24 April 2025
For a fuller picture of his immediate surroundings, Lieutenant Timothy Ollis, of 20th Regiment, Royal Australian Artillery, walks in a broad arc around a hilltop shrouded in early morning mist in the Shoalwater Bay Training Area.
The 132 Battery, Charlie Troop Commander, is looking for a special piece of real estate as part of Exercise Chimera Walk, a two-week exercise within the vast central Queensland military range.
Preferably the ground will be elevated, but accessible, easy to defend, and offer good concealment.
His aim is to identify a site suitable for a dispersed flying position (DFP) for an uncrewed aerial system (UAS).
As Army’s most experienced unit in operating uncrewed aircraft, 20th Regiment was honing key skills with the new Integrator tactical UAS.
Some locations within the artillery movement area provided electronic line of sight in the direction of Integrator’s launcher (which can be hundreds of kilometres away), but offered minimal protection or difficult terrain.
The conflict in Ukraine, with its heavy emphasis on uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) engaged in a deadly contest of hide and seek, has put drone warfare front and centre for the unit’s officers and soldiers.
The technology and techniques required to meet the new battlefield reality is a steep learning curve.
“This is very different to anything we’ve ever done before. It’s an amalgamation of artillery, intelligence and aviation,” Lieutenant Ollis said.
“But there is an eagerness to learn the new systems and that’s present from the most junior soldier to the top ranks.
“It’s early days, but the groundwork is there.”
'The threat picture has changed. UAS has changed things in an acute way. If you include satellites, they’ve essentially made the battlefield transparent.'
Adding complexity to the exercise, the regiment took delivery of new Bushmaster protected mobility vehicles (PMVs) late last year. Some are used as ground control stations for Integrators, the rest are used as troop carriers.
As a result, the unit transitioned to a mounted call sign and many of the training activities and serials involved familiarising soldiers with the PMVs.
Commander 132 Battery Major Chris Wishart said they were looking increasingly at dispersed troop movements.
“Mobility, agility and concealment is critical,” he said.
“The threat picture has changed. UAS has changed things in an acute way. If you include satellites, they’ve essentially made the battlefield transparent.”
Major Wishart said the exercise provided the first steps for the regiment.
“Every journey starts somewhere,” he said.
“This is our first training exercise with the troops using these vehicles.”
Integrator is launched from a trailer-mounted catapult and flown towards its mission area by a UAS operator. Control can then be transferred to another operator in a DFP close to the target.
“In an ideal world, the launch site for our UAVs will be hundreds of kilometres from the battle, before we take control of the aircraft near the target, and then launch and recovery get another one for us,” Major Wishart said.
With the regiment expected to receive all its Integrator UAS by the year’s end, learning how to hide, fly and move without being detected will become an integral part of training.
