Slowly, but surely the ghosts are stirring. Australia’s embrace of autonomous systems is critical – these offset capabilities can’t come soon enough.⬇️
This week, we’ve seen Australia’s Ghosts – Anduril’s Ghost Shark and Boeing’s Ghost Bat gain international attention. Firstly, the Australian government has signed off on procuring dozens of Anduril’s Ghost Shark Uncrewed Underwater Vessel. As The Guardian reports, this signals the Government’s intent to add autonomy to the capability mix and make steps towards ensuring our military is evolving and innovating:
“The future of warfare, on land, in the air, and at sea, will be increasingly autonomous. Militaries around the world are pouring vast resources into autonomous technologies: they are far cheaper to build and run than crewed platforms, can be deployed at scale, and without human crew, are expendable.”
Meanwhile, the MQ-28 Ghost Bat – designed by Boeing Defence Australia – continues on its development path. This uncrewed aircraft is still evolving with multiple missions intended for this high end drone. Flight Global reports on the first public test flight of the Ghost Bat, including a few interesting insights from Chief of Air Force Air Marshal Stephen Chappell:
“Chappell’s enthusiasm for the capability the MQ-28 could one day offer the RAAF is clear. He describes MQ-28s positioned, at the ready, along Australia’s vast northern coastline for the defensive counter-air mission. In a crisis, the ability to deploy MQ-28s in a defensive posture would significantly reduce the fatigue imposed on human crews, who would otherwise be required to be on alert. ‘You can be sitting in the control station with 20 fighters, all of them MQ-28s, and they’re not getting tired and fatigued just sitting there 24/7…that frees up our crewed force for other missions. You have your defensive piece set, and you have your offensive punches ready, which might be a combination of crewed and uncrewed aircraft.”
For Australia, the time it will take before new capabilities are ready for combat is critical. We have a boutique military and certain high end capabilities will not be available when we need them, not matter what the Defence budget is like. Long lead time items, prolonged build times and high demand for limited assembly lines means we need to identify alternative ways to achieve similar outcomes. Onshore development and / or production provides surety of supply – just in time offshore supply chains are a vulnerability.
This is where autonomous systems have a key role to play – as offset capabilities that we can scale and surge into service rapidly. They have the ability to mitigate gaps in capability and enhance deterrence. They can also leverage the capability of our existing ships, subs, aircraft and other platforms through follow the leader / crewed – uncrewed teaming. Of course we want to see more than just solutions from the Primes in this drive for autonomous solutions – reinforce Australia’s arsenal of democracy with sovereign capability and harness our start ups and small and medium enterprises!
Food for thought!
📷 via The Guardian, links to articles in the comments.