Latest news with #PhilippineMarines
GMA Network
6 days ago
- General
- GMA Network
PH, US marines hold live-fire drill in Tarlac
Filipino personnel who are skilled in mortar operations exchanged knowledge and ideas with their US counterparts, according to the PMC. (Courtesy if the Philippine Marines) The Philippine Marine Corps (PMC) and the United States Marine Corps (USMC) conducted a joint live-fire exercise at Colonel Ernesto Rabina Air Base in Tarlac on Thursday as part of the Kamandag Exercise. In a statement, the PMC said the 81mm mortar was used in the activity. 'PMC fired mortar rounds at designated targets, demonstrating accuracy. The USMC likewise showcased their own mortar operations, performing their methods for target acquisition and fire correction before successfully engaging their assigned targets,' the PMC said. Filipino personnel who are skilled in mortar operations exchanged knowledge and ideas with their US counterparts, according to the PMC. The exercise also exhibited coordinated fire adjustments facilitated by forward observers to enhance accuracy on the battlefield, the PMC added. An observer from Thailand witnessed the live-fire exercise. 'The live-fire exercise highlights the enduring partnership between the PMC and USMC in their mutual commitment to enhancing and readiness through continued cooperation and joint training,' the PMC said. This year's Kamandag Exercise officially commenced on May 26 and is scheduled to conclude on June 6. PMC commandant Major General Arturo Rojas said a total of around 4,000 participants are expected to join the training. The US missile system Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS) will be used in the training. Among the exercises that will be featured in this year's Kamandag are the following: Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and Explosive (CBRN) Subject Matter Expert Exchange (SMEE) Senior Enlisted Leaders Symposium (SELS) Maritime & Special Operation Forces events Live Fire Integration Maritime Strike Counter-Landing/Defensive Retrograde Operation Special Operating Forces Strike Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief. –NB, GMA Integrated News
Newsweek
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Newsweek
US and Allied Drills Counter China's Island-Taking Tactics
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The United States and its allies in the Pacific Ocean, the Philippines and Australia, held a live-fire drill to counter China's island landing operations in the disputed South China Sea. Newsweek has reached out to the Chinese Defense Ministry for comment by email. Why It Matters The U.S. and the Philippines, which have formed an alliance under a mutual defense treaty, are conducting Exercise Balikatan—their largest annual war game—in the Southeast Asian archipelagic country from April 21 to May 9, with the involvement of Australia and Japan. This comes as China asserts sovereignty over most of the territories in the South China Sea. Beijing's claims overlap with those of neighboring nations. Last week, Chinese personnel displayed a national flag on an uninhabited feature near a Philippine island in the region. What To Know In a set of photos released on Thursday, the U.S. and Philippine Marines, as well as soldiers from the Australian army, fired artillery weapons at a floating target during a counter-landing exercise in Rizal, located on the island of Palawan in southwestern Philippines, on Monday. Philippine Marines fire an artillery weapon as part of a counter-landing live fire exercise during Exercise Balikatan in Rizal in the Philippines on April 28, 2025. Philippine Marines fire an artillery weapon as part of a counter-landing live fire exercise during Exercise Balikatan in Rizal in the Philippines on April 28, 2025. Spc. Riley Anfinson/U.S. Army Reserve Exercise Balikatan strengthened the U.S.-Philippine alliance and its "capable combined force," the photo captions read, displaying the allies' commitment to regional security and stability. The exercise also saw the participation of the U.S. Army, which mobilized the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS). The rocket launcher is capable of projecting "precise, long-range fire" while quickly maneuvering in and out of operational environments. The allied counter-landing exercise comes as the Chinese military released a video showing its four amphibious warships, which are capable of projecting ground and air power during island-landing campaigns, forming a landing ship flotilla for training in the South China Sea. During Exercise Balikatan, the U.S. military employed new, advanced weapons for the first time, including the Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS). This U.S. Marine Corps' anti-ship missile system was deployed near the Luzon Strait on April 26. Philippine Marines, Australian soldiers, and United States Marines fire at a floating target during a counter-landing live-fire exercise during Exercise Balikatan in Rizal in the Philippines on April 28, 2025. Philippine Marines, Australian soldiers, and United States Marines fire at a floating target during a counter-landing live-fire exercise during Exercise Balikatan in Rizal in the Philippines on April 28, 2025. Spc. Riley Anfinson/U.S. Army Reserve Meanwhile, the U.S. Army tested its directed energy weapon during an integrated air and missile defense drill on Monday. The Integrated Fires Protection Capability High-Powered Microwave (IFPC-HPM) emits microwave energy to disrupt, disable or destroy drones. What People Are Saying Lieutenant General James F. Glynn, commander of the U.S. Marine Corps Forces Pacific, said: "Together with our steadfast allies in the Armed Forces of the Philippines, and with the growing involvement of nations with shared vital interests, like Australia and Japan, we are operating as a force with mutually supporting capabilities ready to meet challenges in the region and defend a free and open Indo-Pacific." Senior Colonel Zhang Xiaogang, spokesperson for the Chinese Defense Ministry, said: "We always hold that military cooperation between countries should not target or hurt the interests of any third party, nor should it jeopardize regional peace and stability ... However, the Philippines holds a candle to the devil by currying favor and colluding with the US and other outside countries." What Happens Next Both the U.S. and the Philippines, as well as China, are expected to continue flexing their military power in and around the South China Sea as Manila and Beijing refuse to back down over the sovereignty disputes in the contested waters.
