SUBIC BAY, PHILIPPINES — A unit of Hawaii Marines is in the Philippines fielding new weapons for the first time amid simmering tensions with China.
The Kaneohe-based 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment, which is in the country for the annual Exercise Balikatan, sent its new Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System — better known as the NMESIS — on Saturday to the northern Batanes Islands in the Luzon Strait, just south of Taiwan.
Formerly the 3rd Marine Regiment, the unit officially re-designated as the 3rd MLR in 2022 and is the Marine Corps’s first littoral regiment, part of the service’s Force Design 2030. It’s an effort to bring the Marines back to their roots as a naval fighting force focused on island and coastal fighting. The 3rd MLR is serving as the model for the Corps’ facelift, and NMESIS, an anti-ship missile system, plays a central role in that vision.
Col. John Lehane, the 3rd MLR’s commander, said, “One of the things we looked at is, if you can control choke points, then you control the commerce that goes through them. And so any place where you find key maritime terrain like that, that’s a suitable place to put a weapon system like that. So it’s great rehearsal for us and great to help us integrate with what the Filipinos want to do for their archipelagic coastal defense concept.”
The unit has deployed to the Philippines for each iteration of Balikatan since 2022, but this is the first time it actually brought NMESIS — which it received in Hawaii in late 2024 — along with other new weapon systems and equipment as the regiment takes shape and puts the concepts behind its creation into practice.
“One thing I’ve been telling folks, we’re not an experimental unit,” said Lehane. “We are an initially operational capable element of the fleet Marine force who happens to do some experimentation, but my first and only focus is making these Marines as lethal and as survivable as possible if they’re called upon to do something in crisis or conflict for the nation.”
But this year’s deployment, with multiple weapons system in the hands of the Hawaii Marines seeing their overseas debut, is a milestone.
“From now on, when you see the MLR … it will have NMESIS with it, and it will have all of the parts and pieces that are exciting because they’re new, but to us they’re just becoming normal,” said Lehane. “These are not experimental systems; they are fielded and ready to go.”
As the U.S. trains with Philippine forces, the Chinese military is conducting its own operations around the Philippines in close proximity. Last week the Chinese navy’s aircraft carrier Shandong sailed into waters claimed by the Philippines and carried out flight deck operations about 123 nautical miles off the coast of Ilocos Norte province April 25.
Over the weekend, the U.S. and Philippine militaries conducted live-fire air defense drills together in the western coastal province of Zambales, where the 3rd MLR used its new Marine Air Defense Integrated System — better known as MADIS — which it first used in February to down drones in an exercise on Hawaii island.
As they did, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported that the Chinese coast guard had “implemented maritime control” over Sandy Cay, a small sandbank in the disputed Spratly Islands, which both Beijing and Manila claim as their own. Sandy Cay lies near Thitu Island, which has a Philippine military air field and naval station.
Chinese media released photos of Chinese coast guardsmen standing on the small formation holding a Chinese flag. In response, a small group of Philippine Marines, coast guardsmen and police went from Thitu Island to Sandy Cay on Sunday and took photos of themselves holding a Philippine flag.
On Tuesday the Chinese military began a new naval patrol in the South China Sea and released a statement asserting that “the Philippines has been frequently carrying out maritime infringement provocations, creating disturbances and pulling in countries from outside the region to organise so-called ‘joint patrols.’”
Island fights
Under Force Design 2030, Marine Corps leaders envision a return to the “island hopping” operations the service conducted in the Pacific during World War II — but with a 21st-century twist. They envision Marines using high-tech sensors, communication systems, drones and missiles, as they spread out across island chains operating in small groups, that would have the potential to wreak havoc on their opponents.
The service has gotten rid of all of its tanks and has phased out traditional cannon-based artillery on Oahu to replace them with NMESIS, which commanders hope to use to sink enemy ships from missile batteries that Marines would set up on islands and coastlines as they support Navy operations and allied forces. During the development of NMESIS, the U.S. military put a prototype through the paces at the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai in 2021, when it was used to fire on a decommissioned vessel.
Sgt. Christian Chonperez, an artilleryman who spent his career operating traditional cannon artillery, is one of the Hawaii Marines now operating NMESIS in the Philippines. He said that compared with howitzers he originally used, NMESIS has “way more advanced capabilities compared to that.”
But he said it’s been a relatively easy transition for him and his fellow Marines as they work with the new missile launcher, saying, “The way the system is built is to be very user-friendly towards the operator.”
Unlike the old, which had to be towed by a truck or slung under a helicopter to move to different locations, NMESIS is mounted on a remote-controlled vehicle chassis, allowing Marines to quickly drive it from place to place, quickly moving to new firing positions and using “shoot and scoot” tactics to avoid return fire from enemy forces.
