Defence bases ‘vulnerable’ to drone attack, say experts

Australia’s warships and fighters jets would be helpless if an enemy smuggled armed drones into Australia to conduct a Ukraine style drone attack on Australian military bases, experts say.

An F/A-18F Super Hornet takes off from RAAF Base Tindal.

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Australia’s fleet of fighter jets, warships and submarines would be sitting ducks if an enemy or terrorist launched drone attacks at a RAAF airfield or a naval base as Ukraine did against Russia’s bomber fleet this week, experts warn.

The unprecedented Ukrainian attack, which destroyed up to one-third of Russia’s strategic bombers, opened a new chapter in modern warfare and exposed Australia’s vulnerability to a similar attack.

Military experts say the reluctance of the Australian Defence Force to invest in armed drones and counter-drone measures means airfields and navy bases inside Australia are uniquely vulnerable to a Ukrainian-style attack.

They warn that Chinese, Iranian, Russian or Islamic militants could potentially mastermind the smuggling of armed drones into Australia and – like Ukraine did – transport them to military bases and launch a remote assault.

“This is a wake up call for Australia,” said John Blaxland, professor of international security at the Australian National University.

“The bottom line is, you can park a truck at the gate of Williamtown air force base and no longer does an airfield defence guard dog cut the mustard in terms of protecting our F-35s or our F/A18 Super Hornets, or our submarines, or visiting submarines in Perth, or visiting aircraft in Tyndall or Darwin. We need a revolution in the way we approach defence protection.”

Strategic Analysis Australia head of research Marcus Hellyer said Australia was “extremely vulnerable” to a similar style of drone attack on home soil.

“What if a bad guy smuggles into an Australian port a shipping container full of drones and you put that shipping container on a truck and deliver it to an Australian navy port or an airfield?” he said.

“It might have once seemed like science fiction but as the Ukrainians have shown us, science fiction is now reality.

“All of our ships are concentrated in just two naval bases: Fleet Base east in Sydney Harbor and Fleet Base West Garden Island in Western Australia.”

The majority of the RAAF’s F-35 joint strike fighters are also based closely together at RAAF Base Williamtown near Newcastle in NSW.

The Ukraine drone attack occurred when Russian drivers drove trucks to remote airfields in Russia without knowing they were transporting deadly Ukrainian drones.

The armed drones, piloted remotely, then emerged from the roofs of the trucks and destroyed or severely damaged Russian bombers sitting on the tarmac.

Dr Hellyer said the attack underlined the growing role of drones in modern warfare which was something that the ADF had failed to properly appreciate.

“We have been very slow to invest in small drones and counter-drone technology and I think a part of that is due to a failure of imagination,’ he said.

“We focus on the large traditional platforms (like frigates and submarines) but not drones. We need to reset the balance of our defence acquisitions.”

The ADF still does not have any armed drones such as the ones used in the Ukraine attack and has almost no counter-drone capability. It is acquiring four large Triton surveillance drones and is developing a fighter-jet sized surveillance drone called Ghost Bat but these are unarmed.

Dr Blaxland said the defence bureaucracy was to blame for underestimating the value of drones on the battlefield.

“The defence bureaucracy is not a nimble beast and it’s hard to shift from a 10-year planning mindset,’ he said.

Peter Dean, director of foreign policy and defence at the United States Studies Centre, said the Ukraine drone attack “raises questions” for Australia.

He said if there were to be an increase in defence spending it should be used to develop land-based air defence, including against drones.

“If you ask me to draw up a list of capabilities we need, at the very top of my list is land-based air defence, from counter-drone to counter-cruise missile and potentially ballistic missile,’ he said.

The frontline of the war in Ukraine is mostly being fought by small drones which cross the frontline targeting enemy tanks and troops.

The US Congress is poised to budget $US1.3bn ($2bn) this year to develop and deploy counter-drone technologies.

The ADF is seeking to develop integrated air and missile defence systems for defending against air and missile attack but such a capability is aimed at combating large incoming missiles rather than the small drones used in the attack on Russian air bases,

US President Donald Trump unveiled plans last month for a $US175bn antimissile shield, called Golden Dome, to shoot down ballistic, hypersonic and cruise missiles. But this system would also not be able to defend against small armed drones.

The Ukraine drone attacks come at a time when the Albanese government is under pressure to boost defence spending significantly after US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth called on Australia to lift spending from just 2 per cent of GDP to 3.5 per cent of GDP as soon as possible.