SCHERGER AWAKES

By Private John Wellfare

SGT Shane Garcia receives treatment from medic LAC Brett Murrell at RAAF Base Scherger during Exercise Kakadu.

Photo by CPL Kirk Peacock

HEADQUARTERS No. 395 Expeditionary Combat Support Wing has merged its major bare base activation exercise with Exercise Kakadu to get RAAF Base Scherger online to support F-111 operations.

Exercise Northern Awakening, held every two years, practises combat support squadrons in moving into a bare base and preparing it for flying operations. This year’s exercise was the first time RAAF Base Scherger had supported fast jets.

Plans officer at Headquarters No. 395 Expeditionary Combat Support Wing, Squadron Leader Kath Stein, said Exercise Kakadu had been an ideal opportunity for the headquarters to practise bare base activation.

“We’ve been able to build our Exercise Northern Awakening objectives into, and achieve them through, Exercise Kakadu,” she said.

“[RAAF Base] Scherger is the mounting base for the F-111s, so they fly all their missions in support of Exercise Kakadu out of [the base].”

She said there had been some significant advantages with basing the strike aircraft at RAAF Base Scherger, not least because the region had no curfews on fast jet flying hours.

“RAAF Bases Darwin and Tindal both have noise restriction issues, whereas Weipa doesn’t have those issues and so far they’ve been very supportive.

“In our planning phase we sought and received a lot of support, both from the [local] mining industry and the traditional owners of the land.”

No. 381 Expeditionary Combat Support Squadron deployed to RAAF Base Scherger on July 19 to activate the base with the help of a range of other units, including No. 2 Air Field Defence Squadron, which provided security during the base activation phase and later flying operations.

 

Going bush to provide care

By Private John Wellfare

MEDICAL staff who deployed to RAAF Scherger for Exercise Kakadu faced the challenge of treating simulated casualties and managing their real-world responsibilities as the base’s level-two health facility.

Leading the Health Services Wing detachment, Squadron Leader Deb Phillips said it had been important for the facility to maintain a level of capability, even while some staff were reacting to simulated medical emergencies.

“We have primary and secondary response teams,” she said. “The primary we utilise for any incidents as they occur, whether they be real or play, but ... we’ve got to make sure that we still have a reserve for the real time.”

Exercise scenarios had called on medical personnel to respond to vehicle accidents, improvised explosive attacks and battle related injuries.

Of the real casualties, staff at the medical facility had treated a number of minor injuries and arranged evacuation for patients with ailments for which the level-two facility could not provide, such as dental problems.

To combat the problem of air defence guards deployed to the outskirts of the base trying to reach the health facility for minor health injuries, medical teams had taken the health support to the troops.

“We do a 2AFDS roving sick parade in the mornings,” Squadron Leader Phillips said.

“Our medical section, or a small group of them, goes out and visits all of the units.

“We’ve found that since we’ve started that, the number of injuries that they’ve had has actually decreased.”

Because of the base’s remote location in Queensland’s far north, the risk of heat illness and snakebite had been a concern for the medical team, which came prepared.

“It’s one of those things; as you exercise in the bush, people are going to get bitten.

“The first two casualties of the exercise were actually two of the dogs, and we thought one had been bitten by a snake, but it was actually multiple bull ants.

“We’ve got anti-venin here for the dogs and for the humans as well.”

A level-two health facility runs on a staff of 17 and provides primary health care, pharmacy, resuscitation and ward facilities.

New standards to be introduced soon will increase the level-two facility’s staff to 20 and include a dental component to its list of capabilities.

 

Unconventional enemy to defeat

By Private John Wellfare

LAC Scott Nuku from 2AFDS keeping watch while on a vehicle check point outside RAAF Base Scherger.

Photo by CPL Kirk Peacock

PERSONNEL from No. 2 Airfield Defence Squadron faced an unconventional enemy while deployed to RAAF Base Scherger to provide security for Exercise Kakadu’s F-111 staging platform.

The CO of the squadron, Squadron Leader Michael Krause, said the airfield defence guards had been up against a Special Forces threat from the fictitious country of Mauveland.

The enemy troops had deployed to the region with the aim of preventing the base from supporting F-111 operations and employed insurgent-like tactics against the Australian forces.

“We were here a few days before No. 381 Expeditionary Combat Support Squadron, to patrol through the airfield to make sure there was no enemy threat around,” he said.

“We have to assess what type of action the enemy will take and depending on whether it’s a conventional special forces or a more unconventional, insurgent-type threat, that’s going to determine how we are postured on the ground to keep aircraft safe.

“Basically, it’s all about knowing what your enemy is capable of doing and countering what he can do, which provides a secure environment.

“That means getting battlefield intelligence, from strategic intelligence right down to the tactical level, being able to react to it and getting capable people who can decipher what it all means and turn it into something useful for the patrols to look for and counter.”

The airfield defence guards who deployed to RAAF Base Scherger dealt with a range of simulated security threats, from a gradually intensifying local activist movement to Mauveland Special Forces patrols conducting strategic strike operations against key airfield assets.

Squadron Leader Krause said one of the most important aims of the exercise was to develop a familiarity between the defenders and the base support staff.

“The exercise scenario was directed towards trying to meet the training and the operational objectives of the ECSS, the Airfield Defence Wing and the Health Services Wing,” he said.

“The main thing that No. 2 Airfield Defence Squadron is trying to achieve out of this is the command and control between the squadron and the ECSS.

“That high-level command and control hasn’t been exercised for a while and we’re learning a lot of good lessons throughout the exercise.”

Commanding No. 4 Rifle Flight, which operated a vehicle checkpoint at RAAF Base Scherger during the exercise, Flying Officer Stuart Whiteside said the type of threat posed by the enemy forces had been challenging for the defenders to counter.

“It’s pretty hard for us to pick up a vehicle with an improvised explosive device in it,” he said.

“We try to search every vehicle that comes through the checkpoint at least once a day.”

In one exercise scenario, explosives had been planted on an Air Force vehicle during a resupply trip in the nearby town of Weipa.

The irony of the threat scenario, according to Flying Officer Whiteside, was that the less combat-focused base support personnel were more likely to face direct enemy action than the airfield defence guards at the vehicle checkpoint.

“If [the enemy] are trying to stop aircraft operations, then targeting us is a waste of capability – they’re not going to stop aircraft operations if they blow up a vehicle checkpoint.”

Other ADG patrols operated in the close approach area around the airfield, actively patrolling to detect enemy insertion routes and prevent Special Forces teams from reaching the base facilities.

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