"In Tac Talks (July 2017), there were a number of discussions on the role of the rat-catchers” and the organisational need to counter the long lee. The long lee refers to a prolonged period of peacetime operations provided by a milestone maritime victory. In the simplest terms, a rat-catcher is an out of the box thinker who is required in wartime to seize the initiative and put their opposite number on the back foot."

LCDR Simon O’Hehir

There have been many articles raised on the obsolescence of submarines within the future maritime battlespace. With the advent of unmanned underwater vehicles and increasingly sophisticated sensors, the difficult art of submarining will become increasingly challenging in several crucial respects. The idea that submarines could no longer safely remain submerged is a great aim point but we are not there yet, and we will not be there for some time yet.

LCDR Simon O’Hehir

Almost hand-in-hand with the rapid development, proliferation (and subsequent price drop) of some capable drones with image capture ability; underwater ROVs have taken a similar path and now represent an affordable way to capture underwater imagery. For a modest outlay, a mini-ROV with a still image and/or video capture ability can be quite a handy asset to have in a deployment toolkit.

LCDR Simon O’Hehir

"With “more activity from Russian submarines than we’ve seen since the days of the Cold War”, an improved European force posture becomes vital for the US Navy and NATO.

VADM James Foggo III, USN and Dr Alarik Fritz

This paper will focus on IED events, as the shift to improvised threats (as opposed to improvised explosive devices) is relatively recent and the data collection in the new parlance has not been achieved, but the nuance of IED as opposed to improvised threat should not be lost.

CAPT Scott Craig

Australia is a sun-kissed and lucky country. We’re fortunate enough to live and work in a peaceful, quiet, clean and beautiful land with the best sandy beaches on earth. This fortunate happenstance however poses unforeseen military challenges to the defence of our nation, and the operational effectiveness of our indigenous mine hunting forces.

LEUT Liam Northend and CPOCSM-MW Simon East

As the RAN increases its focus on operations in task groups and the ADF begins to conduct more joint training exercises in the complex littoral environment the use of Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) to restrict a ship or unit’s ability to manoeuvre or slow its advance can have dire consequences on the overall success of the operation.

WOCD Christopher Wright

The maritime domain is becoming increasingly complex; modern manufacturing techniques and rapid technological developments mean potential adversary nations have a wider access to cheap and highly capable weapons, platforms and systems.

LEUT Cleo Scarce & LEUT Colin Verheul

The traditional RADAR system as we know it is transitioning to the next stage of technological development in the form of Quantum RADARs.

PO Dominic Roleff