Australian soldiers standing on rocky, mountainous terrain operate an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, or drone, as part of the 'Hyper-Teaming' experiment at Project Convergence Capstone 5, at Fort Irwin, California.
Air/Space
Foundation

Drone Swarms and their Potential within the Australian Defence Force

The onset of the war in Ukraine saw one of the most dramatic shifts in combined arms warfare since the introduction of the machine gun. This shift is attributed to the wide scale introduction of drones to the modern battlefield (Kagan et al, 2024). Principally the conflict is demonstrating drones pioneering new capabilities in reconnaissance, close air support and strategic strike with virtually zero risk to the operator.

By
Lucas Page
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
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