Trained and ready to fight

Moving through Exercise Pozieres Run, Maj-Gen Ana Duncan couldn’t help but be impressed.

The commander of Forces Command noted the fusion of realistic battlespace effects to simulate the chaos and friction of war, new technology being integrated into combat training, and lessons from Army’s training schools being used in the field.

But what impressed her most was the single-mindedness of the men and women in the area of operations, moving with a sense of urgency and purpose in what Maj-Gen Duncan said was preparation for war.

“Everyone is learning, everyone is training, everyone is strengthening our ability to fight and win,” she said, while visiting the exercise at Shoalwater Bay Training Area in central Queensland, an area of more than 450,000 hectares. 

More than 6500 personnel and columns of armoured vehicles and firepower used the area during the exercise.

Drones flew overhead, firefight skirmishes broke out at various locations into which confused displaced civilians (played by Army soldiers) inadvertently entered to reflect contemporary warfare. 

Maj-Gen Duncan said war was fundamental to the military lexicon and it was what the ADF was preparing for.

“The Army, the Navy, the Air Force – we exist to prepare for war,” she said.

“We have done that my whole career and we are not doing anything different now.

“If you have military power as part of an instrument of national power, you have it to deter. 

“Anyone in the ADF will tell you our job is to be as potent as possible, to be ready to fight and win. None of us want a fight, none of us are seeking a fight, but absolutely we will be ready if that time comes and our government tells us to.

“We are not being afraid to use that terminology, combat terminology. That lexicon is fiercely being readopted and we should be very proud of what we are doing today … what we are doing is just talking about our profession, the profession of arms with our language. We are not being hawkish, that is just what our nation expects us to be – professionals, and we are very proud of it.”

Maj-Gen Duncan said training was constantly evolving to mirror contemporary warfare.      

“We get prepared, we get ready, and I’m very proud to be here today and watch these incredible Australians who choose to be here, who choose to serve and bring their expertise in this manner,” she said.

She said experiences during the exercise would enable the land domain training system – the doctrine that directs Army’s learning – to evolve further.

“Feeding outcomes back, it’s very important,” Maj-Gen Duncan said. 

“This exercise is enabled via the Combat Training Centre and the command teams themselves, who take the observations and the insight, then we will work out the lesson to be learned and fed back into the training system.

“Then through the fusion of the Battle Lab, we will adjust our doctrine – it might be [that] a command team wants to adjust their TTPS [tactics, techniques and procedures], their SOPs. Not everything has to be a massive change and that is part of this continued evolution.

“Every sporting team wants to get back for their next sporting game; it’s not different for us in the Army. We want to be as ready as we can on the pitch for our next fight.”