Are you carefully folding your delivery boxes for recycling? The Japanese army, on the other hand, has found a whole different use for this seemingly mundane material. No more pricey aluminum alloys and carbon fiber: Japan is equipping itself with a fleet of military drones made of corrugated cardboard and wood. This is a deliberate strategy of the “disposable” approach, inspired by modern conflicts, which provides a formidable and completely unexpected tactical advantage.
What you will learn:
- The military drone delivered in a kit: how Japan assembles aerial targets in less than five minutes.
- Low-cost stealthiness: why corrugated cardboard has become the worst nightmare of enemy radars.
- The wooden reconnaissance plane at $450: Tokyo’s radical strategy to do without foreign suppliers.
The combat drone delivered like a flat-pack furniture
In the arms industry, the norm has always been to build sophisticated, durable, and extremely expensive devices. Japan is now taking a different path. The Ministry of Defense has turned to Air Kamui, a local startup that has developed the AirKamuy 150, a functional drone with a fuselage made of corrugated cardboard covered with a waterproof coating.
The concept takes logistical logic to its extreme: these drones are shipped completely flat, stacked on palettes, and assembled directly on the field in five minutes. Priced at around $2,500 (a bargain in the military field), this model has already been adopted by the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force. It currently serves as a “consumable” training target to test the missile defenses of ships without the fear of destroying valuable equipment.
Cardboard: an unexpected cloak of invisibility
While the economic aspect is evident, the choice of cardboard hides a major operational advantage that engineers are now exploiting for reconnaissance missions.
Traditional radars are designed to bounce their waves off hard surfaces, notably metal or carbon fiber used in conventional drones. Corrugated cardboard, on the other hand, absorbs or disperses a large portion of these signals. This extremely low radar signature allows these small devices to infiltrate contested areas much more easily without triggering alert systems, offering a decisive advantage in spying on enemy positions.
The era of “disposable” and 100% local squadrons
This material revolution is part of a total overhaul of Japanese military doctrine, heavily influenced by the war in Ukraine where swarms of small drones have redefined the front line. The goal is no longer to have a perfect drone, but to have so many that their loss has no strategic importance.
To push this logic of independence to the extreme, Japan unveiled in April the project “Shiraha”. Designed by the startup JISDA, this other drone model replaces cardboard with a wooden fuselage. Its main advantage? It only costs $450 and is made exclusively with local components. In a world where supply chains are fragile, Japan ensures it can print, saw, and assemble its “disposable” army autonomously.
