MQ-28A Ghost Bat: The New COMBAT Drone and the Future of Australian Air Power 

Short take off will be good enough for flights off the halo carriers as they already have skie jumps

Robot f35

Its good we have some long range drones that are stealth, when you consider the 300 switch blade drones is reconnaissance for 60mm, 81mm an 120mm mortar systems range compatible integration with each other to confirm targets to then fire at target, without reconnaissance you can't confirm the target to fire at. That the 600 switchblade drone with 40km range doesn't really compliment much more than the 300 switchblade does in range it has greater loiter ability to confirm targets for mortar in the advancing battle, it's not something the armoured self propelled howitzer can use as reconnaissance, that relitive to howitzer reconnaissance the ghost bat is handy

Won't need too, they're light enough and have enough thrust to lift off our flight decks

@@user-dw7ph2jb9r Australia has Defendtex D40 drone similar to switchblade and is better with drone swarm capability, they even have mother ship carrier drones to carry the smaller drone and also has a 80 missile launcher capability. Defendtex bought the technolgy from Metal Storm Australian company that developed Maul shotgun and under barrel attachment and also a 1 million round per minute gun. Dfedntex D40 has inbuilt radars enemy anti drone soft kill and hard kill capabilities. Switchbalde is a amateurs toy compared to Defendtex...

Thought long range missiles and building the navy were a priority? About mouth back news accounts said Australia plans to double the size of its navy. Could it be any immediate cutbacks are short time to bring in a budget surplus before an election. Ditto, GDP. Multiple Western countries are trending near recession. Some military spending may have been deferred?

Defense spending is increasing to 2.4% of GDP. While some less urgent projects have been trimmed, it is to allow more rapid deployment and expansion of the naval fleet, and since Australia is an island, the navy fleet has to be first priority, including infrastructure for the arrival of the first nuclear submarines in the 2030's, development of drone submarine capability, and drone air warfare capability. The frigate fleet is expanding with more, and faster to build tier two frigates. After years of not doing enough, spending is gradually gaining the sense of urgency we needed years ago.

@@artistjoh labor BS artist. i been on Australian defense sites mate for years and Labor is cutting projects fomer government had and a lot in sovereign projects to make Australia less reliant on USA and allies. Alot of the projects you now seeing coming to fruition are LNP projects they set up. Labor navy plan is cutting back tier 1 ships instead and is a poor decision .. Ghost bat was former. long range missiles and hypersonics was all former, AI surface ships and submarines all former government... Long range missiles are more important then navy and seen the latest of Defendtex trying to buy Brazils missile company and Aus Labor will not help them, show how stupid labor is..

@@nedkelly9688 You lose any argument you had by reducing this to petty party beliefs. I, sir, am not a Labor supporter, and I do know who planned what projects and when. Personally I think defense spending needs to go to 3 to 4% GDP so that no projects need to be cut. However it is an outright lie to claim Labor has reduced the defense budget. Quite the opposite they have announced increases to 2.4% GDP. I would hope Dutton would have the cajones to announce large increases to defense spending. So far there is no indication of that. We will see when an election is called. However, building more and smaller corvettes or small frigates is wise and has been widely discussed for years. Currently that requires cutting the bigger ships from 9 to 6. We need to lobby for defense spending increases to get it back to the 9, however building 11 ANZAC class sized small frigates that will be delivered quickly is far more important than 3 larger ships that will arrive much later. The drone missile ships is another very wise change. As we move into the era of drone warfare, these crew-optional sorts of missile ships will become the backbone of the surface fleet as Navy learns how to maximize their capabilities. It is good that Australia is joining the US in developing this new capability. And news alert, my dear sir, they are a Labor initiative. Both sides of politics are guilty of the many defense missteps of recent years, but both sides have also done good things. Unfortunately you appear to be blind to that reality. You are so far up the smelly end of your political beliefs that you don't know that this is not a party political issue. The Libs spent years talking about defense while dithering and bringing out endless white papers. They are just as much to blame as the current government. I do respect that while there are some cuts, the over-all defense budget is rapidly increasing. I am sure you are like me and wish that both parties would get some greater urgency into rebuilding defense. I also respect that Morrison oversaw the foundation of AUKUS and the huge upgrade in defense capabilities that represents. If only Turnbull had pursued that instead of his unrealistic pet French project. But if you just want to play small-town style party politics, then you sir, are not part of the solution. Telling untruths does not help your argument. If you want to join team-Australia instead of team-Lib, then your voice would be welcome, but as a mere partisan political hack I suggest you return to just handing out how to vote cards at your local polling station. And never ever start by insulting someone with "Labor BS artist" (see, I was able to correct your grammatical mistake) because the real world does not operate according to your bigoted and outdated ideas.