21 August 2024
More than 1500 personnel converged on Rockhampton and the expansive Shoalwater Bay Training Area in Queensland from August 10-20 for the 7th Brigade’s culminating warfighting exercise for 2024, Diamond Run.
Combined support and logistics elements of about 500 soldiers, drawn primarily from the 17th Sustainment Brigade, operated from protected logistics hubs within Rockhampton’s city areas.
Another 1000 7th Brigade troops fought the enemy and the elements after torrential rain created bogging mud, providing an added challenge for manoeuvres and transport across the training area’s rugged terrain.
The exercise ensures Army’s ‘ready brigade’ is poised to respond to a range of operational contingencies in defence of Australia and the country’s interests in the near region.
Commander of the Combat Training Centre (CTC) Colonel Ben McLennan said the Warfighter series of exercises, including Diamond Run, were highly significant to Army.
“They provide Army the most realistic, immersive and challenging way in which we can prepare our people, our teams, our equipment – alongside our partners and allies, as part of the integrated force – for war,” Colonel McLennan said.
Diamond Run achieved several objectives, including tactical air landing operations with the support of the Royal Australian Air Force; expeditionary resupply by land and sea; conventional trench warfare; urban operations; and chemical weapons defence.
7th Brigade’s Battle Group Heeler, comprising the 6th Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment (6RAR), was joined by a platoon of infantry from the New Zealand Army.
Major Tomaroa Wawatai, of the New Zealand Army’s 1st Brigade, was appointed the Officer Commanding Delta Company, 6RAR, comprising Australian and New Zealand infantry.
“It is pretty awesome that Kiwi and Aussie soldiers are working together so closely and that we can forge new bonds with our new compatriots in the 7th Brigade,” Major Wawatai said.
7th Brigade is working as closely as ever with its New Zealand counterparts as part of Plan Anzac, a bilateral agreement designed to increase capacity, enabling the two armies to exchange views and share situational awareness, capability, training and readiness.
The exercise also demonstrated the successful transition of the brigade’s rapid transformation to a motorised force, part of Army’s wider implementation of changes following the release of the Defence Strategic Review in 2023 and the National Defence Strategy, released this year.
