A new NZ Defence Force Bushmaster armoured vehicle being driven on to the HMNZS Canterbury in Wellington on Thursday, headed for the Talisman Sabre military exercise. Photo: RNZ/ Phil Pennington
The army is heading for an international exercise where drones will be tested, taking a single drone of its own.
Australia and the US are expected to test autonomous weapons as well as a vital new missile system - one that has already upset China - at the Talisman Sabre exercise, starting late next week.
As the first 150 out of 680 New Zealand Defence Force personnel going to the exercise got on the Navy ship Canterbury in Wellington, on Thursday, its commanders reiterated their goal to provide the government with a more lethal combat force.
"We are very mindful that the role of the Defence Force right now is more critical than it has been for several decades," Brigadier Jason Dyhrberg told reporters.
"Therefore, it is important that we make sure we provide the government with a lethal, agile, effective combat force that can protect and preserve New Zealand interests, both domestically and abroad."
Yet constraints were still obvious, with the government's $12 billion defence capability plan arriving too late to make a difference.
"It's too early to put that into resource right now," Dyhrberg said.
"Those capabilities will be in the pipeline in the coming years."
That meant little on the drone front, with the motorised infantry combat team taking along just one drone.
"This will be employed in a surveillance and target acquisition role by the Joint Fires Team," the NZDF told RNZ.
Talisman was a proving ground for drones in 2023, which have been transforming warfare in Ukraine.
Lieutenant Colonel Caleb Berry said drones would be introduced at all levels of the NZDF, but it would take time.
"The Defence Force is on a capability journey with drones," Berry said.
"We identify that there is a need, but we're still going through that journey at the moment."
One of three NH90 helicopters Defence is taking to Talisman Sabre in Australia. Photo: RNZ/ Phil Pennington
Asked if the NZDF was taking anything more lethal now, compared to Talisman 2023, Dyhrberg said, "They're largely the same capabilities."
He added quickly: "But in the defence capability plan, the minister has made it quite clear about making the defence force more lethal.
"That will include more lethal fires as well. What there will be is still to be determined."
'Joint fires'
"Joint fires" refers to digital targeting for shooting at targets synchronised at lightning speed across multiple forces and "domains" (land, sea, air, space).
The US and Australia have made strides towards this since 2021, when the Australian Defence Force said it was "now plug and play" and "fully integrated".
It not only coordinates the target, but recommends what weapon to shoot at it and how.
Australian Army gunner Akbar Joeharris monitors an Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System inside a command post Bushmaster vehicle during a previous Exercise Talisman Sabre. Photo: Supplied/ Australian Defence Force
Joint fire networks are a central part of the Pentagon's priority ongoing project to build a mega-network of sensors and shooters called CJADC2 (Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control).
Leading US contractor Lockheed Martin helped provide a joint fires network to exercises in Alaska and took part in Talisman Sabre in 2023.
For Talisman 2025, the NZDF is taking more than twice as many people as in 2023, at a time when it had described itself as "hollowed out" and suffering high turnover.
Also its stop-start Network Enabled Army project has so far put new digital communications systems into seven Bushmaster vehicles - out of 43 total - and those were driven on to the HMNZS Canterbury on Thursday.
NZ Army Bushmaster 5.5 armoured vehicles. Photo: Supplied/ NZ Defence Force
"We don't have drones as part of this combat team, but we do have the ability to communicate both digitally and via voice with the Australians at all levels," said Berry.
Talisman would also give them the chance to see the missile capability of their partners, he added.
'Command and control'
Talisman and other major military exercises, such as Rimpac that the navy went to last year, align with the US's CJADC2 goals to build what the Pentagon calls "kill chains" that are ever faster. At a California exercise NZDF went to in March, the chain was down to just seconds over long distances, US media reports have said.
NZDF told RNZ a key goal over the three-week Talisman exercise was to integrate its capabilities with Australian and US "command relationships including command and control".
Dyhrberg added, "We always maintain sovereignty over our own forces in terms of doing command and control."
They had stepped up for 2025 by sending the motorised combat team of Light Armoured Vehicles (LAVs) and Bushmasters, and aimed to build up further to contributing a battalion-size group for Talisman 2027, he said.
US pressure - Talisman comes at interesting time for allies' relationship
Talisman, the largest bilateral Australia-US military exercise, comes at an interesting time for the allies' relationship.
At the weekend, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth told Canberra it should lift its defence spending to 3.5 percent of GDP "as soon as possible", from 2 percent now.
This is about the same proportion as America spends on defence.
He conveyed this at the Shangri-La dialogue summit, where New Zealand Minister of Defence Judith Collins had spoken in defence of Donald Trump's proposed Golden Dome missile defence system.
Hegseth and Australia's Defence Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, Richard Marles, "discussed aligning investment to the security environment in the Indo-Pacific", the Pentagon said.
But Prime Minister Anthony Albanese later said Australia would decide what defence capability it needed, with spending to fit that.
The Australian reported this as Albanese having "brushed off the request".
"We'll determine our defence policy," Albanese said.
His government's current goal is to hit 2.4 percent by 2033, which would take the total spend to over $100 billion a year.
New Zealand in April announced its goal of doubling its defence spending to 2 percent by 2032, or over $10b a year.
Japan's is only about 1.8 percent.
However, some analysts predict US defence spending will actually go down in the coming decade, to under 3 percent, though Hegseth has made much about having the first US-trillion-dollar defence budget this year (which has not been agreed to yet).
The share of the spend that US states get varies wildly, with Texas getting the biggest share, next Virginia and third California. More money has recently been going into Silicon Valley as the Pentagon signs contracts with various tech companies branching out into defence.
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