Exercise Diamond Run 2017.
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Australia despatched four Australian Army Tiger Armed Reconnaissance Helicopters (ARH) to join the Indo-Pacific Endeavour 2019 (IPE 19) task force in Malaysia, marking the aircraft type’s first overseas deployment.
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RAAF Dassault Falcon 7X A56-001, the first of three was delivered last month.
 
China is smarter than that, they know the Sally man is the weak point of the ADF. Before you know it he'll be offering free wifi hot spots in the field "sponsored" by Huawei. After that, its only a matter of time...
 
When the Sally man stops saying "first rivet c*&ts" you know he's getting paid a kick back from the ministry of sneaky tricks.
 
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120mm Armoured Mortar System demonstrator at Mt Bundey during Ex Phoenix 98. We went with the M1A1 instead although IMHO this would have been right up there for infantry support :)
 
I was on that ex, escaped from the TFMA (Task Force Maintenenace Area/totally F***ed up military area), dusty S**t hole, no place for recon patrols to rest up with pogue muppets playing army, wanting to stand too for notional air attacks and what not. Walked an Infantry Captain (umpire) into the ground on a patrol up a creek bed in +45' temps, made the F***er piss blood from his nose. Wrote off two brand new SRVs, watched two 5/7RAR digs run off chasing pigs armed only with the pick handles from the SRVs, lucky the fuckers had no cardio fitness, they would have got F***ed up if they had of caught up with the swine...
Rex from the local Aboriginal camp told us dream time stories while smashed on VB and pissing himself at 9 in the morning. The Katherine river had just had a clean out after flooding a few month before, but we were ankle deep in VB cans, and goon bags when we patroled down there. All around a pretty sad state of affairs.
Watched a US contractor who was helping us out with the UAV drone trials get monstered by a RAAF malinois, the RAAF coppers weren't believing his story that he wasn't part of the enemy party and let the land shark terrorise the S**t out of the poor bugger. Great entertainment.
D Coy burned down half of a RAAF Tindal when the OCs brew making effort got out of control. 1 Armoured chased a SASR LRPV for something like 20km, no zigging and zagging for the leopards, just ploughing through trees and fences. D Coy found a SASR motorbike and ambushed it, old mate broke contact on foot and they chased him for a few km mounted in IIMVs, IIMVs have to zig and zag (as we'd found out in recon platoon, tree stumps can stop a SRV land rover...) In the end I think they just wanted to see how far he could run in marching order, which was a fairly long way before he gassed out.
We were about a hundred km out of Katherine watching a bridge when a troop from 1 Armoured rocked up to hold the bridge instead of surveillance. We didn't have a follow on task so hung out with them. A VK commodore rocked up, saw the tanks, S**t its self, turned around and headed North at top speed. The Troop commander set one of his Leopards off after it, which we thought was overly optimistic, but it did get the Commodore hitting the rev limiter when he saw that 105mm gun filling up his rear view mirror...
Not content with one of the other patrols writing off two SRVs, I managed to back into a fighter pilots sports car and do a bit of damage (to the sports car, the SRV was wrapped in hessian and cam nets, it was fine). That cost me a couple of grand and a filthy look from the CO.
Then we managed to get the SRV totally airborne while picking up the patrol that no longer had any wheels. The ring in patrol commander from 5/7RAR wanted me to do it again while he got photos. I figured a lack of photographic evidence and an at this stage still near mint condition SRV would be the better course of action. Pretty soft, but I managed to get promoted at the end of the ex instead of a kick up the arse, so probably a good move.
Spent a couple of days at Renner Springs on the cans with Norforce, no one would have been able to pick that we were recon platoon, with our cammed up SRVs half hidden around the back of the pub and our PT shirts turned inside out...
End ex got called just as we got bumped by a SASR patrol in the middle of no where down at Tennant Creek. I'm assuming they brassed us up, but we were too busy doing donuts and giving them the bird as we drove off, they were on foot, so we were feeling pretty confident! The rest of the patrol were a bit miffed at having to do RV procedure when they saw the mess of tracks leaving the primary, but tempered by at least not having to be tac anymore.
S**t ex, I remember sleeping a lot, while driving in second gear low range and constantly changing/repairing tyres. On the last patrol we went out with 14 tyres between two cars, pinched a spare off of Norforce, and limped home on 7 and a half.
 
