Marines successfully fire new NMESIS anti-ship weapon during live exercise
The United States Marine Corps (USMC) announced it successfully tested its new Navy Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS) anti-ship missile during the Navy’s Large Scale Exercise 2021 (LSE 21).
NMESIS, is a ground-based, anti-ship system that was developed over the period of two years, and is capable of engaging enemy ships at sea from the coast.
During the exercise, the missile was twice fired and successfully hit a decommissioned vessel off the coast of Kauai in Hawaii, demonstrating the U.S. maritime force’s capability to conduct integrated all-domain attack.
The events were executed by the U.S. Marines from Marine Corps Forces Pacific.
LSE 21 was a globally-integrated, live, simulated and constructive scenario-driven exercise. The U.S. Navy applied and assessed developmental warfighting concepts that will define the future the Navy and Marine Corps to effectively respond to crises, fight and win in conflict.
Each Naval Strike Missile carries a 500-pound warhead and missile’s range is more than 100 miles, which significantly enhances the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps’ anti-ship capabilities.
USMC is planning to field its new anti-ship weapon system, by combining the Raytheon Missiles & Defense-made Naval Strike Missile (NSM) with the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV), a Remotely Operated Ground Unit for Expeditionary (ROGUE) Fires vehicle, produced by Oshkosh Defense.
“Naval Strike Missile is a vital weapon for denying enemies the use of key maritime terrain. This test further demonstrates our partnership for advancing the Marine Corps’ modernization priorities of enabling sea control and denial operations”, Vice President of Naval Power at Raytheon Missiles & Defense Kim Ernzen said.
SINKEX is a module of the U.S. Navy’s LSE 2021, which is a live-fire demonstration of the naval strike missile against a sea-based target. The exercise scenario involving NMESIS, provided Sailors and Marines with a testing environment for new and developing technologies to connect, track, identify, target and destroy enemies in all domains.
During the exercise, forward-deployed forces on expeditionary advanced bases detected and, after joint command and control collaboration with other U.S. forces, responded to a ship-based adversary. Simultaneous impacts from multiple, dispersed weapons systems and platforms across different U.S. services, including NMESIS engaged the threat.
In October this year, NMESIS system will be delivered to Camp Pendleton that will allow the U.S. Marines to continue to gain firsthand experience with the system over the course of the next two years through initial operational testing, service officials said.
