Training and Exercises as 3D Marine Littoral Regiment Foundation

This 9 June, the author attended a virtual debrief from the staff of US Marine Corps’ 3D Marine Littoral Regiment (MLR) following the completion of the unit’s second rotation of the littoral rotational forces, Luzon (Philippines) deployment. The scope and breadth of the MLR’s exercises and other training events in the heart of the Indo-Pacific area of responsibility during this iteration bolstered the US’s ever-increasing presence and mission readiness in the region.

The author must again use a tired, but still relevant adage: the Oahu, Hawaii-based trained as it will operate to support the expanding missions in its operational portfolio.

In one case, this iteration encompassed exercises Balikatan 25, Archipelagic Coastal Defense 25 and KAMANDAG 9, during which 3D MLR had a little more than 1000 Marines. While the regiment trained and completed missions with its Philippine partners, these Marines also operated with task forces in the US Seventh Fleet and Theater Joint Force Air component commander assets that were passing through the area. Colonel John G. Lehane, the 3D MLR’s commanding officer also noted his Marines were “able to work with Japanese allies, Australian allies, as well as the Republic of Korea.”

What this author also gauges before declaring an exercise or event’s success is the rigor and fidelity of the training mission. From those benchmarks, Colonel Lehane’s regiment can state they met and surpassed expectations. Two of the many, vital mission sets to which the combined audience trained were:

- the reported “very successful integrated air and missile defense which included live fire for the newly fielded MADIS system. And that was alongside again Philippine allies.” and;

- the 3D RLT’s exercising the Navy, Marine Corps Expeditionary ship interdiction system for its first overseas deployment.

Value of Training in the LVC Domain

3D MLR was put through its paces in the live, virtual and constructive training domains as it prepared to deploy to the Philippines, enabling it to complete the above and other deployment “firsts.”

Colonel Lehane recalled, in part, “Before we ever got to the Philippines, there was a very deliberate work up for the unit to make sure that as we deployed out. We were combat credible and ready to go.” While the regiment participated remotely from Hawaii in Exercise Steel Knight earlier in 2024, shortly after the New Year, 3D MLR started an approximate 50-day exercise that culminated in a Marine Corps Combat Readiness Evaluation for the regiment. “That's the first time an MLR has been through a MCCRE. There was a very substantive portion of that exercise to complement live force employment – to stimulate things in the joint force. That would be really, really expensive to do all live,” he emphasized and added, “So, there was also a lot of aviation simulation. The exercise had a lot of simulation of ships at sea. It also included simulation of an adversary maneuvering against us in the Hawaiian archipelago. That was a great example of being able to do virtual and a constructive complement to a very robust set of live fire and maneuver exercises. That went on across the Hawaiian archipelago as part of that exercise and then following that.”

Why S&T?

The commander presented yet another business case for a military service to invest in LVC training, as he concluded, “So, part and parcel to really everything we've done so far, those are valuable in that they allow you to exercise things that are just really, really expensive to do in real life or prohibitive in the environment where you're operating.”

MS&T will continue to follow and comment on the activities of 3D MLR and other military units expanding the envelope for LVC-based training.