Yahoo
21-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
USMC Anti-Ship Missile Deployment To Highly Strategic Luzon Strait Is Unprecedented
The U.S. Marine Corps is deploying its Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS) system armed with Naval Strike Missiles into the heart of one of the world's most strategic and tense bodies of water — the Luzon Strait. It will be the closest to the Chinese mainland that U.S. land-based cruise missiles have been deployed. The Luzon Strait sits between Taiwan and the Philippines and is roughly 220 miles across at its narrowest point. It is a critical shipping artery and also an incredibly important military conduit, especially for China's rapidly growing fleet. It's from here that assets based in the South China Sea can access the Philippine Sea and the greater Pacific, and vice versa. This includes China's growing fleet of nuclear-powered submarines, some of which provide the country's second-strike nuclear deterrent. It's also a key path for the U.S. Navy to access the South China Sea. The stretch of water is also a primary area where a major battle over Taiwan would be fought. As a result, the choke point formed by the Strait is very heavily monitored for activity above and below the waves. In a conflict, it will instantly become an anti-ship super missile engagement zone (SMEZ). The deployment of the USMC's new land-based anti-ship missile systems, as well as other assets, including organic ground-based air defenses, will come as part of Exercise Balikatan '25 — the 40th iteration of the annual drills. The 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment (MLR), designed to fight within an enemy's own watery backyard, will be a key U.S. player in the exercise, which will include some 14,000 personnel, predominantly from the U.S. and Philippine armed forces. Smaller contingents from Australia and Japan will also be taking part, which is a first for the latter country. For Balikatan '25, 3rd MLR's unique capabilities, including its NSMs, will be heading to Northern Luzon and the Batanes Islands in the Philippines, the latter of which sit nearly smack-dab in the middle of the Luzon Strait. There they will be participating in drills that will include live-fire and a sinking exercise (SINKEX), although NSM launches will be simulated. A USMC release provides additional details as to its capabilities that are going to be integrated into the exercise: 'The NMESIS will be employed during the Maritime Key Terrain Security Operations in Northern Luzon and the Batanes Islands. During this event, U.S. Marines with 3d Littoral Combat Team's Medium-Range Missile Battery and Philippine Marines with 4th Marine Brigade will use air lift from the U.S. Army's 25th Combat Aviation Brigade and the U.S. Air Force's 29th Tactical Airlift Squadron to transport several NMESIS launchers from Northern Luzon to multiple islands in the Batanes island chain. Once on the islands, U.S. and Philippine Marines will work together to establish a Fires Expeditionary Advanced Base. In Northern Luzon, the AN/TPS-80 Ground/Air Task-Oriented Radar, operated by 3d Littoral Anti-Air Battalion's Tactical Air Control Element – will surveil the surrounding airspace in 3d MLR's area of operations in support of maritime strike and airspace deconfliction. Through various communication means and methods, the sensing data collected by the G/ATOR will be sent to the Fires and Air Direction Element via tactical data links in support of the commander's information exchange requirements. That sensing data will then transfer to the Battery Operations Center, where it will be processed into tracks and targeting data before making its way back to the Fires EAB.' The U.S. military has stationed missiles in the Philippines recently in the form of U.S. Army Typhon launchers capable of firing Tomahawk cruise missiles, as well as SM-6s capable of rapidly striking targets as a quasi-ballistic missile. While Tomahawks and SM-6s possess longer range, they are not based as far forward as NMESIS and its NSMs will be. Neither of those missiles are as focused on anti-ship and sea control operations as the NSM, either. NMESIS uses an unmanned variant of the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV), also known as the Remotely Operated Ground Unit Expeditionary-Fires (ROGUE-Fires), and a launcher with two ready-to-fire Naval Strike Missiles (NSM) inside their self-contained canisters. The system is meant to be rapidly deployable and capable of highly dispersed operations in austere areas. As an uncrewed vehicle-launcher combo, small teams of Marines monitor multiple launchers dispersed around an area and move them regularly to keep them from being targeted by the enemy. The NSM itself