for low intensity conflicts, for saturation attacks, for precision strikes etc drones are definitely useful, but you have to remember that they are sitting ducks against proper fighter jets. If you want to design a drone that can go as far, as fast, while carrying as much and also performing better than a human pilot with its AI (or by remote control) then you will end up paying basically the same, If not more, than a conventional fighter jet. A drone costs 1 million but has 1/10th the capability of a modern fighter aircraft. Human decision making In a real scenario still outpaces AI by a lot.
They have barely any A2A capability, they are slow, easy targets for any SAM, MANPAD and especially a fighter jet. They will most definitely not take over the main roles of fighter aircraft for several decades to come and may not replace them entirely for even longer. There’s a reason every single country spending millions on drones is spending 10x that on future fighter aircraft programs. They see what is more important.
Drones are not really that useful in an conventional war if both sides have large air forces and are fighting for air superiority, they’re only useful in cases where one side has complete air superiority. Hence COIN ops or the conflicts in Syria (where Turkey uses them and the enemy has no aircraft to shoot them down them down with, yet Turkey has lost several to SAMs where as they wouldn’t have lost a single fighter to similar attacks) or Armenia/Azerbaijan where the air forces are rather small and cannot have air superiority.
They are definitely good force multiples for any force and their use will only increase in the future as technology advances, but imo they are severely overrated. As of yet and for the foreseeable future they will not be taking over most roles from fighter aircraft or even attack helicopters, especially in a Pak-ind scenario.
