Exercise Talisman Sabre: Dates released for Australia’s largest military training activity with US
US ships, fighter jets and thousands of armed forces personnel to converge on Queensland for Australia’s largest biennial military training operation.
QLD News
Don't miss out on the headlines from QLD News. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Dates have been released for the 10th iteration of Australia’s largest bilateral combined military training activity with the US.
More than 30,000 military personnel, mostly from the Australian Defence Force and US Armed Forces, are expected to converge on Queensland, parts of northern NSW and Darwin from June to early August for Exercise Talisman Sabre 2023 (TS23), a large-scale military training activity that culminates in a mock war between all military branches on land, sea and in the air.
The peak of the training, which also incorporates crews in fighter jets and aircraft carrier ships, is scheduled to take place between July 21 and August 4.
An Australian Department of Defence spokeswoman said Australia and the US take turns leading the biennial military exercise, with the most recent iterations increasingly including other allied forces as participants or observers.
“Exercise Talisman Sabre is a bilateral, high-intensity war-fighting training activity led by Australia or the United States, and other partners which has previously included Japan and New Zealand. It is designed to enhance interoperability, strengthen the Australian-US Alliance, enhance Defence co-operation with like-minded countries in the region, and improve combat readiness,” she said.
The Defence spokeswoman said planning was still underway, but TS23 would comprise a field training exercise incorporating force preparation (logistics) activities, amphibious landings, ground force manoeuvres, urban close combat operations, and air combat and maritime operations.
Between 17,000 to 34,000 soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen and women from around the world have participated in past years.
Exercise Talisman Sabre 2021 saw troops from New Zealand, Canada, Japan, the Republic of Korea and the United Kingdom embedded with the Australian and US forces, while military officers from France, Germany, India, and Indonesia observed the training.
This year, military units from more than 12 other allied nations will take part, including from Fiji, Indonesia, Japan, Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, France, the UK, Canada and Germany.
Personnel from the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand will attend as observers.
Talisman Sabre 2023 will run from 22 July to 4 August primarily in Queensland but also in Western Australia, the Northern Territory and New South Wales.
The 14-day exercise will include large scale logistics, multi-domain firepower demonstrations, land combat, amphibious landings and air operations.
The “high end” warfighting scenarios are mostly conducted throughout the ADF’s 454,500 hectare Shoalwater Bay training area in Byfield, about 80km north of Rockhampton in Central Queensland, as well as in adjacent maritime and airspace areas of the Coral Sea.
Components of TS21 also took place in Hughenden, Atherton, Mareeba, Cairns, Townsville, the Charters Towers and Ingham regions, as well as along or off the coastal areas of Bundaberg, Bowen, Proserpine, Lucinda, Forest Beach, the ADF Cowley Beach Training Area near Innisfail and the Stanage Bay peninsula, northeast of Rockhampton.
Pilots of fighter jets, attack helicopters and other military aircraft also operated out of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) base Scherger near Weipa in the Cape York Peninsula, RAAF Base Amberley, outside of Ipswich in southeast Queensland, and the RAAF Evans Head Air Weapons Range in NSW.
The aim of Exercise Talisman Sabre is to train respective military force elements in planning and conducting Combined Task Force operations to improve the combat readiness and interoperability between the ADF and its allies, according to the Australian Army web site.
“It is a major combined … and joint … exercise involving thousands of troops on land, sea and in the air and major assets such as Australian and allied warships, fighters, bombers, helicopters and armour and artillery,” it states.
“This exercise is a major undertaking that reflects the closeness of our alliance and the strength of the ongoing military-military relationship and forms part of the ADF’s extensive training program to ensure it is prepared to protect and support Australia and its national interests.
“The exercise also contributes to the ability of Australian and US military forces to work together efficiently and safely.”
The initial Talisman Sabre in 2005 comprised 17,500 Americans and Australians with 27,500 personnel involved in the 2007 exercise.
More than 34,000 military personnel converged on the Sunshine state for Talisman Sabre 2019 – up from an originally anticipated 25,000 – along with more than 20 military ships, making it the nation’s largest joint US-Australian military exercise ever held, even piquing the interest of a Chinese spy ship for the second time.
The ADF are yet to confirm how many ships are participating this year, but several US and Japanese war ships have joined Talisman Sabre in prior years.
The global Covid-19 pandemic and Australia’s then-ongoing coronavirus restrictions altered the way some of the ninth iteration was run in 2021, including reducing the number of participants to 17,000, with more than 8000 from the ADF.
Some of the restrictions that year included international military personnel being required to first complete a fortnight of hotel quarantine, with those serving on foreign ships not allowed to come ashore.
With personnel from almost every aspect of each military branch expected to participate, separate, lead up training to TS23 has already started in some areas of Australia and within the US.
Driver fighting for life, highway cut after crash
A person is fighting for life and a highway has been blocked after a serious crash north-west of Brisbane.
Store’s shelves stripped of knives as Coles stabbing victim named
Security is on hand and knives have been stripped from shelves at the Coles supermarket west of Brisbane where a 63-year-old staff member was stabbed in an allegedly random attack on Monday.