Gunners from 4 Regiment, Royal Australian Artillery have conducted a number of ‘out of the box’ training serials during their first field exercise for the year. Exercise Chau Pha provides engaging, technical training for the regiment, where gunners successfully fired Multiple Round Simultaneous Impact (MRSI) and Danger Close missions. To enable the successful completion of the missions, each detachment conducted thorough rehearsals in the barracks environment before deploying into the field. The value of live fire training went beyond honing skills and rehearsing procedures.
“Performing these relatively complex and often overlooked mission types, not only provides excellent training for our soldiers and officers, but it also ensures that our current capabilities are used to their fullest potential. I have been incredibly pleased with the standard of gunnery and digital command system proficiency the Regiment has displayed over the course of the year, knowing that we will continue to set milestones over the remainder of the year.” 4 Regiment Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Pete Allan said.
“The regiment really challenged us to think differently, so we shot a number of things that we hadn’t shot before. One of these was the MRSI missions, which allows artillery batteries to fire multiple rounds at different trajectories, with different times of flight, on a tight time schedule. This means that all the rounds impact the target at the same time, which increases the weight of fire and the lethality of the mission. It’s a really challenging mission, particularly for the detachment bombardiers, because it tests their ability to multitask and command their detachments in a very, very tight timeframe.” 106 Battery Troop Commander, Lieutenant Taras Jakubovsky said.
The 4th Regiment, Royal Australian Artillery is an artillery unit of the Australian Army. Currently it provides close artillery support to the 3rd Brigade and is based at Chau Pha Lines, Lavarack Barracks in Townsville, Queensland. The regiment was raised in its current form in 1960 and is currently re-equipping with M777A2 lightweight towed howitzers. The regiment deployed during Australia’s commitment to the Vietnam War and has subsequently deployed to Singapore and East Timor. Under the Land 17 project in 2011 the regiment received 12 M777A2 lightweight towed howitzers to replace its L119 field guns, and the Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System (AFATDS), which is a fully automated digital battle-management system.
