New Zealand Army Combat Team Certified For Major Upcoming Exercises (2025)

For 19 straightdays in the Waiouru Military Training Area close to 350soldiers of Ngāti Tūmatauenga, the New Zealand Army honedtheir combat skills and sharpened their battlefieldcapabilities ahead of a crucial run of overseasexercises.

Exercise Sangro was the largestcombined-arms live-fire activity held in New Zealand for anumber of years, with elements of armour, infantry,artillery, engineers, signals and logistics from across the1st (NZ) Brigade operating as an integrated CombatTeam.

1st (NZ) Brigade Commander, Colonel Mike vanWelie, says the significance of the exercise can’t beunderstated.

“We know that we’re currentlyoperating in one of the most strategically competitiveenvironments for decades, so we have to make sure oursoldiers are fully prepared for whatever liesahead.”

The exercise testedcommanders’ abilities to make the right calls underpressure in the midst of very realistic and dynamicscenarios, and showed the effectiveness of the NZ Army’scombat units as they defended, dominated and won variousencounters both by day and night.

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Theexercise also saw one of the Army’s newest capabilities– the armoured Bushmaster vehicle - successfully workalongside combat support units to move infantry and otherpersonnel efficiently and effectively around thebattlefield.

“This was the first real opportunityfor us to test the Bushmaster in a large live fire activity,in partnership with other combat and supporting units. Thevehicles and their crews performed incredibly well,”Colonel van Welie said.

“There’s no question thatthe nature of warfare has evolved in recent years, but onething that hasn’t is the need to still have highly skilledand highly trained soldiers on the frontline – that’swhere the Bushmaster is proving invaluable, offeringprotection to those units.”

Over thecourse of the exercise more than 20,000 small arms roundswere fired, along with 7,350 25mm rounds, more than 600artillery and mortar rounds, as well as three Javelinanti-tank guided missiles. Combat Engineers also utilisedaround 300kg of explosives and more than half a kilometre ofdetonation cord.

Supporting the exercisewere a number of personnel from across both 2nd CombatServices Support Battalion and 3rd Combat Services SupportBattalion who delivered more than 6,000 meals, 34 pallets ofammunition and 28,000 litres of diesel to support thefrontline troops.

The Combat Team is now turning itsattention to two major upcoming exercises in Australia,culminating with the multi-national, multi-domain ExerciseTalisman Sabre, which will see New Zealand Defence Forcesoldiers, sailors and aviators link up with our allyAustralia and 17 partner nations.

“We’ve seen justrecently with the announcement of the Defence CapabilityPlan how integral our interoperability is with Australia,and will continue to be into the future. So for us, knowingour teams are ready to integrate and will perform well incombat is vital, and we can’t wait to see it come tofruition later this year when we exercise as part of anAustralian Brigade across the Tasman,” Colonel van Weliesaid.

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