The Drone Age Demands a New Approach to Military Training

The lesson from Ukraine is not just that drones have changed warfare. It is that the pace of change has become a capability in itself.

New tactics appear on the battlefield, are analysed online within hours and adapted within days. By the time a traditional procurement programme has defined a requirement, that requirement may already have evolved.

For military trainers, this creates a fundamental challenge: how do you prepare soldiers for threats that refuse to stand still?

For Oliver Arup, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Product Officer at BAE Systems OneArc, a training and simulation software company, the answer begins with recognising that the old model of capability development no longer fits.

"The feedback loops at the front line are changing very rapidly," he says. "Something happens, the video is online almost immediately, everyone analyses it, and tactics evolve within days. Traditional procurement cycles simply weren't designed for that."

Patrick Wyatt, Chief Product Officer at Varjo, the Finnish developer of high-fidelity virtual and mixed reality headsets used in military and aviation training, sees the same acceleration from the training perspective.

"A few years ago there was effectively no counter-drone training requirement," he says. "Ukraine has driven exponential growth in training needs, and Western militaries are trying to catch up."

For both companies, simulation has become central to that response, not simply because it is cheaper than live training, but because it can evolve at the speed modern warfare demands.

OneArc sees simulation as a way to test capability before committing to expensive hardware. Different armed forces face different operational problems, and synthetic environments allow them to experiment with tactics, equipment and force structures before investing significant budgets.

"A lot of militaries haven't yet invested in particular counter-UAS devices or drone platforms," Arup explains. "Simulation gives them an environment where they can test different options and validate what they actually need before spending potentially hundreds of millions on a system."

The company has also developed FlowState, a simulation tool that helps assess aptitude before personnel move onto real drones. Rather than risking expensive equipment while beginners learn basic skills, trainees develop those skills virtually, allowing instructors to identify who is best suited to become drone operators.

The need for speed extends beyond flying drones. Increasingly, every soldier needs to understand how to survive in a battlespace where unmanned systems are a constant presence.

That is the challenge Varjo has been addressing through immersive counter-UAS training.

Its system places one trainee in the role of a drone pilot while another attempts to shoot the aircraft down with a firearm. The objective is not only to improve marksmanship but also to help soldiers understand how drones behave in combat.

"Broadly speaking, no one's been trained to use a shotgun against a drone," Wyatt says. "Learning how they fly helps soldiers understand how to counter them."

Creating that understanding depends on realism. For Wyatt, immersion is not about impressive graphics: it’s about recreating the psychological pressure of a real attack.

"When you feel surrounded by threats and drones approaching from different directions, you develop confidence that you can perform under pressure," he says.

High-resolution extended reality headsets allow trainees to detect small drones at distance while maintaining awareness of the wider battlespace, providing a level of realism difficult to achieve through conventional classroom instruction.

Looking ahead, both executives believe the challenge will only become more complex.

Today's focus is often on individual drones, but tomorrow's battlefield is likely to feature coordinated swarms supported by increasing levels of autonomy.

"It's not really about defeating individual drones," says Arup. "It's about how multiple defensive systems work together against large numbers arriving simultaneously."

Simulation provides an environment where those complex defensive networks can be tested without requiring vast training areas or revealing tactics to potential adversaries.

Varjo is already seeing interest in using virtual reality not just to train against drones but to manage them. As autonomous systems become more capable, operators will need to monitor multiple video feeds, maps and telemetry simultaneously, tasks that immersive XR environments are increasingly well suited to support.

For Arup, however, drones are only the visible manifestation of a much broader shift.

"The knowledge transfer, the availability of technology, the internet, AI – these are all forming a new approach to how defence is going to change," he says. "It may not be drones as the next thing."