Tactical Assault Group - Organisation

Organisation

At present there are two tactical assault groups, TAG East and TAG West. Each belongs to a different parent unit and each protect a different domestic geographical area of Australia.

TAG East draws its members from the 2nd Commando Regiment, and rotates one company through the role for a pre-determined length of time. It is also supplemented with personnel from the Royal Australian Navy's Clearance Diving Teams. The Royal Australian Navy component consists of an operations officer, a clearance diver (CD) assault platoon, one team of CD maritime snipers, and an underwater medic. TAG East provides the primary response to terrorism within Australia

TAG West draws its members from the Special Air Service Regiment and rotates one squadron through the role for a pre-determined length of time. TAG West has primary responsibility for offshore recovery operations, such as ship-boarding or incidents on oil platforms, and also international/overseas incidents.

Both have world-class training facilities including advanced outdoor close-quarters battle ranges, MOUT villages, urban CT complexes, full-size aircraft mock-ups, and sniper ranges.

Both participate in NATEX (national anti-terrorism exercises). Several times each year, exercises are conducted to test elements of the Australian Defence Force including the two tactical assault groups, Special Operations Command (Australia) and the Incident Response Regiment. The exercises also involve relevant components of state and territory police forces, such as police tactical groups and intelligence agencies such as ASIO. TAG-West conducts annual training courses for police tactical group members from each state and territory. Each year as part of the National Counter-Terrorist Committee Skills Enhancement Course, each state and territory sends several members of its PTG to participate in a concentrated three-week course to strengthen standards of policing in urban counter-terrorist tactics and ensure all states are training consistently to the same codes and standards of counter-terrorism.