Jet-powered bombs and planes-turned-missiles: improvisation and adaptation in a battle of wits

On the modern battlefield, bricks of steel and electronics meet the same law of war as tactics do: whoever adapts faster often exacts the greatest leverage.

The war in Ukraine has repeatedly illustrated that reality, with both sides improvising weapons, repurposing aircraft, and turning scarce resources into asymmetrical effects — from cheap loitering munitions to ad-hoc “missiles” built out of existing airframes and engines.

Improvisation is driven by need. High-end guided munitions and cruise missiles are expensive, limited, and contested by air defenses.

When supply chains tighten, commanders turn to cheaper means that can still achieve tactical or psychological effects.

That has taken many forms: welding rocket motors to existing ordnance, fitting guidance kits to dumb bombs, converting small aircraft and drones into one-way strike platforms, and even fielding jet-powered glide vehicles to extend range and speed.

Technically, the core idea is simple: add propulsion, guidance, or both to something originally not designed for stand-off attack.

A heavy gravity bomb can become a precision weapon with an inertial/GPS guidance kit; the addition of a glide body lets it reach targets from outside some air defenses.

Strap a small jet or rocket motor to a glider or to an airframe and you have a faster, longer-range vehicle that is difficult to classify — part drone, part cruise missile.

Reuse of existing engines and airframes reduces cost and sidesteps production bottlenecks.

Commercial components — autopilots, GPS receivers, hobbyist electronics — lower the bar for sophisticated guidance.

Both sides in the conflict have shown creativity.

Early on, forces on both sides made extensive use of small, commercially available quadcopters and fixed-wing drones for reconnaissance and strike.

As the war matured, so did the weapons: larger loitering munitions, improvised rocket systems, and modified glide bombs appeared.

Open-source analysts and imagery have documented instances where unguided bombs were given wings or kits to increase range and small turbojet or piston engines powered loitering vehicles.

The result: munitions that can be launched from inland; travel long distances; evade detection by flying low; and strike high-value, time-sensitive targets that might otherwise survive conventional strikes.

Turning manned aircraft into missiles is a more dramatic step, and one that carries both tactical and moral weight.

The idea of using an aircraft as a one-way weapon — either by loading it with explosives and sending it toward a target or by remotely guiding a piloted plane that the pilot evacuates from before impact — has historic precedents but is technologically and operationally complex.

Reports from the conflict include experiments and isolated incidents where light aircraft and even fixed-wing drones were modified to act as kamikaze platforms.

Such measures often reflect desperation or opportunism: the ability to strike a hardened target with a converted platform may be worth the loss of the airframe.

Jet-powered bombs and engines grafted onto munitions complicate air-defense calculations.

A small, fast, low-flying powered bomb presents a different radar and thermal signature than a slow propeller drone or a ballistic rocket, and it can be harder to intercept with short-range point defenses designed for other threats.

Conversely, their improvised nature tends to reduce reliability and accuracy compared with factory-built cruise missiles — engineers trade precision for quantity and availability.

The battlefield evolution has a civilian ripple effect.

Commercial supply chains, 3D-printed parts, and widely available avionics make it easier to build effective weapons on the cheap.

That democratization of lethality is a double-edged sword: it enables defenders and insurgents to innovate rapidly, but it also lowers barriers for bad actors and complicates arms control and nonproliferation efforts.

Tactically, improvised solutions have clear uses.

They can degrade logistics, threaten critical infrastructure, and force an adversary to divert expensive air defenses to protect rear areas.

Psychologically, the unpredictability of improvised attacks imposes a tax on morale and planners: when even rear bases and supply hubs are at risk, the operational picture becomes more constrained.

Strategically, a torrent of low-cost attacks can cumulatively attrit expensive hardware and wear down political will.

But improvisation has limits. Reliability is uneven; guided kits and added propulsion often reduce the number of usable weapons due to failures in testing or deployment.

Commanders must weigh the risk of fratricide or collateral damage when using crude guidance and one-way airframes.

Political and legal considerations also matter — the deliberate sacrifice of aircraft or crews, or using civilian components in attacks, raises questions about legitimacy and escalation.

Looking forward, expect the cycle of innovation and counter-innovation to continue.

Defenders will adapt by fielding more flexible, layered short-range defenses, improving electronic warfare to blind improvised guidance systems, and hardening critical nodes.

Attackers will refine inexpensive propulsion, stealthy profiles, and autonomy to increase the hit rate of improvised munitions.

In short, the war has become as much an arms lab as a battlefield.

When conventional arsenals are constrained, ingenuity takes center stage: jet-assisted bombs, plane-turned-missiles, and hobbyist electronics combined with hardened explosives are all manifestations of a simple strategic truth — necessity drives invention.

The moral, operational, and humanitarian consequences of that inventiveness, however, are far from trivial, and they will shape the conflict’s tactical arcs and the wider debates about the future of warfare.