Publications
Bradshaw Field Training Area
Introduction
Location: 15°28'12"S 130°31'45"E (Wikimapia)
Bradshaw Field Training Area was originally a cattle station at Timber Creek in the Northern Territory, purchased by the Defence Department in 1996 as an ADF training facility. Subsequently Bradshaw functioned as a joint Australian-United States joint facility, and was used as by the Joint Combat Training Centre. In November 2011 President Obama and Prime Minister Gillard announced that it would be utilised by US forces as part of a six monthly rotation. The facility has an area of 870,000 ha., or 8,700 square kilometers, a little less than the land area of Cyprus (9,241 sq.kms.).Australian and US military engineers constructed 1.3 km military airstrip in 2007. US planning for joint activities at Bradshaw dates from at least the mid-1990s.
Bradshaw FTA is part of the ADF's North Australian Range Complex (NARC), together with Delamere Range Facility (DRF) and Mount Bundey Training Area (MBTA), and is regularly used for annual Talisman Sabre joint exercises.
The Field Training Area is subject to an Indigenous Land Use Agreement (2001) and an Environmental Management Plan.
- http://www.atns.net.au/agreement.asp?EntityID=1837
- Source: Bradshaw Partnering Indigenous Land Use Agreement (DI2001/004), GeoScience Australia mapping, 2004.<br /> http://www.atns.net.au/objects/DI2001_004.jpg
Government sources
Australia
2004 Australia-United States Ministerial Consultation, Key Outcomes From Ausmin 2004:
"Australia-US Joint Combined Training Centre:
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The agreement to develop a Joint Combined Training Centre will significantly enhance the quality of our bilateral training program and Australian Defence Force capabilities.
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Training facilities at the Shoalwater Bay Training Area in Queensland and the Bradshaw Training Area and Delamere Air Weapons Range in the Northern Territory will be further developed and linked with US facilities. The specific details of these upgrades are yet to be determined.
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The centre will not be a US base, and the United States has not proposed establishing a permanent base in Australia."
$40.6 Million in Defence Funding for the Northern Territory, Minister for Defence, Brendan Nelson, Press Release, MIN73/06, 9 May 2006.
Native Title and Land Rights - Challenges for Defence, Defence Magazine, June 2005.
Northern Territory
Bradshaw Field Training Area, Northern Territory Department of Resources, Environment and the Arts.
Bradshaw Field Training Area, Map of the Project
Area
Bradshaw Partnering Indigenous Land Use Agreement
(ILUA) Map [Image]
United States
Project Description and Fact Sheet, Joint Rapid
Airfield Construction (JRAC) 2007 Demonstration
Project, Bradshaw Field Training Area (BFTA),
Northern Territory, Australia, U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers.
Australian Airfield Site Surveys: Trip Report,
U.S.Army Joint Rapid Airfield Construction (JRAC).
FY 2007 Budget Item Justification Sheet, US
Department of Defense February 2006.
“Enhancing” the Australian-U.S. Defense Relationship: A Guide to U.S. Policy, Thomas-Durell Young, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, November 17, 1997.
As a result of the July 1996 Australian-U.S. Ministerial Meeting and the ADF's shift to the north, new and old areas are being developed and/or considered for exercises by the
ADF. However, just as there are a number of general limiting factors concerning exercises in Australia, so are there specific restrictions. One shared both by Bradshaw and Yampi Sound is that they are located within heavily used civil air corridors.Bradshaw Station. The former Bradshaw Station in the Northern Territory has recently been purchased by the Australian Department of Defence. It is approximately 600 kilometers from Darwin by road. Bradshaw's mission will be to support 1st Brigade which is moving to Palmerston, NT from Holsworthy, NSW. The area comprises 1 million acres, is located between the Fitzmorris and Victoria rivers and is reputed to have good training terrain. The area has sea, air and land access. The ADF will have to upgrade existing infrastructure in the area (estimated to be $A50 million), and the Commonwealth will need to improve infrastructure leading to the area, which it has been slow to plan, according the Northern Territory government. Improvements include new sealed roads, simulation systems, construction/improvement of three airstrips which can operate C-130s, and three training camps similar to that being constructed at Mt. Bundi, southeast of Darwin. These improvements must be effected before the area can be used–current projections are that it will be ready in 1999.
Of fundamental ADF concern regarding Bradshaw is that, despite its size, Bradshaw may not be sufficient for 1st Brigade's training requirements. A key inhibiting factor is the area's extreme environmental fragility. For example, it can take up to 10-years for the terrain to return to its normal state after it has been crossed by an armored tracked vehicle. As 1st Brigade is the test bed for new operational and organizational concepts which will affect the entire Army as outlined in “Army 21,” it is predictable that the area's usage will be severely restricted to outside forces.
Analysis
China raises concern over US troop boost in Northern Territory, Phillip Hudson, Angus Thompson, Herald Sun November 17, 2011
There will eventually be a full-size Marine Air Ground Task Force spending six months a year in the NT and using it as a base for humanitarian and disaster relief for events such as tsunamis, and as a platform from which to launch military operations. There are already about 300 American soldiers in Australia at any given time under agreements struck in 1963. Recently 14,000 US troops took part in military training exercises. They will spend most of their time at the Bradshaw Field Training Area, roughly the size of Belgium and located west of Katherine. It will not be a US base, but the US will pay its own costs. There will be joint exercises, but the Americans will also train by themselves.
New airstrip opens in NT outback, SMH, 29 June 2007
It has taken less than four weeks for Australian and US soldiers using the latest high-tech engineering equipment to sculpt a 1.3km airstrip in the Northern Territory outback. Opening the Bradshaw Field Training Area (BFTA) at a former cattle station 600km south-west of Darwin, the Australian Chief of Air Force, Air Marshal Geoff Shepherd, said the project was an incredible feat for the combined forces. The exercise involved 110 Australian personnel, 105 US personnel and 20 civilians from the US Army Corps of Engineers. The Engineer Research Development Centre also helped build the unsealed landing strip and service aprons. The design provides unloading aprons for two C-17 aircraft while a third aircraft is on the runway. Air Marshal Shepherd said technologies such as remote control plant equipment, GPS location software and deployable communication systems were used in the project. "This airfield is an example of the type of construction that either the United States or Australian engineers would need to undertake to expand a forward base for strategic or heavy lift air transport," he said. Air Marshal Shepherd was joined by commander of the US eighth Fleet, Vice Admiral William Crowder. Both men were on hand when Australian and American C-17s - one of the defence force's largest cargo aircraft at 120 tonnes - gave the strip its first major test. "The ADF is still developing Bradshaw Field Training Area, and an airstrip which can accommodate Australia's newly acquired C-17s is a major boost for the facilities here," Air Marshal Shepherd said. "The airfield has now been certified and will be available for future training activities and exercises involving Australian personnel." Three layers of fine soil make up the strip, which was built to provide a forward base as part of a joint US-Australian exercise currently underway involving hundreds of US soldiers, marines and sailors in the Northern Territory. The strip is expected to be used regularly by US forces under an agreement with Australia.
See also
17 November 2011
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