Quality vs Quantity: Where Guided Munitions Are Headed

Russia has launched more loitering munitions into Ukraine in two years than most Western militaries stockpiled in a decade - yet the vast majority of these attacks have produced limited military effect. They created damage in the civilian space but fell far short of achieving meaningful impact against high-value military targets or critical infrastructure. Iran launched over 300 drones and missiles at Israel in April 2024; nearly all were intercepted with only negligible damage in Israel. The lesson from these conflicts isn’t about production capacity. It’s about what those munitions can actually do when they arrive.

This article makes three linked arguments: (1) quantity creates operational pressure but gets blunted by layered defenses; (2) quality - expressed as range, navigation resilience, low signature, and mission design - restores effectiveness in contested airspace; and (3) the most promising operational concepts combine mass with targeted technological advantages to generate sustainable combat power.

The strategic question for defense leaders is not whether to choose quantity or quality. It's whether you're honest about which qualities actually matter when GPS fails and every approach corridor has acoustic coverage.

The Acoustic Threat No One's Pricing In

Start with the capability most procurement discussions ignore: acoustic detection.

Distributed acoustic sensor arrays detect the characteristic signatures of propulsion systems long before radar acquires the target. In theaters where acoustic or seismic detection networks are deployed, uncrewed systems announce their presence kilometers from the target - early enough for defenders to cue interceptors or reposition assets.

Recent operations demonstrate this vulnerability. Multiple sources report acoustic detection networks contributed to high attrition rates for certain classes of attack drones, particularly those using conventional combustion engines during low-altitude ingress. (CSIS, 2024) The tactical response requires two operational shifts:

First, design missions that minimize acoustic exposure. Use terrain masking. Plan higher-altitude ingress followed by low-signature terminal approaches. Exploit temporal windows of reduced ambient noise - industrial activity, weather, time of day. Route selection becomes as important as payload selection.

Second, build platforms that change signature profiles in flight. Switch to quieter propulsion modes during critical phases. This isn't theoretical - it's an engineering requirement with direct operational payoff. Systems that cannot modulate their acoustic signature will face increasing attrition as detection networks proliferate.

The defense establishments ignoring acoustic detection today are building systems optimized for yesterday's threat environment.

Navigation Without GPS: Not Optional Anymore

Large-scale GPS jamming is now routine in multiple theaters. When GNSS degrades, operators fall back to visual landmarks, terrain correlation, or onboard sensor fusion - techniques that require both robust autonomy and quality sensors. (Reuters, 2025; Business Insider, 2024)

Navigation resilience separates systems that complete their missions from those that become expensive lawn darts. The capacity to reach a target despite GPS denial - through inertial guidance, visual navigation, terrain correlation, or AI-assisted sensor fusion - is no longer a premium feature. It's table stakes for operations in contested environments.

This has direct procurement implications. Lower-cost munitions that depend entirely on GNSS will see their operational value decline sharply. The marginal cost of adding navigation resilience to existing platforms is substantial but unavoidable. The alternative is fielding systems that work perfectly in testing and fail catastrophically in combat.

When Mass Fails: The Defense Saturation Myth

Large salvos create operational pressure. Continuous streams of inexpensive systems complicate logistics, stress command decisions, and generate psychological and political effects. This much is true.

Here's what's also true: modern integrated air and missile defenses, electronic warfare stacks, and directed-energy testbeds are increasing the marginal cost of successful attack. Defenders regain advantage when attackers deliver tools that are readily detected, jammed, or intercepted.

Empirical analyses of recent wars show that quantity without complementary improvements in survivability and mission design yields low-value effects against capable opponents. (RAND Corporation, 2025; CSIS 2024) Saturation works - until defenses adapt. Then it becomes expensive attrition with diminishing returns.

The operational lesson: mass creates opportunities but doesn't guarantee outcomes. Numbers open windows; quality determines whether you can exploit them.

What "Quality" Actually Means

If quantity creates pressure, quality determines whether that pressure produces decisive outcomes. For guided munitions and unmanned strike systems, five technical attributes matter:

Range and endurance. Longer time-on-station and reach permit cross-border effects and the ability to operate from safer basing. Extended loiter converts a point-attack weapon into a persistent ISR asset or air-domain suppression tool.

Navigation resilience. Covered above. Non-negotiable in contested environments.

Low observability and acoustic signature management. Reducing radar, optical, and acoustic detectability increases survivability against layered sensors. This isn't limited to stealth aircraft—signature management applies across the kill chain.

Mission flexibility and autonomy. Onboard decision aids and adaptive mission replanning enable exploitation of fleeting opportunities and reduce operator bandwidth. Autonomy is the enabler; mission flexibility is the payoff.

Integrated mission design. Close coupling of ISR (sensors), planning, and effectors - so that mission routes, timing, and tactics are co-designed with intelligence - multiplies effectiveness. The best platform in the world fails if employed with stale intelligence and generic routing.

