USJFCOMLive

Australia has a small military when compared to some of its allies, but that fact doesn’t stop it from participating in what its military sees as important coalition efforts.  Australian Army Maj. Berni White, the Australian lead for BQ09, works as a staff officer for fire support at his country’s Capabilities Development Group.  He talked to me about the efforts his military is making to transform its indirect fire programs and how that’s being augmented by its participation in this year’s assessment.

The Aussies brought nine people to BQ 09, including joint terminal attack controllers, artillery officers and analysts, with the goal of getting different insights into the world of digitally aided indirect fire and close-air support.

Australia at the moment is going through a whole upgrade program into our integrated fires, and one of the things that we’re looking at is digital fires.  Part of that is what’s happening in the 2/30 TOC but also with the JTACs. 

White told me that because of its size, Australia’s military looks to give its coalition partners maximum value from a small contingent when it participates in events like Bold Quest, which it has been involved in for five years.

First, it’s good to participate with the other coalition partners.  There’s always that.  Also, we’re involved in operations overseas at the moment, specifically in Afghanistan, and combat ID and the avoidance of fratricide is important and high on the agenda for the Australian Defence Force.  We like to contribute as best we can, knowing that our technologies, how we network and interface with coalition partners, is important to us.  Because we’re such a small country and our contributions are usually quite small, we like to make them as effective as possible.  This is one of the ways that we leverage all the opportunities.