Big plans for exercise

By Lt Simone Heyer

DESPITE high levels of operations, Australia and the US are gearing up for what will be the biggest combined exercise of the year.

More than 6000 Australian and 11,000 US forces will converge on the central Queensland area and the waters east of the region for Exercise Talisman Saber 2005 (TS05).

A CPX at the beginning of the exercise will involve about 300 US and ADF personnel squeezed into the ADF Warfare Centre (ADFWC), as well as a significant number of personnel in Townsville, and embarked on US ships.

ADFWC SO2 Air Plans, Exercise Wg, Sqn-Ldr Andrew Munden said responsibility to be the Lead Planning Agency for the biennial exercise, held from June 12-30, alternated between the US Pacific Command (PACOM) and the ADF Warfare Centre (ADFWC).

Sqn-Ldr Munden said planning for Talisman Saber 05 began as early as November 2002.

“Talks began at the strategic level in 2001, but in 2002 a small team conducted initial planning for TS05 with the US,” he said. “Talisman Saber 05 is the first in an ongoing series of exercises, replacing Crocodile and Tandem Thrust, as the overall concept for Talisman Saber is diff erent.”

The primary aim of the TS series is to exercise AS and US training objectives in the high-end warfighting environment. The focus will be on the operational level CPX activity, which exercises USPACOM’s principal JTF Headquarters - CTF70, which is based in Japan.

“HQJOC and ADFWC were involved in operational level planning with USPACOM and CTF70 from the start. Subsequently, planning conferences were held to develop overall concept and design for TS05 that supports accomplishment of ADF and US component training objectives,” Sqn-Ldr Munden said.

“Once these combined objectives were established, they were given to the force components to develop their individual objectives and requirements for the exercise.

“The Initial Planning Conference was held in April 2004 to conduct initial detailed planning and documentation developed.”

He said all of the planning happened around operations and deployments which involved the ADF.

“Planning for TS05 has not gone smoothly because of real world happenings. We’ve had to reconfigure the exercise, downsizing the Australian and US involvement by 50 per cent,” he said.

“For example, originally, up to three carrier groups were planned to participate, now there’s only one.”

Based on fictional scenarios, the exercise includes combined SF ops, parachute drops, amphibious landings, artillery and infantry manoeuvres, air combat training and advanced maritime operations.

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