These five attributes form the toolkit for sustained operational value in contested environments. Systems lacking multiple elements will face increasing attrition.

The Propulsion Wild Card

Energy and propulsion choices are technical enablers of the attributes above, particularly range and signature. Hybrid energy architectures - combinations of gas engines and electric motors - can enable a low-signature terminal approach after a long, fuel-efficient transit. They also permit on-demand power for sensors or communications without prohibitive endurance penalties.

Academic and engineering reviews describe measurable performance gains from hybrid configurations for uncrewed systems, while emphasizing the integration challenges: energy management, thermal control, and reliability must all be solved to realize operational benefit. (AIAA, 2024)

Here's the operational concept that matters: converting existing loitering munitions into long-range loiterers. By upgrading sensors, autonomy, and energy architecture, a tactical loiterer can remain on station for extended periods at operational depth and perform roles beyond point-target attack - persistent ISR, air-domain suppression, or acting as a forward sensor to enable subsequent strike packages.

When applied with careful mission design, these repurposed assets pave the way for larger systems or form the tip of a distributed control network for follow-on effects. This approach leverages existing platforms and production lines while adding capabilities that fundamentally change their operational value.

The defense industry's current focus on entirely new platforms may be missing the faster path: radical upgrades to proven systems.

What This Means for Defense Leaders

Operational effectiveness requires policy decisions that deliberately blend mass and sophistication. The spectrum of necessary investments includes:

Maintain production capacity and inventories of lower-cost systems for saturation and attrition roles. These create opportunities and impose costs on defenders.

Concurrent investment in advanced systems and enabling technologies: navigation resilience, sensor fusion, autonomy, signature management, and energy/propulsion architectures. These convert opportunities into effects.

Upgrade ISR and mission-planning infrastructures so that high-quality systems are supported by timely intelligence and feedback loops. Sophisticated platforms fail without sophisticated employment.

Testing and doctrine development that evaluates combined employment (mass + precision assets) and counters to new detection modalities - acoustic nets, distributed EW, directed-energy weapons.

Translate this to boardroom imperatives:

R&D roadmap: If your portfolio lacks navigation resilience and signature management programs, you're building for the last war. Acoustic signature reduction should be a design requirement, not an afterthought.

Competitive position: Competitors who solve the hybrid propulsion and extended-loiter problem first will capture the high-value segment of the market. Late movers will compete on price in the commodity tier.

Procurement signals: Watch for requirements emphasizing navigation resilience, mission autonomy, and signature management. These signal which qualities militaries actually value under operational stress.

Exposure: If your flagship system depends on GPS and has no fallback, your market advantage evaporates the moment GNSS denial becomes routine. That moment has already arrived.

Failure to invest in either pillar  - mass or sophistication - undermines the other. Unbacked sophistication has no mass to exploit. Mass without sophistication gets neutralized by layered defenses.

A Provocation to Close

The defense establishments most confident in their technology portfolios today are likely building the wrong mix. Not because their platforms lack capability, but because they're optimizing for threat environments that no longer exist.

GPS works until it doesn't. Acoustic detection wasn't a factor until it was. The adversaries you face in 2027 will have adapted to the tactics that succeeded in 2025. The question isn't whether you're investing in quality - it's whether you're honest about which qualities actually matter.

The battlefield of the coming decade rewards those who synthesize scale with selective technological advantage. Quantity creates opportunities. Quality converts them into effects. Navigation resilience, acoustic and signature awareness, adaptive routing, autonomy, and energy/propulsion design together form the toolkit that lets guided munitions achieve sustained operational value in contested environments.

Strategists should plan for a balanced portfolio - industrial base, doctrine, and intelligence systems that enable both the mass employment of simple systems and the surgical application of higher-capability assets.

The competitors who solve this synthesis first won't just win contracts. They'll define what's operationally possible.

Selected Sources and Further Reading

• SIPRI Yearbook 2024: Developments in International Security and Armaments

• RAND Corporation (2025): The Implications of the Fighting in Ukraine for Future Conflicts

• CSIS (2024–2025): The Russia–Ukraine Drone War: Innovation on the Frontlines and Beyond

• CNA (2023): Russia's Use of Uncrewed Systems in Ukraine

• Yu, F., et al. (2025). A Review of Hybrid-Electric Propulsion in Aviation. Aerospace, 12(10), 895. https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace12100895

• Paszkowski, P., Gola, A., & Świć, A. (2024). Acoustic-Based Drone Detection Using Neural Networks — A Comprehensive Analysis. Applied Sciences and Technology Research Journal, 18(2). https://doi.org/10.12913/22998624/175863

• Reuters / Guardian / Business Insider (2024–2025): Reports on GNSS interference and battlefield navigation challenges