Publication:Navy Annual 2005/Talisman Sabre
BY LIEUTENANT COMMANDER ANTONY UNDERWOOD, RANR
More than 1400 Australian sailors participated in four weeks of intensive training exercise at Shoalwater Bay, Rockhampton, Townsville, Gladstone and the Coral Sea as part of exercise TALISMAN SABER 2005 (TS05), a Joint Australian and United States military exercise in June 2005.
From amphibious landing of troops and equipment, involving amphibious and hydrographic survey ships and aircraft, to the maritime warfare skills required to meet submarine, surface and air threats, all involved were engrossed for about 11 days from 10 June 2005.
An imaginary power struggle involving mythical countries was used to bring together some 17,000 sailors, soldiers, marines and airmen from the Royal Australian Navy, Australian Army, RAAF, and United States forces together on, over and off the coast of central Queensland's Shoalwater Bay training area.
While the RAAF practised parachute insertion of troops ashore, Commander Deployable Joint Force Headquarters at the time, the then CDRE Davyd Thomas, AM, CSC, RAN had the honour of leading the Blue Task Group of more than 20 ships from the amphibious assault ship, USS Boxer.
Australian units in the exercise included:
- Amphibious ship HMAS Manoora and landing craft HMA Ships Brunei, Labuan and Wewak;
- Surface combatants HMA Ships Canberra, Warramunga and Ballarat with embarked 816 SQN Seahawks;
- The submarine HMAS Farncomb; Supply vessels HMA Ships Success and Westralia, Minehunters HMA Ships Huon, Hawkesbury, Norman and Yarra;
- Detachments of Clearance Diving Teams 1 and 4 (CDT1 and CDT4);
- Survey ship HMAS Melville and motor launches HMA Ships Shepparton and Benalla. And the United States fielded:
- The aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk; Guided missile cruiser USS Cowpens; Guided missile destroyers US Ships Fitzgerald and John Paul Jones;
- Guided missile frigate USS Vandergrift; Amphibious assault ship USS Boxer;
- 7th Fleet amphibious command ship USS Blue Ridge;
- Military Sealift Command underway replenishment oiler USNS Guadalupe; and
- A mobile diving and salvage unit.
Development and maintenance of interoperability - the term adopted for the ability of Australian units to work effectively in a task group with US ships - were key aims of Exercise TALISMAN SABER 05.
"Exercise TALISMAN SABER tested Australian and US service members across the full spectrum of joint capability from operational aspects to humanitarian assistance operations. It's a lot of hard work," said LCDR David Graham, RAN, who was embarked with other Deployable Joint Force Headquarters staff in USS Boxer.
Some 40 Royal Australian Navy clearance divers from Clearance Diving Team 4 with some additional support from CDT1 joined their US Navy and Army colleagues for work afloat and ashore.
All participating forces were put through their paces on yet another successful exercise.
