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[Norine Wiltshire]

The Android Team Awareness Kit, ATAK for short, is a technology developed by AFRL scientists and engineers, and over the past several years of using and refining in real-world combat zones by Special Operations forces and warfighters, this technology was has been adapted to fit the missions of local, state, and federal agencies. The combat version to the technology, referred to as Android Tactical Assault Kit, is used for tactical information feeds, various analytics and visualizations. When the technology is used in non-military operations such as law enforcement, event security, forest fires, or hurricanes, AFRL deploys a civilian version that they can even license to industry or local governments for their own use. During natural disasters such like Hurricane Florence, which paralyzed parts of the East Coast in September 2018, the software provided invaluable, life-saving, real-time mobile capabilities such as live video feeds, personnel tracking, image sharing, site surveys, augmented reality, geospatial mapping, navigation, and chat.

A Tactical Assault Group (TAG) is an Australian Defence Force special forces unit tasked with responding as a counter-terrorism force to respond to terrorism incidents in Australia on land and maritime environments and also with conducting overseas special recovery operations.[1]

At present there are two tactical assault groups based on opposite sides of the country. As such they are individually identified as being either TAG East, based in Sydney or TAG West, based in Perth. Both groups are structured to conduct offensive domestic counter-terrorist operations focusing on direct action and hostage recovery.[2]

Each assault group maintains a short notice capability to conduct military operations beyond the scope of State and Federal Police Tactical Groups. These aims are achieved through various highly specialised skill sets, niche capabilities and supporting Australian Defence Force (ADF) units such as those from the Special Operations Engineer Regiment and 171st Special Operations Aviation Squadron.[2]

The anti-terrorist agencies (the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation) were placed on heightened alert and a Protective Security Coordination Centre was established. The Prime Minister proposed the establishment of a Standing Advisory Committee on Commonwealth State Cooperation for Protection against Violence, which would be primarily responsible for the coordination and funding of various organisations involved. He also directed that police forces around Australia absorb the counter-terrorist role. However, a study by Sir Robert Mark, at that time recently retired from the London Metropolitan Police, concluded that this was a task for 'sophisticated soldiery' and should not be given to the police but rather to the Army. Sir Robert's advice was further strengthened by the Ironbark Report, written by Colonel John Essex-Clark, in which he advised the urgent formation of a special counter-terrorist force within the Army.

In August 1978, it was proposed to allocate the task of raising, training and sustaining the counter-terrorist force to the Special Air Service Regiment to follow similar lines from the British Army with their counter-terrorist team from within their SAS. The force was to be called the TAG and was to be commanded by the Commanding Officer SASR. On 3 May 1979, the Government approved the raising of a dedicated counter-terrorist force in the SASR, with final authorisation to raise the TAG given on 31 August 1979.

The training began officially in March 1980 and the force became fully operational in the following May. In July 1980, the SASR was directed to develop an offshore (maritime) capability, concerned primarily with retaking Bass Strait oil rigs in the event of terrorist capture. These operations were to be handled by a dedicated water operations team which included 17 Clearance Divers from the RAN's Clearance Diving Branch, who were placed under operational control of the SASR from 4 August 1980 as part of the TAG.[3]

TAG (East) was raised on 22 July 2002 in order to increase the ADF's domestic counter-terrorist capability. TAG (East) mirrors the original Tactical Assault Group, which was redesignated TAG (West). The dual basing enables the ADF to readily respond to simultaneous and geographically separate domestic incidents.[4]

TAG East draws its members from the 2nd Commando Regiment, and rotates one company through the role for a pre-determined length of time. It is also supplemented with personnel from the Royal Australian Navy's Clearance Diving Branch.[5] The Royal Australian Navy component consists of an operations officer, a clearance diver (CD) assault platoon, and an underwater medic.[6][7] Approximately 30 Clearance Divers are permanently attached to the group at any one time.[8]

Both participate in NATEX (national anti-terrorism exercises). Several times each year, exercises are conducted to test elements of the Australian Defence Force including the two tactical assault groups, Special Operations Command (Australia) and the Special Operations Engineer Regiment. The exercises also involve relevant components of state and territory police forces, such as police tactical groups and intelligence agencies such as ASIO.[11] TAG-West conducts annual training courses for police tactical group members from each state and territory.[12] Each year as part of the National Counter-Terrorist Committee Skills Enhancement Course, each state and territory sends several members of its PTG to participate in a concentrated three-week course to strengthen standards of policing in urban counter-terrorist tactics and ensure all states are training consistently to the same codes and standards of counter-terrorism.

