Marine Corps will receive first anti-ship missile battery in Okinawa

The twelfth Marine Littoral Regiment welcomed a brand new unit that may quickly wield the service’s first anti-ship missile protection system in Okinawa, Japan, based on a spokesperson for Marine Corps Fight Growth and Integration.

The twelfth Littoral Fight Workforce was formally established at Camp Hansen in Okinawa on March 3 to “create chaos and uncertainty in potential adversaries,” based on a Marine Corps launch. The addition of the workforce to the littoral regiment marks the third and closing subordinate ingredient of the regiment, which additionally contains the twelfth Littoral Anti-Air Battalion and twelfth Littoral Logistics Battalion.

The workforce will give attention to making the most of enemies’ weaknesses whereas obfuscating their skill to precisely find American navy personnel and disrupting their decision-making, the discharge acknowledged.

“The Marine Corps’ pressure modernization efforts designed the LCT for pace, mobility, lethality, and precision,” Lt. Col. Jacob Godby, commanding officer of the twelfth Littoral Fight Workforce, mentioned within the launch. “We work in coordination with our adjoining instructions within the twelfth MLR and distributed operations to kind related and prepared fight formations in contested maritime environments.”

Beginning in fiscal 2026, the workforce shall be geared up with the Navy/Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System, or NMESIS, a cell, ground-based service able to firing anti-ship missiles, mentioned a spokesperson for Marine Corps Methods Command.

The Marine Corps redesigned the third Marine Regiment to the third Marine Littoral Regiment in March 2022 and transformed the twelfth Marine Regiment — which was already primarily based in Okinawa, Japan — to the twelfth Marine Littoral Regiment in November 2023.

Navy Instances reported in January 2024 that the regiments could be geared up with capabilities designed to fight adversaries just like the Chinese language navy. Together with the NMESIS system, the regiments shall be anticipated to wield an MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial system, the AN/TPS-80 Floor/Air Process Oriented Radar system and the sunshine amphibious warship.

The regiments are slated to include as much as 2,000 Marines and sailors and are anticipated to hold out deployments to chokepoints alongside islands and coastlines.

“This formation didn’t simply rise up, it surged ahead,” Col. Peter Eltringham, commanding officer of the twelfth Marine Littoral Regiment, mentioned within the launch. “We deliver this fight energy to Okinawa to have the ability to ship it within the eyes of our adversaries and guarantee we are able to deliver it to the decisive level on the battlefield.”