U.S., Japan and Australia Build More Integrated Long-Range Fires Capability in Orient Shield 26.

U.S., Japanese and Australian forces are integrating long-range rocket fires with maneuver, logistics and command systems during Orient Shield 26, which began at Camp Higashi-Chitose with about 3,700 personnel, according to U.S. Army Japan report released through DVIDS on September 17, 2026. HIMARS and GMLRS live-fire training gives the exercise direct operational relevance by testing how allied forces can coordinate precision fires within a contested battlefield rather than operate their strike capabilities in isolation.

The training links rocket artillery with targeting, movement, battlefield awareness and sustainment, testing the wider combat network required to employ long-range fires effectively. Australia’s participation is particularly relevant as its Army develops a HIMARS-based strike capability and domestically produced GMLRS ammunition, strengthening the potential for U.S., Japanese and Australian forces to operate increasingly compatible long-range fires systems across the Indo-Pacific.

Related Topic: Australia Becomes First Nation After U.S. To Produce GMLRS Missiles For HIMARS Rocket Launcher System

U.S., Japanese and Australian forces are strengthening Indo-Pacific defense cooperation through HIMARS and GMLRS training at Orient Shield 26, integrating long-range fires with multinational maneuver, sustainment and command-and-control operations (Picture Source: U.S. Army)

On September 17, 2026, U.S. forces joined the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force and Australian Army at Camp Higashi-Chitose for Orient Shield 26, the largest edition of the Japan-based exercise to date. Approximately 3,700 personnel are participating in an exercise combining multinational maneuver with HIMARS and GMLRS live-fire events, sustainment operations and command-and-control training. According to U.S. Army Japan report released through DVIDS, the 41st iteration is designed to move multinational cooperation beyond shared procedures toward the practical integration of battlefield functions under demanding field conditions.

HIMARS and Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System live-fire events give Orient Shield 26 a particularly relevant long-range fires dimension, but the exercise's significance extends beyond the launchers themselves. The U.S. Army describes a training architecture connecting fires with movement, sustainment and command and control across a complex and contested operational environment. This places rocket artillery inside a wider tactical sequence in which targeting, maneuver, battlefield awareness and logistics must function together, making the exercise as much about coordinating the effects generated by long-range fires as about conducting the firing event.

Australia's presence adds a new dimension to that fires architecture. Participating for the second consecutive year, the Australian contingent includes personnel from the 1st Australian Division headquarters and its combat brigades as well as the 17th Sustainment Brigade and 10th Fires Brigade. The latter is especially significant because Australia is simultaneously building its own HIMARS-based long-range strike capability: Australian Defence confirmed that 10th Fires Brigade personnel fired the country's first domestically manufactured GMLRS rounds from HIMARS at Woomera in April 2026. Its participation at Orient Shield comes as the Australian Army is developing not only a new fires formation but also the tactics, targeting processes and deployment procedures associated with a weapon system already central to U.S.-led long-range fires training. The available Orient Shield announcement, however, does not state that Australian HIMARS are conducting the live-fire events in Japan.

Orient Shield 26 also gains relevance from its timing immediately after Exercise Yama Sakura. Colonel Matthew Adamczyk, deputy commander for operations of the U.S. Army's 11th Airborne Division, described Yama Sakura as focused on the operational level while Orient Shield shifts activity into tactical execution and the field-training environment. Taken together, the sequence gives participating forces an opportunity to move from headquarters-level planning and shared situational awareness into the more demanding task of translating those procedures into maneuver, fires and sustainment on the ground. Rather than representing two disconnected exercises, the close succession highlights how multinational command relationships can be carried from planning structures into field operations.

A second, first at Orient Shield 26 expands that tactical framework beyond artillery. On September 15, soldiers from the U.S. Army's 11th Airborne Division and the JGSDF's 1st Airborne Brigade conducted the first joint airborne operation in Orient Shield history at Kikyougahara Drop Zone in Hokkaido. Its inclusion is operationally relevant because airborne insertion introduces another requirement into an exercise already combining fires, movement and logistics: forces arriving rapidly into a training area must still be incorporated into the wider command-and-control picture and supported once on the ground. The event broadens Orient Shield from conventional multinational maneuver toward a more complex combination of force insertion, fires and follow-on operations.

The scale of Orient Shield 26 provides the clearest measure of how far the exercise has evolved. What began in 1982 as a small platoon-level drill has developed into a 3,700-person trilateral field exercise involving multinational maneuver, HIMARS and GMLRS live fire, sustainment, airborne operations and command-and-control. Australia's second consecutive participation is especially notable because its contingent now brings formations associated with both long-range fires and the logistics required to sustain them. The progression suggests that the value of Orient Shield is increasingly measured not only by how many forces train together but by how many separate battlefield functions they can coordinate within the same operational framework.

Orient Shield 26 marks more than another expansion in the size of an established U.S.-Japan exercise. By placing long-range rocket fires alongside multinational maneuver, airborne insertion, sustainment and command-and-control while incorporating an Australian Army that is itself rapidly developing HIMARS-based strike capabilities, the exercise brings three land forces closer to the practical challenges of operating connected combat formations. Its evolution from a platoon-level bilateral drill into the largest and most complex iteration to date shows that the central test is increasingly not whether the three armies can train beside one another, but how effectively their different combat functions can be coordinated within a common tactical environment.

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Written by Teoman S. Nicanci – Defense Analyst, Army Recognition Group

Teoman S. Nicanci holds degrees in Political Science, Comparative and International Politics, and International Relations and Diplomacy from leading Belgian universities, with research focused on Russian strategic behavior, defense technology, and modern warfare. He is a defense analyst at Army Recognition, specializing in the global defense industry, military armament, and emerging defense technologies.