RAA Liaison Letter 2024 - 2025 Edition

RAA Liaison Letter – 2024 / 2025 Edition 99 administratively heavy, and risk averse. Having incorporated a (knowingly small) pool of multinational partners into the BS CALFX, the author offers that, the detail with which Australian range practices are planned actually enables superior flexibility and realism and facilitates far more complex training to occur at an equivalent risk threshold. Two direct comparisons can be made. For a dismounted small arms practice at least one Partner Nation may only engage from a single firing line, with the safety of other participants assured only by the Range Danger Area; conversely, an Australian manoeuvre element can employ a movement box, with the safety of other participants assured by safety angles and sometimes by overhead fire. Similarly, for artillery practices whilst normal training will usually see rounds fall no closer than 860m, under certain parameters rounds may fall as close as 175m from an occupied position; conversely, the same ammunition from the same artillery equipment in US service cannot be authorised to fall closer than 550m in a like training scenario, and JGSDF indirect fires may not fall closer than 1600m from an occupied position and overhead fires are not permitted. Australian range safety policy provides the opportunity for world-leading immersion and realism in live fire training, and the DPRAC is key to enabling this in the combined arms setting. The detail and flexibility of ADF range policy does however have its drawbacks, as range planning and conduct differs between participants, even to the point that the Range Danger Area safety traces generated for the same munitions are not always identical between the ADF and Partner Nations. Whilst danger areas are typically generated with pencils on trace paper for ADF ranges and are typically generated on dedicated software for US ranges, the manual process allows for complex requirements such as nearby occupied locations and other constraints to be better accommodated in an ADF trace. Australian range safety policy provides the opportunity for world- leading immersion and realism in live fire training, and the DPRAC is key to enabling this in the combined arms setting. Whilst the LP 7.3.0 briefly outlines the primacy of doctrine and constraints for Partner Nations when using Australian training areas, the BS CALFX demanded Partner Nation participation when task organised as subordinate to an Australian HQ. Peculiarly, the implications to include the Marine Rotational Force – Darwin (MRF-D) into the practice were different than for the United States Army Pacific Forces (USARPAC), despite their doctrine being internally consistent. There is further friction as OICs, and Safety Supervisors are not interchangeable due to differing requirements for briefings and orders to commence firing and as such ADF and Partner Nation practices were required to be segregated from the overall activity in some aspect. This was generally achieved through orchestrating the Partner Nation’s involvement in a suitable manner such as in forward standing patrols or in static defensive ranges. Until an Australian Safety Supervisor can be subordinated to a Partner Nations OIC Practice (or vice-versa) and likewise for a participant, and memoranda for the inter-useability of range planning and execution is outlined on a nation- by-nation basis, this will continue to be the case. DPRAC in Future Often, when an activity requiring a DPRAC includes artillery, the artillery commander is appointed as the DPRAC. There are obvious conveniences to this – most notably that the artillery commander is unlikely to be a manoeuvre element commander, and that the safety construct of artillery practices is specialised and not necessarily well understood by other Corps. This is a strawman however, as the artillery commander is the manoeuvre commander’s key representative to synchronise the available Joint Fires & Effects with the manoeuvre plan, and each type of range practice has its own nuance that is only fully understood by those that are able to conduct it. There are obvious conveniences to this – most notably that the artillery commander is unlikely to be a manoeuvre element commander, … As such, when viewing through the lens described above as the synchronisation and orchestration of an effect, consistent with what commanders and planners at all levels deliver for their own combat/combat support/command support/combat service support remit, General Service Officers of all Corps hold the skill set to fulfil a DPRAC appointment. By definition it is an overarching safety appointment for combined arms or joint activities. Activity schedulers