This special report looks at progress on building up Australia’s defence following the strategic review.
DefendTex CEO Travis Reddy calls his Drone 40 the Lego of auto-ammunition. It’s far more than that. The apparatus can launch weapons and other tools such as cameras and even smoke. It can be used on its own or in a swarm and can put soldiers out of the enemy’s reach.
It’s just one of a number of cutting-edge devices being sold into allied defence forces around the world by a slew of dynamic Australian companies.
A British solider hand launches a DefendTex Drone40. “The Drone 40 comes out of a grenade launcher like a normal grenade, then it opens up into a quadcopter that can fly 15 kilometres to the target. It can hover above a target and we can call it back or track moving targets. Four or five people can put them in the air so they move as a single unit,” says Reddy.
“Soldiers can sit on a hill and engage targets out to 15 kilometres, greater than the range of a battle tank. It massively increases the lethality and survivability of soldiers because it keeps them beyond the range of enemy weaponry. You can plug and play whatever effect you need on the battlefield,” he says.
DefendTex started life as research organisation developing new technology for the Australian Defence Force, concentrating on asymmetric warfare, which involves conflict between two armed forces of different military strengths. “It allows us to expand our capability on the battlefield, as if we had more people,” says Reddy.
This is important because potential adversaries across the region have much larger defence capabilities than Australia. “So we have to find a way to deter and, if needed, defeat a numerically superior adversary,” he says.
The Drone 40 is DefendTex’s most advanced piece of technology. But it has also developed rocket-propelled grenades, novel types body armour and other classified projects. Reddy says it is Australia’s most successful company in terms of research and development for the ADF and received 16 contracts from the former Defence Innovation Hub, now superseded by the Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator.