Military education technology

Understand how drones changed warfare.

Explore 41 scenarios based on documented battles, from Karabakh and Kyiv to Port Sudan and Kidal. Compare simulated decisions with and without drones, then review costs, outcomes and civilian harm.

Isometric view NATO symbols
One battle, two views. Switch between them at any time in the simulation. Illustration: Drone Front

FPV attack drones cost about $200 to $1,000 each ( CSIS, May 2025 ). Newer T 90 tanks cost about $4.5 million ( Newsweek, January 2023 ).

Thirty seconds from a real simulation run: briefing, drone flights and the review. Demonstration commander, accelerated playback; no leaderboard result is submitted.

  • 41 scenarios, 41 based on documented battles with published sources
  • 63 real drone types, each figure marked Sourced or Simulation estimate
  • 34 of 41 scenarios let you command either side
  • Weekly ranked boards, checked by replaying your orders on the server
  1. 01

    Briefing

    Current simulation briefing and learning objectives

    Read the situation, choose a side and pick which drones to send. Three learning objectives open every scenario.

  2. 02

    Command

    Current simulation command map and drone cards

    Give orders on the map. Enemy units stay hidden until your recon finds them, and jamming, weather and air defence change what your drones can do.

  3. 03

    Debrief

    Current review with separate losses, cost exchange and civilian harm lines

    The after action review shows what you could see, why each strike had its odds, and the civilian toll beside the real one. Three questions close the run.

Your result beside what really happened

The after action review places your objective, time, losses, cost exchange and civilian harm beside the published historical outcome. Compare the decisions you made with what happened in reality.

Explore the comparison
Weekly scenario

Latest weekly scenario

All weekly scenarios
Painted illustrative landscape for The Ilsky Refinery Strike.
Russia and Ukraine · information as of 28 September 2026 · week 2026-W40

The Ilsky Refinery Strike

Long range one way attack drones reach an oil refinery about 400 km behind the front and try to put its three processing units and its tank farm out of action before the air defence around the town can stop them.

41 scenarios

Scenarios

Open the simulation
Painted view down a mountain road in autumn: military vehicles on a winding cliff road, a river valley with a village, and a drone overhead.
Jabrayil and Hadrut, southern front, Azerbaijan · 27 September to 9 October 2020

The Southern Front

Break through the old line of contact and take Jabrayil. CSIS wrote that Azerbaijani drones ‘were the center of attention in this war’.

Command either side Azerbaijan Armenia and Artsakh
Painted view of a military column on a road through pine forest in late winter, with patches of snow and a small drone overhead.
Hostomel, Bucha, Irpin and Moshchun, north west of Kyiv, Ukraine · March 2022

The Road to Kyiv

Stop a road bound armoured column on the Irpin river north west of Kyiv with small teams, drones and artillery.

Command either side Ukraine Russia
Painted night seascape: a warship on moonlit water with two small fast boats approaching and a drone in the sky.
Off western Crimea, from Lake Donuzlav to Sevastopol · 2023 to 2024

A Navy Without Ships

Ukraine had almost no warships. RUSI found that its sea drones, with shore based missiles, denied Russia control of the sea.

Command either side Ukraine Russia (Black Sea Fleet)
Painted view of flat farmland cut by tree lines, trenches and shell craters, with a small drone high above.
Kostiantynivka, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine · August to October 2025

The Kill Zone

Hold the trench line in front of Kostiantynivka while both sides fly thousands of drones a day.

Information as of September 2026
Command either side Ukraine Russia
Painted view of a hill town among green hills, with a winding approach road, a military truck and a small drone overhead.
Lashio, northern Shan State, Myanmar · 2 July to 3 August 2024

The Fall of the Northeastern Command

Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army forces use bomb dropping drones and artillery to fight into Lashio and take the Northeastern Command headquarters, the first regional command the Tatmadaw ever lost.

Information as of September 2026
Command either side Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army Tatmadaw (Northeastern Regional Military Command)
Painted mountain view of an air defence radar and launcher on a rocky plateau above a lake, with a drone in the sky.
Nagorno-Karabakh and the districts around it · 27 September to early October 2020

Hunting the Air Defences

Make Armenian air defence switch on, find it, and destroy it before your strike drones can fly freely.