On 12 April 2001, an SASR troop conducted a boarding of the fishing vessel South Tomi using two RHIBs launched from the South African Navy vessel SAS Protea in international waters 260 nautical miles (480 km; 300 mi) south of Cape Agulhas, South Africa. The South Tomi had fled the AFMA fisheries patrol vessel Southern Supporter after being detected poaching Patagonian toothfish near Heard Island and McDonald Islands in the Southern Ocean.[15][23]

On 20 April 2003, members from both Tactical Assault Group West and Tactical Assault Group East combined to board the Pong Su, a 4,000 ton North Korean ocean freighter in Australian territorial waters. The ship was flying the flag of Tuvalu at the time, known as flying a flag of convenience.[24] The boarding of the freighter was carried whilst the ship was underway in rough seas.[25] The reason for apprehending the ship was that it was suspected of being involved in smuggling almost 125 kg (300 pounds) of heroin into Australia.

On 12 December 2016, Tactical Assault Group members from TAG EAST conducted a boarding of the 50m former Japanese whaling vessel Kaiyo Maru No. 8 (KM8) in international waters in the Southern Ocean south east of Tasmania after it was intercepted by HMAS Adelaide. The vessel had been monitored by Maritime Border Command loitering and circling more than 200 nautical miles off the southern coast of Australia and was suspected to be involved in drug smuggling. Details of the boarding were not released by Defence but by law enforcement, however, imagery released by Defence shows TAG members in Air Drop Rigid Hull Inflatable Boat (ADRHIB) deploying from Adelaide. Tactical Assault Group members discovered 186 kilograms of cocaine worth $60 million on board KM8 with ten crew members nine from China and one from Singapore detained. Adelaide had been in the area taking part in Exercise Ocean Raider 2016.[22][26][27][28]

There is a feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you are in your parachute harness aboard an Illyushin-76 aircraft flying over Belarus. It is hard to describe, and I wondered if I was one of the few feeling it.

This would not be my first jump in these mock military airborne operations we were engaging in with the Belarussian Special Forces. We had been in country for a few days and made several standard jumps from small, propeller driven craft.

This was going to be different. This was called a mass tactical assault. We would put out 80 soldiers in less than 30 seconds at an airspeed of 250 knots. To top it off we were going out the front door of the aircraft which meant that our exit point was actually in front of the engines. One mistake and the huge jet turbine would grind you into sausage material.

When you hit that air at 250 knots you have absolutely no control. You are tossed into the sky like a rag. It takes a moment to get oriented. By then you want to start thinking about pulling the rip cord. The plane is long gone by then.

A few seconds go by and the chute pops open. The rest is easy. A nice float to mother earth, feet and knees together, a bit of a jolt when you meet the ground, drop, roll and gather your chute for the long walk back to the pickup area. Here is a video of the jump.

Urban and Suburban Camouflage have been difficult patterns to master as the environment varies from concrete structures to dense forest to dirt playgrounds and back roads. The leading expert on CCD (Camouflage, Concealment and Deception), Lt Col. Timothy R. O'Neill (U.S. Army, Ret.) and Guy Cramer, CCD designer, teamed up to come up with TACAM.

Initially TACAM was only meant as an experimental pattern to show the U.S. Military Branches the differences between Positive Area (areas with rocks, trees and cover) and Negative Area (areas with little cover such as open fields and dirt roads) style camouflages and how coloration techniques could satisfy both environmental polarities.

In simulations TACAM showed that it could cross over into both negative and positive regions while continuing to disrupt the silhouette (outline) and symmetry (internal) of the soldier in both regions.

Graduates will be encouraged to take their training back to their original organizations and in turn Instruct those teams through a Special Off Site Instructional Program (SOSIP) being developed by NAT2DTC, providing a feeder system where not only the graduates become more capable but also allowing their full tactical team increased proficiency with the latest tactics and technology. TACAM will be offered to teams that train and complete the SOSIP program.

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