Exercise Talisman Sabre 2025 to culminate in mock aircraft crash in Papua New Guinea
Additional Special Forces operatives to be brought in for Joint Personnel Recovery in Australia’s largest bilateral military training exercise with the US.
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A mock aircraft crash in a nearby country will later this year close out Australia’s largest bilateral military training drills with the US.
In a series of firsts, the 11th iteration of Exercise Talisman Sabre 2025 (TS25) will expand to a “size and scale larger than the border of Russia,” involving a record 23 nations, while a training element will debut outside of Australia.
Brigadier Damian Hill, TS25 exercise director, said the Papua New Guinea Defence Force (PNGDF) will play host to a simulated aircraft crash with their Special Forces working alongside Australian Defence Force and US Department of Defense (sic) members to train in Joint Personnel Recovery efforts.
Brigadier Hill, 50, said search and rescue practice was common and was not being added to the biennial exercise because of the MRH-60 Taipan helicopter crash during TS23, where four Australian Army Aviators died.
“It’s a normal training activity,” he said.
“All countries sign up to practice joint personnel recovery.”
An independent public Inquiry into the fatal military helicopter crash started in 2024 and is ongoing in Brisbane this week.
More than 30,000 military service members from 19 countries are expected to actively engage in the war games, scheduled to be held throughout Queensland, some other parts of Australia and PNG from July 13 to August 4.
In addition to the US and PNG, allied nations partaking in TS25 include Canada, Fiji, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Tonga, and the United Kingdom.
Representatives from Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam are scheduled for inaugural visits as official observers.
Bilaterally designed between Australia and the US, Talisman Sabre is a multilaterally planned and conducted undertaking and will comprise field training exercises incorporating force preparation activities, amphibious landings, ground force manoeuvres, maritime and air combat operations as well as a live fire exercise.
The majority of the battle drills are anticipated to be carried out throughout Queensland and in the Coral Sea, with some also occurring in the Northern Territory, New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia and – for the first time – on Christmas Island, about 2600km from Perth in the Indian Ocean.
Talisman Sabre’s aim is to improve combined joint warfighting capability and interoperability, with the focus this year on multi-domain warfighting.
Multi-domain Operations are strategies that integrate various capabilities across land, sea, air, space and cyber domains.
Brigadier Hill, who was also the TS23 director, said the training exercise had become quite the undertaking, particularly due to the “enormous distance” it now covered.
“It’s gone from an exercise, operating in a small geographic space with two nations in 2005, to an undertaking in 2025 that’s operating from Christmas Island to Port Wilson (in Victoria), across to the Beecroft Range all the way over to WA through world to PNG,” he said.
“We’re talking about a size and scale larger than the border of Russia.”
Besides TS25’s geographic expansion, the historic year will also see several other “firsts”, ranging from an increase in the number of Special Forces personnel, a British warship on its inaugural visit to Australia and trials of different technologies.
Special Forces
Brigadier Hill said opportunities for Special Forces personnel had been expanded for TS25 following feedback TS23, where few allies sent their elite as their training portion was “a much smaller kind of activity.”
For this iteration, 15 out of the 19 nations were sending a cumulative total of about 2500 Special Forces troops.
“All of our new countries, with the exception of India, are participating in the Special Forces activities,” he said.
The Special Forces personnel will enhance their skills by practicing parachuting and insertion techniques from a helicopter or participating in joint personnel recovery, such as in PNG.
The PNG component of TS25 is anticipated to occur from about July 27-August 4 along the island nation’s northern coast, between Wewak, Madang and Lae, the capital cities of East Sepik, Madang and Morobe Provinces respectively.
The official TS25 closing ceremony will then be held at Igam Barracks in the port city of Lae.
Tasked for change
The Canberra-based Brigadier Hill said the Chief of the Defence Force assigned him three tasks for TS25.
They included expanding the geographic width and breadth of the war games domestically, increasing the number of participants and, for the first time, undertaking an activity off shore – in another country.
“We looked at a number of countries,” he said.
“We approached Papua New Guinea about any training opportunities that they would see as part of Talisman Sabre and our Deputy Prime Minister, alongside his PNG counterpart, announced in February they were delighted to be able to host an element of Talisman Sabre in 2025.
“I’m thrilled. … They’re our closest neighbour. We have a close relationship with a wonderful and long standing defence partnership,” he said.
During the Australia-Papua New Guinea Defence Ministers’ Meeting in Brisbane in February, Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles and PNG’s Minister for Defence, Billy Joseph, commended the decades-long defence partnership between the two nations.
They announced negotiations had begun on a new Defence Treaty, which builds upon the Australia-PNG Bilateral Security Agreement signed in 2023 by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and PNG Prime Minister James Marape, which commits both nations to deeper information sharing under a Framework for Closer Security Relations.
The ministers also agreed PNG hosting a component of TS25 was “an important demonstration of the deepening integration between the PNGDF and ADF, adding to the existing array of joint and multilateral exercises both nations share,” according to a press release.
Dr Marape thanked Mr Marles for the opportunity to host part of TS25.
“This is the first time it has occurred outside of Australia and we note its significance; especially leading up to our 50th anniversary (of Independence) celebrations,” he said in February.
“This will enable us to train and affirm our interoperability and integration of our two defence forces; as was done in (World War Two).
“This signals progress and the maturing of our defence relationship.”
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