EASTERN EUROPE — Western militaries are reconsidering procurement strategies to prioritize low-cost, mass-produced weapons following lessons from Russia's war in Ukraine.

For decades, the West has prioritized smaller quantities of advanced but expensive systems built for precision over mass. Thousands of cheap weapons can be acquired for the cost of a small number of advanced systems.

Ukraine is using cheap quadcopter drones to target troops and tanks. Many of the cheap quadcopter drones used by Ukraine never reach their targets. Cheap weaponry is often less effective, requiring more weapons to achieve objectives while remaining cheaper than high-end capabilities.

"We don't go for mass because it's cheap," said Greg Bagwell, retired Air Marshal who spent thirty-six years in the British Royal Air Force and served as its joint warfare director. "The cheaper it is, the better, but the appeal of massed weaponry is not just because they're cheap."

"You need to throw enough that you shut down their system and then exploit that gap," Bagwell said.

"One of the lessons from the war in Ukraine was that the West needed far greater quantities of low-cost weaponry to meet the demands of a large-scale, high-intensity war," said Troels Lund Poulsen, Danish defense minister.

Serhiy Goncharov, CEO of the National Association of Ukrainian Defense Industries, which represents about one hundred Ukrainian companies, said that the West does not need ten Archer artillery systems. "Instead, you need 200 cheap howitzers, such as the Bohdana one that Ukraine makes," Goncharov said. Archer is an artillery system made by BAE Systems that Sweden gave to Ukraine, while Ukraine manufactures the Bohdana howitzer.

Mass deployment of weaponry allows militaries to absorb losses and overwhelm defenses. In the Ukraine-Russia conflict, both nations are depleting their weapon inventories through extensive use of cheaper weaponry such as drones.