The Australian Army will introduce an unspecified type of uncrewed loitering munition into service “this calendar year,” said Assistant Minister for Defence Matt Thistlethwaite during ADM’s 21st annual congress in Canberra on Wednesday 21 February.
Thistlethwaite said that the ongoing perception that Defence “isn't interested” in armed drones and uncrewed systems “couldn’t be further” from the truth. Across the Australian Defence Force (ADF), he said, “more than” 750 systems are in service with many-more undergoing trials and experimentation.
The decision to acquire loitering munitions for the Australian Army, Thistlethwaite said, had been informed by extensive trials and experimentation, including with AUKUS partners.
These trials, he added, are ongoing with the broader ADF examining a variety of systems ranging from small, attritable, and production-ready tactical uncrewed systems to expensive, long-range and armed examples optimised for operations in Australia’s region.
Thistlethwaite said that the decision to procure loitering munitions had been informed in particular by a trial conducted by the Army late last year, which focused extensively on how the Army can employ loitering munitions.
These trials aren’t just focused on tactics and operational concepts though.
A persistent challenge which is being addressed through trials and experimentation, Thistlethwaite said, is the need to ensure that prospective armed uncrewed systems comply with Australia’s obligations under international humanitarian law, as well as other domestic legal obligations, before they can be deployed operationally.
At the moment, he said, this means that individual legal reviews are required before an uncrewed armed system can be operationalised and achieve Final Operational Capability (FOC) with the ADF.
While this is necessary, it does delay how quickly armed uncrewed systems can be introduced into service and deployed operationally, Thistlethwaite acknowledged.
While Thistlethwaite didn’t disclose the model or configuration of loitering munitions being acquired, Australia has previously supplied 300 Australian-manufactured and developed DefendTex D40 loitering munitions to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Development of the drone was partially funded by the Australian Department of Defence through a series of grants.