Chonperez said that “a lot of what we’re doing right now is very logistical, just so this proves that we can take it wherever we want and put it in any environment, any kind of place. So moving is a lot of what we’re doing.”
Force Design 2030 is in many ways tailor-made with the Western Pacific in mind, with a particular focus on the South China Sea — a busy waterway that nearly one-third of all global trade travels through. Beijing claims nearly the entire sea as its exclusive territory over the objections of neighboring countries, and tensions have been mounting over territorial and navigation rights.
In 2016 an international court ruled in favor of the Philippines and found that China’s claims have “no legal” basis. Beijing rejected the ruling and has doubled down by building bases on disputed islands and reefs. The Chinese military has also harassed and sometimes attacked fishermen and other marine workers from neighboring countries — especially the Philippines.
Tensions have also been ramping up as China has also stepped up military operations around Taiwan, a self-ruled island democracy that Beijing regards as a rogue province. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has vowed to bring Taiwan under Beijing’s control, by force if necessary. On April 1 the Philippine military’s top commander, Gen. Romeo Brawner, raised eyebrows when he told troops in the northern tip of the country to “start planning for actions in case there is an invasion of Taiwan.”
Brawner, an alumnus of the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Waikiki, asserted in his remarks to his troops that “if something happens to Taiwan, inevitably we will be involved. There are 250,000 (overseas Filipino workers working in Taiwan, and we will have to rescue them. And it will be the task of Northern Luzon Command to be at the front line of that operation.”
Changing tactics
Down in Zambales the MLR’s anti-aircraft battalion teamed up with the Philippine air force and U.S. Army as they shot down drones in coastal defense drills where they put their new MADIS system to the test. The system consists of pairs of armored vehicles equipped with a host of advanced cameras and sensors to detect small drone threats and using a mixture of weapons and jamming devices to take them down.
The system was originally inspired by the U.S. military’s experiences fighting the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, where the militants began using low-cost commercial drones to spy on and in some cases attack local and coalition forces.
Drones have only become more ubiquitous on battlefields around the world, with both sides of the conflict in Ukraine in particular using drones to deadly effect. On April 15 the Philippine navy announced that it had concluded that mysterious underwater drones that had been found by Filipino fishermen likely came from China and were being used to spy in Philippine waters and map the area for submarine operations.
“It’s not just adversaries; it’s fishermen, it’s (everyday people). I’m a drone hobbyist. I fly a drone on my own,” said Lehane. “They are just becoming part and parcel to everyday life. And so all the more important that we’re able to, one, detect them; two, classify what they are; three, determine whether or not there’s (hostile) intent; and then four, if necessary, take them out of the sky.”
The MADIS was tested in Arizona before making its way to Marines in Hawaii. The armored trucks operating the system are still painted desert tan for Middle Eastern operations rather than the tropical Pacific environments the Corps largely envisions the MLR operating in. It’s a visible reminder of the long legacy of two decades of costly, bloody warfare in the Middle East that still casts a long shadow over U.S. military operations today.
Lt. Col. Matthew Sladek, commander of 3rd MLR’s anti-aircraft battalion, said the military’s equipment-testing organizations’ focus “has all been desert, desert, desert, because that’s where we’ve fought for the last 20 years.” He explained that the MADIS trucks the Marines are using in Balikatan “are the first ones out the door, fielded by the program office. When these guys go back to Hawaii, these trucks will actually make their way back to Charleston, South Carolina, and then we’ll get replaced with full rate production trucks, which will come back here.”
One of the major tests is how new systems actually fare in the humid, tropical coasts and islands in the South China Sea. Sladek said that while the weapons themselves have been fine, the hot, moist air poses challenges for advanced sensors and computer systems and that “there’s some things we got to work through.”
The dramatic transformation of the Marine Corps has been controversial, with many retired Marine officers expressing skepticism and in some cases dismay at the radical changes. They charge that getting rid of tanks and other equipment to focus on unproven high-tech systems is wrong and that Chinese forces would obliterate them in a real confrontation.
Lehane said several critics have come to Marine Corps Base Hawaii to question him and see for themselves, and that many have softened their criticism. He told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, “When you get a look at it from the outside, maybe you don’t understand all the facts or the arrangements, or what intel is driving us to do the things that we’re doing, but none of it is haphazard.”
Among the concerns is that the focus on missile batteries, drone and high-tech gadgets takes away the focus on infantrymen and will erode their fighting skills. But Lehane says the infantry remains central and that “the focus on the regiment, the focus of the battalion and company commanders, is all back on the basics. You know, are you physically fit? When you squeeze the trigger on a rifle, can you strike the target the first time and every time? Do you know your orders? Do you know how to patrol?”
Lehane added that “no matter how amazing all of this equipment is — newest radar, coolest air defense thing, best anti-ship missile — all of that is mildly interesting if you can’t do the basics.”
