for long-range standoff munitions and scout drones, these platforms are evolving from fragile surveillance tools into increasingly survivable multirole assets capable of operating effectively in contested airspace.
