Defend X Group provides self-contained mobile firearm training facilities including a locally made 40-foot container live fire range, while InVeris supply integrated live fire and virtual reality weapons training for law enforcement, military, and shooting ranges.

InVeris Training Solutions Australia and New Zealand managing director Shaun O’Leary said the new infantry, armour, and mobile infantry targets are able to be made with variations such as turning and lifting features.

“One of the critical things that we’ve noticed about the Australian market is that it needs a more responsive and cost-effective approach to meeting its needs,” he said.

“What we’ve looked to do with our partnership with Defend X has been to create a situation where we can provide those targets or whatever system we choose to build, manufactured in Australia with local labour, technology, and increasingly Australian ideas to meet the needs of defence and law enforcement.

“We’ve been producing high-standard, high-quality targets for a very long time, but those have been based in the US. Through this partnership, we’re looking to bring that knowledge into Australia and use Australian industry to take those ideas. We will be able to evolve those ideas to something that’s uniquely Australian and support our customer base.”

The Australian environment presents unique challenges with targets having to perform comparably between the extremes of Stony Head Artillery Range down in Tasmania to Robertson Barracks in Darwin, according to Mr O’Leary.

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The company is also exploring augmented VR training simulators and virtual reality target avatars.

“We certainly in that (target avatar) space with our virtual reality training solutions and most importantly our See, Rehearse and Collectively Experience (SRCE) product allows for small team combat training in a way that hasn’t been done,” he said.

“I expect that things such as target avatars may well be achievable in the not-too-distant future. The avatars that you see coming up as your target in the augmented reality environment … instead of engaging with a laser, you’re engaging with live rounds.

“From that you can capture the barrel telemetry, where the impact occurs, you can also track eye movements and things like that, which we’re currently able to do using SRCE.

“We’re working with New South Wales government [at the] moment to make sure that we can get appropriate funding in a number of different areas.

“We’re also looking at financial support for exports, increasing the number of employees to meet our expanding needs over the next 12 months. The New South Wales government has been very upfront and supportive in that regard and they’re allowing us to be able to consider options that up till now, we might have considered not achievable.”

Robert Dougherty

Robert is a senior journalist who has previously worked for Seven West Media in Western Australia, as well as Fairfax Media and Australian Community Media in New South Wales. He has produced national headlines, photography and videography of emergency services, business, community, defence and government news across Australia. Robert graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, Majoring in Public Relations and Journalism at Curtin University, attended student exchange program with Fudan University and holds Tier 1 General Advice certification for Kaplan Professional. Reach out via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or via LinkedIn.