During the two-week Large Scale Exercise 2021, which ended Monday, groups of Hawaii-based artillery Marines came ashore at the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai via big hovercraft and MV-22 tilt-rotor Ospreys.
Their goal was to get in fast, set up fast and detect, while camouflaged and with low digital signatures, passing enemy ships.
In one of the most realistic Marine Corps field experiments to date of a new unmanned truck missile launcher, two Naval Strike Missiles on Sunday flew over 100 nautical miles (115 statute miles) to strike the decommissioned Navy frigate ex-USS Ingraham 60 nautical miles from Kauai. For the exercise, the missiles did not have warheads.
“Two shots, two hits,” said Maj. Nick Mannweiler, a spokesman for Marine Corps Forces Pacific.
As part of the demonstration of rapid response from multiple platforms, four Marine Corps F/A-18 attack aircraft also fired two Harpoon missiles at the frigate.
The scenario — watched by Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday — capped Large Scale Exercise, a global demonstration of U.S. Navy and Marine Corps capability to synchronize fleets, networks and weapons across 17 time zones.
A restructuring of the Marine Corps in Hawaii to better deter China in the western Pacific includes the planned elimination of all cannon artillery and attack and transport helicopters.
Two squadrons of Ospreys stay, and KC-130 transports and six big MQ-9A Reaper drones — which can fire missiles — are coming in.
Approximately 150 artillery Marines with the 1st Battalion, 12th Marine Regiment will become part of a medium-range missile battery outfitted with Naval Strike Missiles intended to inflict damage on ships at sea, the Marine Corps said.
Those Marines will be attached to a new fast-moving unit at Kaneohe Bay called a Marine Littoral Regiment that will be the first in the Marine Corps.
Via what it calls Force Design 2030, the Marine Corps is taking drastic steps to reshape itself for “peer” competition with China — which invested heavily in advanced, long-range missiles while the United States was preoccupied with low-tech guerrilla warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Part of the redesign also calls for a new class of vessel in Hawaii called the Light Amphibious Warship, which can carry at least 75 Marines and pull up on beaches to get troops in and out in a hurry.
System testing
Sunday’s missile launches utilized what’s known as the Navy/Marine Corps Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System, or NMESIS, that’s paired with a joint light tactical vehicle stripped of its crew cab and turned into a robotic vehicle that can be directed to follow other vehicles.
“We’re used to thinking of naval gunfire support supporting Marines ashore during an assault or during land operations,” Mannweiler said.
New Force Design 2030 concepts including Marine Littoral Regiments being tested now turn that strategy around.
“This is part of a new paradigm shift for the naval services to think about the fact that ships at sea may need help with sea control or sea denial — and that’s where the Marine Corps can fit in” as a land-based missile firing force, Mannweiler said.
He added that “this is a growing, evolving model, but what was demonstrated this weekend is that we’re on track” to turn a concept operational.
Locating threats
The Marine Corps component of Large Scale Exercise focused on establishing what the service calls “expeditionary advanced bases” on islands to locate threats, share that data and fire Naval Strike Missiles.
“This scenario is representative of the real-world challenges and missions the Navy and Marine Corps will be facing in the future,” Brig Gen. A.J. Pasagian, commander of Marine Corps Systems Command, said in a release.
Large Scale Exercise included real and computer-generated forces in a conflict that required actions in the Pacific and Europe.
The 1st Battalion, 12th Marines had multiple platoon-sized expeditionary advanced bases spread across the scenario’s island chain. While the live-fire portion was just for the NMESIS out at the Pacific Missile Range Facility, other positions were “firing” virtually in missions connected to the overall exercise, Mannweiler said.
The Hawaii Marines came ashore from the amphibious ship USS San Diego, while the NMESIS was flown in and then after the missile firing transported on one of the big landing craft air cushion, or LCAC, hovercraft back to the San Diego so others could see the system.
Also utilized were new smaller and very mobile all-terrain vehicles called “networks on the move.”
“It’s packed full of all of the command and control equipment, the radio systems, networking gear,” Mannweiler said. “You take like three or four of them and you’ve got an air battalion operations center” that used to be made up of multiple trucks.