Command either side Azerbaijan Armenia and Artsakh

Community scenarios made by users are kept apart from these, in the Community gallery .

2 campaigns

Campaigns

Open campaigns
Painted panorama of a mountain pass with vehicles on a winding road, a valley with a village, and two drones in the sky.
27 September to 10 November 2020 · you command Azerbaijan

Karabakh 2020

Azerbaijan’s drone campaign in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War

Command Azerbaijan’s drone campaign across three battles of the 44 day war: breaking Armenian air defence, pushing through the southern front, and the climb to Shusha.

  1. Hunting the Air Defences
  2. The Southern Front
  3. The Climb to Shusha

Your drone stockpile and budget carry from one scenario to the next.

Painted view of wide steppe with tree lines, trenches, a village with a church and two drones in the sky.
March 2022 to 2025 · you command Ukraine

Ukraine 2022 to 2025

Four years of drone warfare, from Kyiv to Kostiantynivka

Six scenarios in order, from the defence of Kyiv to the drone kill zone around Kostiantynivka in Donetsk Oblast. What you can buy changes each year, and so does what the enemy fields against you.

  1. The Road to Kyiv
  2. The Kharkiv Breakthrough
  3. A Navy Without Ships
  4. Through the Minefields
  5. The Sudzha Road
  6. The Kill Zone

Your drone stockpile and budget carry from one scenario to the next.

Learning tools

Brief, simulate, debrief

  • Every scenario opens with three learning objectives and closes with three questions.
  • Your service record keeps every run, with its cost and its civilian toll beside the real one.
  • Between campaign battles, plan strikes deep behind the front.
  • Schools, hospitals and places of worship can never be struck.
  • Defend the Grid: protect Ukraine's power system from waves of long range drones.
  • The academy has six ranks, earned by learning, never by destroying.
  • Instructors get a 90 minute lesson plan and the same five questions before and after class.
  • Tile borders: choose whether map squares keep their edges in the isometric view. Hidden by default, set on the Members page or inside the simulation.
Anyone

Explore without an account

  • Choose a scenario, a side and which drones to send, then read the briefing
  • Enemy units stay hidden until someone spots them
  • The after action review shows what you could see, why each strike had the odds it had, and whether plan or luck decided the result
  • Build your own scenario in the map maker; sign in to save and share it, and to put ranked runs on the boards
War colleges, staff colleges, military academies

Licensed for teaching

  • Classroom mode: the whole class gets the same scenario and settings from one class code, and you collect results and decisions
  • Umpire mode: run a seminar on one projected screen and add events as it runs
  • Lesson guides for ready scenarios, for 45, 60, 90, 180 minutes; draft guides are marked in the lesson catalogue
  • The offline file: the whole simulation in one file, for licensed colleges
  • English, French, Portuguese and Arabic
Ranked runs

One board per scenario and side, every week

Tick Ranked run in the briefing. Every ranked run uses the same fixed settings, so results are comparable. When the run ends, the website replays your orders with the same engine and the official data, and only the replayed score goes on the board. Top 50 for each scenario and side; a new week starts every Monday.

Sourced
taken from the linked published source, at the level of that source.
Simulation estimate
a teaching value chosen for the simulation, not a published figure.
Reference

63 real drones, 11 kinds

Every drone and its sources
  • Recon quadcopter 1 drone
  • Recon aircraft 18 drones
  • FPV attack drone (pilot flown) 1 drone
  • Fibre optic FPV 1 drone
  • Loitering munition (hunter drone) 14 drones
  • Strike drone 11 drones
  • Decoy 2 drones
  • Long range attack drone 5 drones
  • Bomber drone 7 drones
  • Interceptor drone 1 drone
  • Sea drone 2 drones

What the simulation covers

Drone Front stays at the level of strategy: what each kind of drone does, what it costs, and how weather, jamming and air defence affect it. It is built only from published open sources, and uses the real names of the forces involved. Forces on the US Foreign Terrorist Organizations list or the UK proscribed list, and the Wagner Group, keep their real names but are only ever computer controlled. It does not explain how to build, modify or operate drones.

How facts are handled · Doctrine library