LAOAG, Ilocos Norte — Over 800 combined Philippine, United States and Japanese forces on Monday (May 4) showed a massive display of integrated firepower in intercepting targets from air, land and sea during a coastal defense wargame as part of Exercise Balikatan 41-2026.
Called a counter landing live fire exercise, dummy targets from land, sea and air domains were positioned across the coastline to demonstrate layered defense by being detected, engaged and neutralized by integrated weapon systems.
The US Armed Forces brought the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (Himars), a missile launcher mounted on a five-tonne truck capable of firing six guided missiles in rapid succession. Japan meanwhile participated in their Infantry Rifle Company whereas the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) deployed various armor assets including its 105-mm howitzers and Sabrah light tanks.
Apache attack helicopters also flew over the water and released live munitions aiming at targets underneath.
Unmanned target drones, mock vessels and human dummies each were used to challenge the skills and precision of the participating troops to respond should similar real-life scenarios happen.
“The training that we're conducting as part of exercise Balikatan is becoming more complex across all domains: air, sea and the land. And so we have to modernize our capabilities with unmanned systems not only in the air, but also in the sea. And you got to see that on display today,” Maj. Gen. James B. Bartholomees, commander of the United States Army 25th Infantry Division and Exercise Balikatan 41-2026 Joint Forces Land Component Commander told reporters in a briefing after the live fire drills.
While some targets were quickly pulverized, some were challenging and took time and multiple attacks before finally being brought down.
“The reason why we do this training is because it's difficult. It takes a lot of work and coordination and synchronization. And the focus should not be on what you saw, but on the synchronization that was required to execute this, which is incredibly important and incredibly dangerous,” Bartholomees said.
“The successes we saw were the synchronization of Air Force, Sea, Navy, and Coast Guard involvement, and then land forces with manned and unmanned systems,” he added.
According to Bartholomees, the highlight of the exercise was the participation of the Himars and the inclusion of more varied types of training drones and unmanned vessels.
Bartholomees also commended the performance of Japan who participated actively for the first time in Balikatan.
“From what you have seen, I think they have done very well and they have satisfied our objectives,” he said.
Smoke grenades, which were normally used as position markers, were used to signal the end of the exercise.