is a Norwegian design from Kongsberg Defense that is now produced for the U.S. in concert with Raytheon. The missile has stealthy features to help aid in its survivability. It also uses an imaging infrared seeker for terminal-phase targeting. Emitting no radar radio frequency (RF) energy of its own, the missile screams toward its target without alerting the enemy to its presence using passive RF detection measures. The type is now equipping some U.S. Navy Littoral Combat Ships and destroyers, with the Constellation class frigates also slated to have NSMs as part of their armament package. The missiles cost about $1.9M each. With the baseline NSM's range of around 110 nautical miles, there is perhaps no better place for NMESIS to be. From its island position in the heart of the strait, it would be able to put any vessel transiting the waterway, from the tip of Taiwan nearly to the northern reaches of Luzon in the Philippines, and one hundred miles east to west, at risk. To put it bluntly, this is what the system, and the new Marine Littoral Regiments for that matter, were designed to do. On the other hand, executing such an anti-access strategy in the Luzon Strait represents what would be among the highest risk operations an MLR could conceivably carry out. This deployment will definitely rattle Beijing, which has already expressed great ire at the deployment of the Army's Typhon system to the Philippines. This also comes as China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) is ratcheting up the pressure on Taiwan by encircling the island with multi-domain military might on a regular basis now, and massive treasure is being dumped into expanding the country's Navy as fast as possible. Considering how critical this waterway is to China, it's only logical that the PLA is doing everything it can to come up with a plan to neutralize such a deployment as fast as possible should hostilities break out. But targeting small truck-sized launchers using standoff weapons, even those on an island, wouldn't be easy. This raises the cost of assuredly destroying this capability for PLA and thus making the concept more effective. This all fits in with the Marines' Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO) strategy that is rapidly evolving. Marine Lt. Gen. James Glynn, the U.S. exercise director for this year's Balikatan, has described it as a 'full battle test,' stating: 'The full battle tests is intended to take into consideration all of the regional security challenges that we face today, beginning in the South China Sea.' Maj. Gen. Francisco Lorenzo of the Philippines, who is overseeing his country's portion of the drills, also stated: 'The Balikatan exercise may probably help deter the conflict in Taiwan. But for our concern, it is only for deterrence of any possible coercion or invasion to our country.' While the scope of the drills is impressive, the U.S. deploying land-based missiles capable of shutting down the Luzon Strait is certainly a new construct in the growing tensions between Beijing and Washington, D.C. Balikatan '25 began today and it will run through May 9th. Contact the author: Tyler@
South China Morning Post
02-03-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Philippines' exemption from US foreign aid freeze reaffirms ‘first-in-line' status: analysts
The exemption of the Philippines from a worldwide freeze on US foreign security aid affirms Manila's 'first-in-line' status in securing Washington's interests in the Indo-Pacific, observers have said. Advertisement The Southeast Asian nation will reportedly receive US$5.3 billion from the Donald Trump administration, earmarked for security and anti-narcotics programmes. Philippine foreign affairs spokeswoman Teresita Daza earlier this week confirmed Washington had notified her side of a 'waiver issued to a portion of the US foreign military financing for the Philippines'. Daza affirmed that the Philippines and the United States 'remain committed to their treaty alliance and to efforts to further strengthen our defence cooperation and interoperability'. Trump had ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after his inauguration on January 20. In this period, all foreign aid programmes would be under review on whether they align with his 'America First' agenda, including funding for humanitarian and health aid. Air assault exercises conducted by Philippine Marines and their counterparts from the United States Marine Corps in Palawan province, the Philippines, in April 2024. Photo: EPA-EFE/Armed Forces of the Philippines The exemptions for the region include US$336 million for modernising the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine Coast Guard, and US$870 million for programmes in Taiwan.
