New Zealand troops helped detonate two ground drones during Exercise Black Prince 3 near Adelaide, even as an Official Information Act request shows the Defence Force has no command directives covering how such systems are to be used RNZ.

A joint Anzac battlegroup used kamikaze drones and destroyed two small uncrewed ground vehicles as part of the exercise. The two Jaeger UGVs, each carrying 50 kilograms of high explosives, were detonated in a simulated attack on an enemy position RNZ. The Australian Defence Force called the demonstration a "powerful" showcase of increased lethality Defence.gov.au.

Behind the pyrotechnics sits a governance gap. NZDF's OIA response confirms it is still working through operational, training and workforce requirements for drones, and that an overarching "concept" for robotic and autonomous systems is not due until December, pending further trials RNZ. Some rules exist for training, safety and employment of aerial drones over land, but nothing equivalent has been settled for ground systems or for weaponised platforms of the kind used at Black Prince. The Force has spent roughly a million dollars on drone-related equipment in the past year, according to the same response.

For anyone who has sat through capability introduction processes, the absence of a command directive is the more consequential fact here, not the size of the explosive charge. Former Major General John Howard said operating a system without clear direction puts risk on both the operators in the field and the senior leadership signing off on its use. A directive, he said, exists to give "absolute clarity" about how a weapons system is brought into service — what it can be used for, under what authority, and with what constraints. Its absence does not stop units training with the kit, as Black Prince shows, but it does leave commanders exercising judgement in a vacuum that policy is supposed to fill.

This is not a new problem dressed up as one. Rhys Jones, Chief of Defence until 2014, said he was already discussing strike drones with colleagues a dozen years ago. He argues New Zealand now needs to move rapidly, and that guidance, capability choices, organisational structure and training all need to be settled "very quickly" rather than sequentially. Josh Wineera, a former lieutenant colonel now working as a drone consultant, put the same point more bluntly: the institutional thinking lags the technology, and has done for some time.

The practical effect, per RNZ's reporting, is that budgets at the working level are constrained and units are left uncertain whether robotic systems are a genuine capability requirement or a discretionary add-on. That distinction matters for procurement planning, for force structure reviews, and for anyone trying to make the case internally for sustained investment rather than one-off exercise participation. Without a directive settling the question, drone spending sits exposed to the next round of budget prioritisation in a way that a formally mandated capability would not.

None of this stopped New Zealand personnel taking part in one of the more overt lethality demonstrations the ADF has run in this space. Black Prince, held near Adelaide, has become one of the venues where Australia and New Zealand test combined arms concepts alongside emerging uncrewed systems, and the presence of Kiwi troops in the battlegroup indicates the two forces are experimenting jointly even where their respective policy settings differ. Australia's own framing of the exercise as evidence of "increased lethality" suggests the ADF, at least, treats these platforms as an operational line of effort rather than an open question.

The December concept document will be the point at which NZDF has to show its workings — whether that document actually resolves the operational, training and workforce questions the OIA response flags as unfinished, or whether it becomes another staging point in a process that has now stretched well past a decade of internal discussion. Given Jones's account of talks going back to his own tenure, the gap between capability enthusiasm and settled doctrine has already outlasted several defence reviews. Whether the December paper closes that gap, or simply restates the problem in policy language, is the thing worth watching.