China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) just demonstrated its latest drone swarm tech on state TV, showing a single soldier controlling 200 units.
According to the South China Morning Post, the drones are launched from the Swarm I land vehicle, A.K.A the High Mobility Swarm Weapon System, which can simultaneously launch 48 fixed-wing drones that work together.
Each unit can then autonomously communicate with each other, allowing the entire swarm to fly in precise formation and divide tasks among themselves, like conducting multi-target reconnaissance and strike operations, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said in the report.



Theoretically, a single operator controlled swarm could be used to all strike a hardened target at once, rather the current tactic we see in Ukraine of multiple drones which all have a dedicated operator being tied up striking an armored vehicle or hardened emplacement.
The ability to have one operator in control of the ability to strike a heavy target would come in mighty handy if you…say…have to eliminate a lot of prepared coastal defenses on an independence-minded island nation.