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Historic U.S. Marine Amphibious Drill Marks Corps’ 250th Birthday and Modern Warfare Shift.
The I Marine Expeditionary Force conducted the Marine Corps’ largest amphibious operation in over three decades at Camp Pendleton on October 17, 2025, with support from U.S. Third Fleet. The live-fire event showcased new tactics and technology for contested littoral warfare amid rising drone and logistics challenges.
On 17 October 2025, at USMC Base Camp Pendleton, California, the I Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF), the Marine Corps’ largest deployable warfighting formation, carried out the service’s biggest amphibious operation in more than 30 years with support from Commander, U.S. Third Fleet. The live-fire Amphibious Capabilities Demonstration, held for the Corps’ 250th birthday and America’s Semiquincentennial, integrated air, sea, and land forces to secure a beachhead. Amphibious Combat Vehicles, LCAC hovercraft, and JLTVs equipped with the NMESIS missile system were used to show how the Navy-Marine Corps team enters and protects contested littorals. The scale and composition reflect current operational needs where drone threats and logistics speed shape outcomes. The event and its significance were noted as reported by Secretary of the Navy John C. Phelan.
By combining ACV assault mobility, LCAC logistics velocity, and JLTV-borne NMESIS firepower, I MEF and U.S. Third Fleet displayed a force that can arrive fast, fight connected, and hold ground under the eye of hostile sensors (Picture source: U.S. Marine Corps)
The equipment mix on the shoreline offered a concise snapshot of current U.S. expeditionary doctrine. The Amphibious Combat Vehicle, replacing legacy AAVs, provides greater protection, open-ocean mobility, and stabilized remote weapon effects to suppress threats as waves of Marines secure initial objectives ashore. Landing Craft Air Cushion shuttled combat power and sustainment at high tempo over the surf zone, demonstrating the agility needed to bypass destroyed ports or mined approaches and to move directly from amphibious ships to the point of need. Joint Light Tactical Vehicles on the sand, equipped with the NMESIS missile launcher system, reinforced the lodgment by adding an over-the-horizon anti-ship strike layer, creating a broader protective envelope for forces securing the beachhead and supporting littoral maneuver. Taken together, these platforms showed not only ship-to-shore movement but also the rapid establishment of a defendable, sensor-enabled foothold able to synchronize fires and maneuver in the first critical hours of an operation.
Beyond the visible platforms, the 250th Amphibious Capabilities Demonstration framed how the Navy-Marine Corps team now choreographs effects across domains. Shipboard command nodes and littoral units must read the electromagnetic environment while managing airspace crowded by friendly and hostile unmanned systems. The beached LCACs functioned as high-throughput arteries of the littoral logistics web, while the ACV’s protected mobility enabled expansion of the perimeter to bring in heavier enablers. By placing NMESIS-equipped JLTVs close to the surf line, the force projected a layered screen forward, combining anti-ship precision fires with the ability to deny enemy surveillance and strike platforms, and buying the time needed to link sensors with precision shooters afloat or ashore.
Historically, I MEF’s amphibious pedigree stretches from the large-scale forcible entries of the late Cold War and Desert Storm era to more distributed expeditionary operations of the last two decades. Development since then has focused on survivability against mines and anti-armor threats, swim performance in sea states that outmatch legacy tracks, and the integration of remote weapon stations to allow accurate fire on the move. LCAC doctrine has matured in parallel, emphasizing rapid turnarounds, lower signature approaches, and dispersed landing points to complicate enemy targeting. The JLTV program added a protected, modular chassis to carry evolving payloads, including the NMESIS missile launcher, reflecting a development pathway that prioritizes open architectures so new missile, electronic warfare, and sensor payloads can be fielded at the pace of threat adaptation. This trajectory, from heavy, concentrated landings to distributed, sensor-rich lodgments, underpins the procedures displayed at Camp Pendleton.
The advantages of this product set are cumulative. The ACV’s survivability and stabilized remote weapon station give infantry a moving, sea-to-objective fire platform that can suppress coastal defenses without exposing gunners. LCACs deliver outsized payloads irrespective of port availability, compressing timelines between sea control and land combat power, which is decisive when adversaries target logistics windows. NMESIS-equipped JLTVs extend strike reach into the maritime domain, providing over-the-horizon anti-ship capability that complements the force’s existing protection and reconnaissance layers. Critically, the modularity of these systems, RWS kits on ACVs, palletized loads on LCACs, and missile launch modules on JLTVs, allows commanders to tailor each wave to the threat, whether that is a drone-saturated beach, an urban littoral, or a mined approach.
The scale and timing of the Camp Pendleton operation sent a clear signal in geopolitical and military terms. Marking the Marine Corps’ 250th year, it reaffirmed U.S. commitment to allies across the Pacific and Europe and showed how modern amphibious forces combine speed, protection, and long-range firepower. The integration of LCAC lift, ACV ship-to-shore assault, and NMESIS anti-ship capability reflected current Distributed Maritime Operations and Stand-In Forces concepts, demonstrating that a defended beachhead can be established within minutes, ready to sense, communicate, and strike inside an adversary’s engagement zone.
Marking the 250th Amphibious Capabilities Demonstration and the broader Semiquincentennial, Camp Pendleton’s live-fire landing delivered more than ceremony: it showcased a scalable template for contested-littoral entry in the drone age. By combining ACV assault mobility, LCAC logistics velocity, and JLTV-borne NMESIS firepower, I MEF and U.S. Third Fleet displayed a force that can arrive fast, fight connected, and hold ground under the eye of hostile sensors. The message is clear for partners and competitors alike: America’s force-in-readiness is refining the art of getting ashore, and staying there, under modern threat conditions, with the Navy-Marine Corps team prepared to expand from demonstration to deterrence, and from deterrence to decisive action if required.
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.