Ukrainian Special Group Alpha operators alongside a multirotor FPV drone in 2023.
[Lycksele-Nord/Wikimedia]

The Drone Age (Part 1): The game-changing power of innovation in war

STORY BY RICHARD FOOT

The first in a two-part series examining the impact of drones and autonomous weapons on modern warfare. Part 1 considers drones alongside some of history’s other groundbreaking innovations that changed the nature of war.

This is, for better or worse, a revolutionary time in military terms. The world is witnessing one of those game-changing moments when a new idea or technology tested on the battlefield upends conventional wisdom about how to fight a war.

Drones and autonomous weapons have humbled both Russia in Ukraine and the U.S. in the Persian Gulf, sending their militaries reeling like prizefighters unexpectedly knocked to the mat.

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HMCS Alberni circa 1943-1944. [DND]

Juno Beach Centre safeguards HMCS Alberni artifacts removed from wreck

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

“We’re a museum of stories,” said Alex Fitzgerald-Black, the Juno Beach Centre Association’s executive director. “We’re not necessarily a big collections museum.”

The Canada-based charity head, whose efforts support those at the main site in Normandy, France, nevertheless stressed that artifacts still have a vital place in those tales—especially when they provide a tangible link to the past.

Two of the centre’s most recent acquisitions, the bell and shipbuilder’s plate from the Second World War-era HMCS Alberni, offer just that. But for Fitzgerald-Black and other custodians, it’s also critical that such artifacts are safeguarded. These new Alberni items had originally been removed from the more than 80-year-old wreck in British waters by independent divers, who subsequently put them up for auction in June 2025.

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