Australia should consider implementing a wall of drones to its north, to enhance its strategy of denial, consistent with its unique strategic and operational circumstances. Such a drone wall would contribute to the Australian Defence Force’s ability to detect and intercept incoming air and missile threats, including swarming drones.
Australia is already beginning to embrace autonomous systems as part of the ADF’s future force structure, but it’s moving cautiously, in part to meet requirements for trusted autonomy consistent with Australia’s international legal and ethical obligations. Given the pace of technological innovation, and the rapid deterioration in our strategic outlook, notably as China’s military modernisation gathers pace, Australia must move faster, adapt to change and think in a truly innovative manner on how best to employ such capabilities in future ADF force structure.
Russia’s use of drones in hybrid attacks against NATO, and Ukraine’s vast operational experience gained by defending against Russia’s invasion since 2022, highlight the transformational impact of autonomous systems on modern warfare.
Analyst and former general Mick Ryan describes Ukraine’s employment of a drone line (or drone wall) that has imposed heavy casualties on Russian forces and defended key regions of the frontline. That wall is a fire zone, 10 to 15 km deep, that’s patrolled by many armed drones that can inflict heavy losses on detected Russian forces.
Ukraine’s drone wall is primarily designed to attack detected Russian forces on the ground, over short distances, but an Australian equivalent must emphasise long-range, extended endurance and forward presence, and do so over a maritime environment.
In considering an air defence role, the Boeing MQ-28A Ghost Bat must be the starting point of establishing a drone wall unique to Australia’s operational circumstances.
According to the Royal Australian Air Force, the range of the MQ-28A is ‘greater than 2,000 nautical miles’ (3,700 km), but the combat radius must be less than half of this ferry range, perhaps only one third. At a proposed unit cost of US$8 million to US$10 million, the Ghost Bat is vastly cheaper than an F-35 (about US$88 million per aircraft). But it’s still costly enough that it can’t really be considered expendable. Payload and flight profile will also affect the platform’s combat reach. If the Ghost Bat could be air refuelled, a feature that is under consideration, its mission flexibility would be even greater.
In considering the establishment of a drone wall, assume that Ghost Bats would likely have an unrefuelled combat radius between 1,200 km and 1,850 km. Flying from RAAF Tindal, they could be operating north of Papua New Guinea into the Molucca and Bismarck seas in a future crisis. If airborne refuelling were possible, perhaps from other autonomous aircraft, such as MQ-25 Stingrays, their combat radius or time on station could be much higher. Stingrays could also support the Ghost Bats in surveillance and reconnaissance missions. Acquisition of Stingrays could also free up the RAAF’s KC-30A crewed tankers (Airbus MRTTs) for supporting other crewed aircraft, sustaining them on station longer and avoiding the need for them to deploy further forward in more contested airspace.
Thus, Ghost Bats, maybe supported by Stingrays, could operate as the outer layer of the drone wall, exploiting forward sensors, beyond-visual range air to air missiles, and electronic attack capabilities to detect and defeat incoming threats.
Source: Byron Illyes/ASPI
The middle layer behind the Ghost Bats would be composed of larger numbers of cheaper uncrewed combat air vehicles (UCAVs), as well as those dedicated towards surveillance, reconnaissance and electromagnetic warfare. They would operate over the Arafura and Timor seas, intercepting any threats that evaded the Ghost Bats. This would be the mainstay of the drone wall, and would need cheaper expendable platforms, performing a single role but acquired in large numbers.
The role of electronic warfare is particularly important. Ryan argues that ‘drones and electronic warfare have become co-evolutionary partners during the war and they comprise a complementary capability at many levels.’
In an inner layer, crewed aircraft such as F-35A Lightnings or F/A-18F Super Hornets, supported by E-7A Wedgetail airborne early warning and control aircraft and KC-30As, would manage the drone wall and provide a last-ditch defence against airborne threats.
Finally, ground based integrated air and missile defence systems and counter-drone capabilities would defend key northern facilities along specific arcs of fire. They would counter ballistic missiles, or higher speed cruise missiles, which a drone wall may be unable to intercept. They could also defeat first-person-view drones launched from civilian vessels operating near Australia.
Such a drone wall could rapidly shift to a strike role, against adversary ships and potential forward bases. In the same way that Ukraine’s drone wall is employed to attack Russian land forces once they are detected, adversary naval surface forces approaching Australia, or forward bases, could be targeted and attacked using swarming low-cost autonomous systems in the air and on or under the sea. Those systems could deliver standoff weapons including loitering munitions, as well as smaller armed drones.
Uncrewed surface and underwater vessels could be integrated into a drone wall to track and, if necessary, attack an adversary naval force approaching Australia, emulating the lessons from Ukraine’s innovative use of naval drones. They could even strike at forward bases.
They could do so at much greater range than the air component of a drone wall. For example, C2 Robotics’ Speartooth has a range of 2,000 km, and could be acquired in large numbers at relatively low cost. It could operate in partnership with Anduril’s Ghost Shark, which is much larger and has an even longer-range but is more expensive.
A key step would be to decide to arm such systems, which the Royal Australian Navy implies will be considered in its strategy for robotics, autonomous systems and artificial intelligence but only in the longer term.
On the surface, Australia can already deploy uncrewed vessels such as the Ocius’s Bluebottle for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. But this could be complemented by large swarms of higher performance platforms such Leidos’s proposed Sea Archer uncrewed surface vessel which could be armed.
This provides a picture of a possible approach for the ADF to exploit autonomous systems to achieve a strategy of denial. But this would need to be complemented by resilient networking and meshed communications across defence and commercial satellite systems, together with persistent surveillance from space, and from ‘near space’.
