Combined Special Forces Exercise in Darwin for TALISMAN SABRE 2015

It was a different type of action at Hidden Valley Motor Raceway in the Darwin suburb of Berrimah last night.

<pInstead of the roar of race car burnouts, sounds from hovering helicopters, cracking gunfire and distant voices issuing orders broke through the night as 150 Special Forces soldiers from Australia, the United States and New Zealand fought a mock battle in the vast complex.

Part of Exercise Talisman Sabre 2015, the training activity was designed to prepare Australian, US and NZ Special Forces to work together to conduct operations across a range of scenarios.

Special Forces spokesman 'Major R' is the Special Operations Command Lead Exercise Planner for Exercise Talisman Sabre 2015. Major R said there was a long history of Australian and US Special Forces serving overseas on operations and Exercise Talisman Sabre enabled both countries to continue that interoperability.

"A lot of our equipment within the Australian Defence Force and, in particular, Special Operations, comes from the United States," he said.

"So we have a natural ability to be interoperable with communications, weapons systems and the air frames we use. Also there are links to our standard operating procedures as well, which are similarly aligned."

After insertion by Australian and US Blackhawk helicopters and vehicles, the Special Forces teams moved to rapidly assault multiple enemy locations and clear them of enemy forces. They relied on intelligence feeds from fixed wing platforms and ground based intelligence assets to formulate a plan to execute the mission.

Australian Special Forces units taking part in the mission were the 2nd Commando Regiment (2CDO), the Special Operations Engineer Regiment (SOER) and the Special Air Service Regiment (SASR).

Talisman Sabre has allowed the Special Forces to refresh themselves on operating within rural and urban settings, Major R said.

"It's important for special operations missions to be adaptive and flexible to different and changing mission sets. For this reason, the Australian and the US special forces units have appreciated the diversity of mission sets conducted during Exercise Sabre."

Following the 90-minute mission, the work continued, with planners evaluating the mission.

"We'll be looking at the speed of clearing the objectives, the command and control of the elements as they moved through the complex, and various other objectives listed to assess the effectiveness of the mission," Major R said.