Philippine Marines Field First Indian BrahMos Coastal Missile Battery in Zambales Coast.

The Philippine Marine Corps publicly unveiled its first operational BrahMos shore-based anti-ship missile battery during its 75th anniversary event in Zambales on November 7, 2025. The coastal battery, with a roughly 290-kilometer export range, gives Manila a mobile, supersonic sea denial capability.

The Philippine Marine Corps, via its official livestream on November 7, 2025, publicly presented its first operational BrahMos shore-based anti-ship missile battery during the 75th Marine birthday ceremony in Zambales on Luzon’s west coast. Footage showed camouflaged launch vehicles elevating twin canisters, with a mobile command post and maintenance and transporter loader vehicles positioned nearby. From this site, the Marines can hold Scarborough Shoal at risk at roughly 200 kilometers, placing a disputed feature inside a Philippine-controlled engagement zone. The display signals that coastal denial is moving from plan to capability.
Follow Army Recognition on Google News at this link

BrahMos is a near-Mach 3, sea-skimming cruise missile with 290 km range, active radar guidance, and a 200-300 kg warhead, giving the Philippines credible coastal ship-killing power (Picture source: RTVM).

What the Marines rolled out belongs to the Coastal Defense Regiment, created in 2020 to deliver a layered anti-access and area denial posture. The Zambales battery appears to field two Mobile Autonomous Launchers carrying two ready rounds each, supported by a command post, a maintenance support vehicle and a transporter loader for reloads. The base includes a high bay facility and hardened magazines, giving the regiment a purpose-built hub for training, storage and rapid dispersal along the West Philippine Sea coastline.

BrahMos is a two-stage supersonic cruise missile combining a solid propellant booster for launch with a kerosene-fueled ramjet for sustained flight. The Philippine export configuration is optimized for anti-ship strike at about 290 kilometers and speeds in the Mach 2.8 to Mach 3 class. The canisterized round measures roughly 8.4 meters in length, 0.67 meters in diameter and weighs nearly 3,000 kilograms. Guidance uses an inertial system with satellite updates for midcourse and an active radar seeker for terminal homing, producing fire and forget behavior with a circular error probable cited at under one meter. A 200 to 300-kilogram semi-armor-piercing warhead completes the engagement at sea skimming altitude, with the missile capable of abrupt terminal maneuvers designed to defeat close-in defenses.

The Philippine Marines now possess a credible sea denial tool against large coast guard cutters, maritime militia formations and surface combatants that enter the country’s exclusive economic zone. A salvo from concealed coastal positions can arrive from varied azimuths at very low altitude, compressing shipboard reaction time to seconds. The battery is designed for shoot and scoot tactics, and the regiment has been exercising sensor to shooter chains with coastal radars, air force maritime patrol assets and allied intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance feeds during recent bilateral drills. In practice, even a small platoon tied to a persistent radar picture can create a moving denial bubble astride sea lanes leading to Subic Bay, Manila and the Luzon Strait.

The strategic message is as explicit as the hardware: Scarborough Shoal has been a friction point marked by ramming, water cannoning and dangerous maneuvers against Philippine law enforcement vessels. Positioning a supersonic coastal battery within range elevates the costs of coercive behavior while remaining a defensive system tied to territorial seas and the exclusive economic zone. The deployment aligns with the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement sites that expand U.S. rotational presence and maritime domain awareness, giving Manila a sovereign strike option that complements allied support rather than substituting for it.

The Department of National Defense issued a Notice of Award in late 2021 and signed a $370m contract in January 2022 for three complete Shore-Based Anti-Ship Missile System batteries. Training for the first crews began in India and continued in Subic with Indian technical advisers. The first consignment of missiles and launchers arrived in April 2024, followed by additional deliveries through 2025 as facilities were completed and crews certified. The Philippines is the first export customer for BrahMos, a milestone for India’s “Make in India” drive and a new strand in the defense relationship between Manila and New Delhi that now includes training pipelines, spares and lifecycle support.

BrahMos offers attributes that matter in this theater. Supersonic speed, sea-skimming profiles of roughly 10 meters in terminal flight and aggressive endgame maneuvers complicate hard kill interception. The missile can also strike land targets, though the Philippine emphasis remains maritime interdiction. The canisterized transporter erector launcher simplifies logistics and protects rounds in storage, enabling rapid displacement after firing and faster reconstitution during extended operations. These features suit a geographically dispersed archipelago seeking mobility over mass.

Other operators and prospective buyers underscore the system’s momentum: India fields BrahMos with its navy, army and air force, including ship and air-launched variants and extended range testing beyond 400 kilometers for domestic use. In Southeast Asia, Vietnam and Malaysia have discussed potential acquisitions, and Indonesia has explored options for ship-based batteries. None of these discussions has matched the Philippine program’s maturity, which now stands as the region’s first operational coastal BrahMos force and a reference model for export integration.

The task ahead is integration at speed. The Zambales battery must knit seamlessly with coastal surveillance radars, command networks and allied ISR so that targeting quality meets the narrow timelines of supersonic flight. Training throughput, missile recertification cycles and spares stocking will determine sustained readiness, not the opening day ceremony. By unveiling BrahMos on the West Philippine Sea coastline, the Philippines has moved from protest notes to precision options, anchoring a deterrent posture that is visible, survivable and finally credible.