Gnr Brendan Pronk, 16 AD Regt, takes up a firing position in a trench line during Exercise Croc 03. Photo by Cpl Ashley Roach, 1JPAU(P)

You win some, you lose some

By Pte John Wellfare
ENEMY forces on training activities tend to have the worst luck when it comes to being outnumbered, stumbling into ambushes with uncanny frequency and suffering decisive defeats, time and again on exercises all over Australia.

Fighting back for the bad guys, the OPFOR during Exercise Croc 03 inflicted some decisive defeats of their own over the exercise period, making the friendly coalition's claim to victory questionable at best.

In charge the OPFOR from a stronghold in the south of the fictitious island of Legais, CO 2 Cav Regt Lt-Col Tony Luke commanded a mixed force of more than 1000 soldiers from a range of Australian regular and reserve units, as well as a USMC contingent.

Lt-Col Luke said the OPFOR were able to combine the speed and manoeuvrability of 2 Cav Regt's ASLAVs with the power of the combined arms team to achieve and number of major victories.

"The highlight for the enemy was clearly the destruction of the entire marine force on the first night," he said.

"They were basically surrounded, encircled and attacked from flank and rear and, in effect, destroyed to the point where US marine forces called off the exercise, went back to Sam Hill and started again.

"...The American commander himself praised us highly in the destruction of his force and said [the US forces] learnt a lot out of it.

"One of the key things that we dragged out of this and showed to both Blue Force and the ADF in general was the quality of the equipment; the ASLAVs' capabilities and the ability for the ASLAV to work in a combined arms team with all other forces and achieve decisive action.

"[The ASLAV is] certainly the fastest [armoured vehicle] and it's the way we do cavalry operations, they rely on momentum and tempo, and [2Cav] can generate a far higher momentum and tempo by both day and by night.

"We can generate a tempo that cannot be matched by any other unit currently in the Army, for operations on the ground, by day and by night, and, of course, that can only be maintained and provided through the combined arms team.

"We basically proved that air mobile and other such operations are not viable without heavy, close air support.

"A number of air mobiles were tried and it was quite impressive the number of times that, by the time the helicopters had landed and opened their doors they were looking at half-a-dozen ASLAVs.

"One good anecdote from the exercise. The marines did a landing on the plains airfield with their CH46s, we observed them getting ready to do it and the CH46s came in and dropped their rear doors, just beside a little copse of trees.

"In that little copse was one of my tank squadrons, and literally when the Marines dropped the rear door of their first helicopter, no more than 20m away, there was a Leopard tank, staring into the back of their door.

"They looked like possums caught in a bright light, they threw smoke grenades out the rear door and took off again deciding it was a really bad idea. That was funny as hell, actually.

"Other highlights were a good free-flowing battle of manoeuvre against 1 Bde and 3 Bde, over a period of four days down the western flank of the range.

For Croc 03, the OPFOR incorporated the majority of 2 Cav Regt, a squadron from 1 Armd Regt, 161 Recce Sqn, elements of 8/12 Mdm Regt, 1 Fd Regt, 9RQR, 2/14 QMI LHR, 12/16HRL, 1CSSB and Fox Company, 2nd/3rd Marines.

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