Photo illustration by Cpl Belinda Mepham, Army newspaper

Croc 03 ready to rumble
Planning nearly complete for huge joint Australian-US exercise

PLANNING for the ADF’s major training activity for the year, Exercise Crocodile 2003 (CR03), is being finalised at the ADF Warfare Centre, RAAF Base Williamtown.

Lead planner Cmdr Bill Garner said CR03 was a major combined Australian-led exercise with the US, focused on practising “high-end” warfighting.

For the ADF to be effective and prepared for all possible roles, it needed to maintain levels of preparedness for warfighting across all capabilities.

“As we have seen in recent operations, when the ADF needs to fight it will most likely be with US Forces, so we need a high level of interoperability with our major ally,” he said.

Even though parts of the ADF had been involved in actual operations with US Central Command forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, it was still very important for the ADF to undertake this major exercise.

Although some of the participating US forces will have served in Iraq, most of those involved in CR03 weredrawn from US Pacific Command and had not had recent experience working with the ADF.

Cmdr Garner said that it was significant in CR03 Australia would be responsible for command and control of the combined Australian and US forces.

Other parts of the ADF would also gain benefit from the very wide range of demanding military and logistic activities included in the ADF’s “must-do” list of exercising objectives.

“CR03 will let us conduct a range of activities that require a war fighting joint/combined force exercise environment beyond the scale available in smaller exercises.

“Also, it will allow us to do experiments and trials in areas that may enhance our operational capabilities.”

Command post exercises for CR03 have already been completed.

The major field training activity, to be held in August and September this year, will be in north Queensland, the Coral Sea, the Townsville region, Gladstone and the Shoalwater Bay Training Area.

The exercise includes live firing of weapons by many force elements.

The scale of CR03 aimed to be similar to previous Crocodile and Tandem Thrust exercises, but the recent and ongoing conduct of real world operations meant that there would be some adjustment to parts of the exercise.

Air-Cdre Dennis Green, the exercise director and commandant of the ADF Warfare Centre, said CR03 was very important for the ADF, describing it as one of the most significant training activities the ADF conducts.

“It gives us the opportunity to conduct comprehensive training with our major ally from the most tactical elements through to the strategic level,” he said.

Cmdr Garner said safety would be critical to the conduct of CR03 and would be in accordance with ADF and single-Service health and safety risk management policy.

For CR03, a Chief Safety Officer had been appointed with responsibility to oversee safety planning and risk assessment.

CR03 would be undertaken in an environmentally responsible and sustainable manner to ensure minimal environmental impact.

Exercise activities had been assessed for potential environmental impacts, and the activities were fully in accord with Australian national legislation and ADF policy.

Cmdr Garner said a very important part of exercises like CR03 was identifying and recording lessons for future operations.

“There is going to be a very comprehensive evaluation process in place.”

After the forces return home, the Warfare Centre will begin work on incorporating the lessons into ADF doctrine, training and exercising to enhance ADF preparedness for future operations.

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