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The US military has celebrated the first live grenade drop from an unmanned aircraft system in the US Army for conventional forces.
Soldiers from 7th Army Training Command, 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment, the Joint Multinational Training Group-Ukraine and 173rd Airborne Brigade collaborated to drop the live M67 grenade from a Skydio X10 drone at Grafenwoehr Training Area in Germany on 25 June.
A US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command-developed audible dropper was used during the training.
Significant advances have already been made by Ukrainian and Russian forces during the ongoing Ukraine–Russia war. The capability to drop grenades, improvised explosives and other equipment on exposed enemy personnel and into the open hatches of armoured vehicles has proven success in the conflict.
Ukraine can assist Australia in developing new sovereign defence capabilities and asymmetric warfare such as drones and artificial intelligence, according to the Ukrainian ambassador to Australia.
Vasyl Myroshnychenko made the comments, originally reported by The Australian newspaper, during a Justice Denied Conference in Melbourne this year.
“For the past three years, Ukraine has relied on the support of Western countries, including Australia, to send tanks, artillery and ammunition, for which we will be forever grateful, but the way our military has developed, I think the ADF has much to learn from Ukraine on asymmetric warfare and defence technology. It’s state of the art driven by necessity,” he said.
“We get equipment and technology from partners; we test what works on the battlefield and improve what works. Operational autonomous systems are something we have learned how to do, and we have demonstrated how effective they can be.
“Australia needs its own manufacturing capacity of various weapons and military equipment, to have sovereign defence capability. Drones have become a very cheap and efficient way to build up deterrence because you can carry drones 4,000 kilometres away and deploy them.
“We can teach Australia how to do it and help them set up the production you need that works.”
