The sea breeze whistled lazily through the grass on the battlefield – a patch of land in Barney Point, Gladstone, prepared for Exercise Austral Shield 2026– the most dramatic, explosive collaboration between the Australian Defence Force (ADF) and the Queensland Police there had been yet.
The quiet of the morning was quickly dispelled when the first of the troops arrived by motorised raft at Barney Point Beach, ready to scope the area for safety. Stationed on either side of the esplanade, the troops moved towards the battlefield with caution until the enemies, members of the Army dressed as “extremists”, fired shots and alerted the troops to their whereabouts. A smoke bomb was deployed, and a member of the Army, firing a blank, shot and injured one of the enemies on the field. The rest of the task force scouted the area until there were no remaining threats, and the police moved in with a Remote Positioning Vehicle-Medium (RPV-M), or “bomb disposal robot”.
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