View attachment 178101
120mm Armoured Mortar System demonstrator at Mt Bundey during Ex Phoenix 98. We went with the M1A1 instead although IMHO this would have been right up there for infantry support :)
With the Boxer coming into service and whatever IFV drops out of the Land 400 phase 3 something like this or the Nemo/Amos systems would be a good option for integral indirect/direct fire support for Inf/Cav units.
I was on that ex, escaped from the TFMA (Task Force Maintenenace Area/totally F***ed up military area), dusty S**t hole, no place for recon patrols to rest up with pogue muppets playing army, wanting to stand too for notional air attacks and what not. Walked an Infantry Captain (umpire) into the ground on a patrol up a creek bed in +45' temps, made the F***er piss blood from his nose. Wrote off two brand new SRVs, watched two 5/7RAR digs run off chasing pigs armed only with the pick handles from the SRVs, lucky the fuckers had no cardio fitness, they would have got F***ed up if they had of caught up with the swine...
Rex from the local Aboriginal camp told us dream time stories while smashed on VB and pissing himself at 9 in the morning. The Katherine river had just had a clean out after flooding a few month before, but we were ankle deep in VB cans, and goon bags when we patroled down there. All around a pretty sad state of affairs.
Watched a US contractor who was helping us out with the UAV drone trials get monstered by a RAAF malinois, the RAAF coppers weren't believing his story that he wasn't part of the enemy party and let the land shark terrorise the S**t out of the poor bugger. Great entertainment.
D Coy burned down half of a RAAF Tindal when the OCs brew making effort got out of control. 1 Armoured chased a SASR LRPV for something like 20km, no zigging and zagging for the leopards, just ploughing through trees and fences. D Coy found a SASR motorbike and ambushed it, old mate broke contact on foot and they chased him for a few km mounted in IIMVs, IIMVs have to zig and zag (as we'd found out in recon platoon, tree stumps can stop a SRV land rover...) In the end I think they just wanted to see how far he could run in marching order, which was a fairly long way before he gassed out.
We were about a hundred km out of Katherine watching a bridge when a troop from 1 Armoured rocked up to hold the bridge instead of surveillance. We didn't have a follow on task so hung out with them. A VK commodore rocked up, saw the tanks, S**t its self, turned around and headed North at top speed. The Troop commander set one of his Leopards off after it, which we thought was overly optimistic, but it did get the Commodore hitting the rev limiter when he saw that 105mm gun filling up his rear view mirror...
Not content with one of the other patrols writing off two SRVs, I managed to back into a fighter pilots sports car and do a bit of damage (to the sports car, the SRV was wrapped in hessian and cam nets, it was fine). That cost me a couple of grand and a filthy look from the CO.
Then we managed to get the SRV totally airborne while picking up the patrol that no longer had any wheels. The ring in patrol commander from 5/7RAR wanted me to do it again while he got photos. I figured a lack of photographic evidence and an at this stage still near mint condition SRV would be the better course of action. Pretty soft, but I managed to get promoted at the end of the ex instead of a kick up the arse, so probably a good move.
Spent a couple of days at Renner Springs on the cans with Norforce, no one would have been able to pick that we were recon platoon, with our cammed up SRVs half hidden around the back of the pub and our PT shirts turned inside out...
End ex got called just as we got bumped by a SASR patrol in the middle of no where down at Tennant Creek. I'm assuming they brassed us up, but we were too busy doing donuts and giving them the bird as we drove off, they were on foot, so we were feeling pretty confident! The rest of the patrol were a bit miffed at having to do RV procedure when they saw the mess of tracks leaving the primary, but tempered by at least not having to be tac anymore.
S**t ex, I remember sleeping a lot, while driving in second gear low range and constantly changing/repairing tyres. On the last patrol we went out with 14 tyres between two cars, pinched a spare off of Norforce, and limped home on 7 and a half.
So a stock standard ex from a Recce perspective?
 
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RAAF General Dynamics F-111C Aardvark in flight, 2006.

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RAAF General Dynamics F-111C Aardvark in flight

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RAAF General Dynamics F-111C Aardvark in flight, 1981

Crossposted from @BravoZulu dedicated F-111 thread
 
At the RNZAF's 75th anniversary show one of the RAAF's F-111's visited and did the drop and burn thing. Which was the thing that still sticks in the mind the most. I took a photo, but it was moving so fast it's a tiny dot with a flame coming out the end.
 
In the late 90's we did a big All singing All dancing demo for some nameless bigwigs who were observing from above a cliff over looking our training area. At the time we still had a (very limited) Air Combat capability and RAAF F-111's and F-18's over visiting. Start was an F-111 dropping a 2000lb bomb in the distance followed by strafing runs by the F-18's and a dog fight between our A-4's and Aermacchi Trainers. Our role was to then conduct an airmobile assault on the plateau below them as part of the dog and pony show. Us and the Iroquois crewmen joining in with their M-60's blazing up with blanks at imaginary bad guys and hurling a Bn's year allocation of smoke and thunder flashes. It all went well and we legged it off to the helo pick up. No one told us the F-111 was going to do a low fast fly by below the dignitaries and then pull a dump and burn. First thing we realized something was up was when a shadow shot above the Platoon, followed by a millisecond of confusion rapidly followed by terror as the sound caught up to us. It flew on and then pulled its dump and burn in front of the observers. I don't know how low it was but it was lower than the observers who were about 150-200ft above us. Fun times, Impressive aircraft.
 
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