Items related to:

CPL Margaret Clarke Writing Award
Air/Space
Developing

The Weaponisation of Toys and Implications for the Air Force

The 'poor man's air force' is a term for employing commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hobbyist drones or uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) to strategic level military effect, and that effect cannot be understated (Waters, 2018; Nadeau, 2022; Shift, 2023). The ability for terror organisations to coordinate multiple layers of effects, including using COTS drones, to destroy Command and Control (C2) nodes in Israel causes alarm. Couple this with the use of COTS drones for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, strike and battle-damage assessment missions, and the threat posed by what are essentially toys is alarmingly real.

By
Ryan Hodson
Australian Army officer Lieutenant Jackson Say from 3rd Combat Engineer Regiment, reads command notes on a map during a live fire M58 Mine Clearing Line Charge (MICLIC) Serial at Townsville Field Training Area, Queensland, on 06 September 2025.
Air/Space
Developing

Applying Wylie’s Cumulative and Sequential Patterns to Air Operations

Strategist Joseph Caldwell Wylie argued that strategies were implemented through two general types of operational patterns: (1) cumulative warfare, which involves “a collection of lesser actions” where tactical actions gradually built up to have strategic impact; and (2) sequential warfare, which is “a series of discrete steps” where each lead to the next; an example being the island hopping campaign across the Pacific during World War Two.

By
Peter Layton
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