By Dominic Giannini and Tess Ikonomou
Soldiers will get a battlefield advantage with new portable killer drones that crash kamikaze-like into the enemy, the defence industry minister says, as Australia looks to Ukraine’s resistance for ways to boost its military capabilities.
Australia has acquired an undisclosed number of the US-made Switchblade 300 drones, the same ones the Ukrainians have used against Russia, with the cost also not revealed.
A US soldier deploys a Switchblade 300 drone. Credit: US Marines/Wikicommons
The government aims to have them in service later this year “as a way of deterring potential aggressors”.
“They can be carried by a single person and they can obviously be deployed to devastating effect as they have been in Ukraine,” Pat Conroy said on Monday.
Unlike other traditional drones, which are used for reconnaissance, loitering munitions are aerial weapons designed to hover around the area of a target before attacking it by crashing into it and exploding.
They are carried in a backpack before being fired into the air, where the wings flick out, hence the name “switchblade”.
‘It can take out personnel but [for] between $90,000 and $120,000 a hit, it is a very expensive way of doing that.’
Nationals senator Ross Cadell
The acquisition is the first stage of the plan to buy more loitering munitions, with between $500 million and $1 billion allocated for army drones.
“We’re running programs right now to develop Australian drones. And we’re hoping to get them into the inventory as soon as possible,” Conroy said.
Nationals senator Ross Cadell welcomed the purchase but added they were “a long way from a game-changer”.
It couldn’t take out tanks or armoured vehicles but was good against infantry, he said.
“It can take out personnel but between $90,000 and $120,000 a hit, it is a very expensive way of doing that,” he told Sky News.
The bigger model, the Switchblade 600, which can target armoured targets, would make a more substantial impact, he said.
“This is more of an announcement to pretend we’re doing something than actually changing the battlefield,” he said.
Liberal senator Dave Sharma said the short-range weapon system, which can fly between 10 to 15 kilometres, could be effective but didn’t tackle the bigger challenges the defence force faced.
US President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky.Credit: Getty
The defence minister needed to be focused on frigates, destroyers, submarines “and the capability gaps we’ve got emerging there”, he said.
“It’s an important addition for us but I think the bigger challenges we face as the Australian Defence Force are some of the bigger platforms.”
A range of drones, including loitering munitions, have proven to be potent weapons in Ukraine for picking off Russian soldiers, tanks and other military assets.
The United States government has delivered hundreds to the Ukrainian forces.
Overseas news sites report that the US government paid up to US$US80,000 ($A118,885) for each of their Switchblade 300 drones.
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