7 Brigade busy at Shoalwater Bay

Brisbane-based 7 Brigade has been busy at Shoalwater Bay recently, with a range of exercises designed to keep skills honed as the formation fulfils the Army’s ‘Ready Brigade’ role until the end of September.

CAPTION: An 8/9RAR soldier participates in urban operations training with Philippine soldiers at Shoalwater Bay. Photo by Corporal Kennedy of Charlie Company, 8/9RAR.

The brigade also hosted and exercised with soldiers and marines from Japan, the Phillipines, Fiji and USA.

Australian, Philippine and US troops completed their final urban assault missions at Shoalwater Bay on 1 June, wrapping up a three-week exercise focusing on urban warfare.

More than 360 troops from 8th/9th Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment, Marine Rotational Force Darwin and Armed Forces of the Philippines have been involved in Exercise Carabaroo, which has involved static live-fire range shoots and blank-fire training at urban operations training facilities.

Exercise Diamond Sprint was also incorporated, involving live-fire platoon attacks, with demolition support from 2nd Combat Engineer Regiment.

Exercise Southern Jackaroo saw Japanese and United States join in for more interoperability training.

The two week exercise covered urban and field training environments.

A brigade spokesman said, “We’re not only building on our strong relationships but also improving key soldier skills”.

“These assault scenarios are an important lead-up to 8/9RAR’s final combined-arms combat-team live-fire mission which will see artillery, tanks, engineers, logistics and communication elements in support.

“Diamond Sprint is our largest formation-level exercise of the year and evaluates the foundation war-fighting skills of our units and troops.

“All our units are involved in Diamond Sprint, conducting individual and collective training to ensure our soldiers are at the required Australian Army standard as we continue to be Army’s ‘Ready’ Brigade until the end of September.”

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