RAA Liaison Letter 2024 - 2025 Edition

RAA Liaison Letter – 2024 / 2025 Edition 49 established dominance over the Battery as the alpha. Later in June the Battery deployed into the field to fire to support School of Armour’s culminating Exercise Gauntlet Strike. For the first time since 2021, 53 Battery conducted artillery advanced training in the form of a battle run to support a cavalry troop fighting withdrawal. This was followed with the Combat Team fireplan to support a tank and mechanised infantry attack. The spectacle was eagerly viewed by a team of Royal Military College staff cadets who quickly confirmed RAA as their #1 corps preference. After a night of little sleep, Gunners of the Battery grind their way to the summit of Mount Puckapunyal Winter took hold of Puckapunyal with July and August seeing temperatures regularly dip into the negatives. Undeterred, the Southern Gunners would head into the field to support Subject 4 Sergeant on Exercise Crossed Cannons and again with the Forward Observer Continuum during Exercise First Strike. As the ground thawed, September presented the perfect setting to get stuck into all-corps soldiering skills on Exercise Southern Wanderer. Our junior non- commissioned officers shined under austere conditions in the small team environment, covering serious ground in the process. Later that month the Battery would rally behind the Legacy 16-hour challenge and voluntarily submit teams to compete in all events without any compelling required from the Battery Sergeant Major. Again, the Southern Gunners showcased their resilience working through the night in an impressive display of determination and grit. Gunner Emmanuel Davenport dominated the run component clocking in over 100km! During October, the Battery quickly reoriented onto the Southern Series sporting carnival. Many long-standing records were broken across weightlifting, running and swimming. The Battery records board – and indeed the CAG’s - were updated with new names cementing their legacy. The Southern Games saw the ‘fastest man in the South’ awarded to GNR Ethan Asuncion who clocked an impressive 13.2 seconds on the 100 m sprint while GNR Thomas Ashley ran the 400 m in under 60 seconds. In November we resumed live firing during Exercise Southern Thunder. We exposed the newest Gunners to 155 mm with a concurrent direct and indirect fire practice. The Bty swatted away drone swarms during a counter-UAS live fire serial. Finally, our Detachment Commanders led their teams on patrol into an OP before calling fire for the first time themselves. The following week the Bty would go back out to again support School of Armour during Exercise Iron Warrior with another excellent display of indirect firepower. Once complete it was time to end the training year and settle once and for all the champion detachment. Anzac Hill, Seymour where over 15,000 Australians would train before departing to the Western Front in World War One – a fitting location to end the training year and promote seven of our newest JNCO’s. Exercise Ubique was the culmination of the year. Starting with the Southern Rumble, a team- based, knockout BJJ tournament, we then left the garrison for Trawool to cross the Great Victorian Rail Trail – the site of many off-base PT runs. Returning to base, a military skills bullring greeted the Bty including live direct fire gunnery, live RP3A and all-arms call for fire. The following day, at the summit of Anzac Hill, in the footsteps of our fallen, in the fading November sunlight, the BC declared Exercise Ubique, and by extension the training year,