Page 71 - Australian Defence Magazine Sep-Oct 2022

SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2022 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
is little wonder that they present so many targets to Ukrai- nian forces.
“The argument should not be drones or armour at the exclusion of the other, but drones and armour complement- ing each other, as Army is doing with its recent acquisition of the Insitu ‘Integrator’ UAV,” he said.
“The bending of history to suit particular narratives can also be seen with respect to the discourse regarding the 2020 crisis between Azerbaijan and Armenia. During this conflict and its immediate aftermath, opinions were ven- tured that the drone heralded the demise of armour. How-
COMBINED ARMS 71 LEFT: An M113 Armoured Personnel Carrier
lands on Forrest Beach, Queensland
ever, recent scrutiny of the available battle casualty data of the conflict, suggests otherwise.
“This was not a ground force that fought a battle made easy by the effects of massive drone strikes. This ground force had to fight casualty-intensive battles to defeat a de- termined enemy, no less well equipped and no less pro- ficient than itself – a peer enemy. The drones definitely tipped the balance in favour of the Azeris, but by them- selves, they did not win the war – not even close,” BRIG Langford added, quoting Doctor Eado Hecht of the Israeli Defence Force Tactical Command College.
BRIG Langford further pointed out that the notion of com- bined arms – a concept that emphasises different combat capabilities operating in a complementary way – is often re- duced to an infantry-artillery-armour equation, but the reali- ty is a modern combined arms capability is far more complex.
“Recently there has been some critique of the combined- arms approach as a concept which has outlived its use- fulness. The success of a range of militaries using large volumes of cheap, consumable armed drones and missiles, does not discount the importance of developing flexible
DEFENCE
“PULLQUOTE.”