Brad Dunn - Projecting power in Dili

Transcript

Dili was a projected power protection, so we get in, secure Dili. That's about projecting power in Dili. It took us all day to get off Tobruk. The sea state was relatively calm. I don't know, I think they call it sea state one. It's relatively calm, but it took them all day to offload us. Just the getting the vehicles off and the infantry off as well, that took us...We disembarked, it was 07:00 my vehicle came off with me...

Then the last troop vehicle came off at 15:30, 16:00, like that. Then we moved into town and we took over an old school building and cemented there for the night. Then next day we started patrolling the city. In fact, next day, the troop, sorry, the squadron commander and myself, we came from a recon regiment. The recon regiment doesn't carry troops aboard, so we'd had to re-man and re-equip and rejig the vehicles.

The ASLAV has a type I, that's got 25-millimetre canon in the turret. You can get about two fully laden troops in the back. It's got three troops on board. There's like crew commander, gunner, driver. It's a fighting vehicle. It can fight in all weather, all terrain and fight 24 hours. It's got infrared, it's got heat sight. Then there's a type II ASLAV. That's a troop carrier. It's got a commander and a driver and then you can pack it with whatever you can pack it. We were putting in sections of about up to 12 could fit it in the back there.

We'd gone from being a recon regiment where a normal troop would be three type ones, two type IIs, to now one type I and four type IIs. We'd gone from reconnaissance to APC. I'd been an APC section commander back in the day, in 3/4 Cav. There was a smattering of NCOs in our squadron that had come from an APC background, which was really helpful, because when you're carrying troops, the vehicle's for the troops that you bring on board, and it's really important that they know that.