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No, humans are not actually cheap and expendable, even if you approach this in a dispassionate way. Consider the economic costs for society for bringing up a soldier in the modern society. Food, education, child care, opportunity costs for parents, they all add up. How much is it? Online sources estimates around $300k USD in total in terms of monetary expenditure, but the societal costs probably a lot more due to opportunity costs for the “village” raising the child, but let’s go with the $300k figure for now. Not even accounting for government training, equipment, and logistics footprint, it’s already impressive. Say maybe a Russian, Ukrainian, or Chinese child takes less to raise, maybe they only require $30k USD in societal costs, that’s still a lot. If you can achieve a kill while expending a hundred $300 drones, it’s still worth it.
Neither the Russians nor Ukrainians see it that way -- I wouldn't say it's a great attitude, but it's extremely lindy. You also still need a hundred-ish guys to drive the drones, so it's not like it makes your army needs smaller -- just allows cowards to participate in the bloodshed I suppose.
No, the main difference is that costs for humans were mostly already paid (as they were for old Soviet stocks) but future drones need to be manufactured and most of the production is outside of your country)
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Well, from what I can read online, the Russians are paying upwards of 1.9m rubles (21k USD) for people signing up to become a soldier, and 5m (55k USD) rubles to their family if they die. It’s certainly more than the 30k number I gave earlier.
The thing is, right now you need 100 guys to drive the drones, but once they become autonomous, or semi-autonomous (imagine a drone leader and you just drive that one, and the others mimics/stays in formation autonomously), it’ll take a lot less manpower to achieve the same ends.
"If" -- the whole cost-benefit thing is a real problem if the drones only cost $300 but you need 100 soldiers @ whatever salary to get your one kill.
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