U.S. Marine Corps stands up first missile battalion

The U.S. Marine Corps has turned a 2nd Marine Division artillery battalion at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, into its first medium-range missile battalion, built around a launcher that fires Naval Strike Missiles at enemy ships from land. 1st Battalion, 10th Marine Regiment was formally re-designated on Oct. 9, 2026, under the service’s Force Design 2030 modernization plan, the 2nd Marine Division said. The battalion will operate the Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System, or NMESIS. “The Medium-Range Missile Battalion employs the NMESIS,” said Lt. Col. Joseph Mozzi, commanding officer of 1st Battalion, 10th Marines. “ is the Marine Corps’ emerging ground based anti-ship missile capability, and it will also be a ground based long-range precision fires platform.” NMESIS pairs a launcher carrying two Naval Strike Missiles with an uncrewed, remotely operated vehicle known as the ROGUE-Fires carrier, built on a Joint Light Tactical Vehicle chassis. Without a driver or crew aboard, the launcher can be positioned along a coastline while Marines control it from a distance. The Naval Strike Missile, developed by Norway’s Kongsberg and produced in partnership with Raytheon, has a range of more than 130 nautical miles (240 km) and can hit ships at sea as well as fixed targets on land, according to the Marine Corps. “The requirement for the Marine Corps to have a land-based capability to conduct sea denial was identified as a crucial step to facilitate the maritime component commanders to fight for sea control,” said Mozzi. The system first went to the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment in Hawaii in 2024. The Marine Corps tested it during Large Scale Exercise 2021, firing a Naval Strike Missile off the coast of Hawaii at a target ship, and Marines have since deployed NMESIS to the Philippines during Balikatan exercises near the Luzon Strait. The battalion at Camp Lejeune is the first of the service’s artillery battalions to convert to missiles, giving an East Coast unit a capability that until now sat with the Marine Littoral Regiments focused on the Pacific. As part of the service-retained force, the battalion is available to the commanding general of II Marine Expeditionary Force and the wider Marine Corps for crisis response. The change does not end the regiment’s cannon artillery. 10th Marines will keep M777 lightweight howitzers in another battalion, and Col. William Soucie, the regiment’s commander, called NMESIS a complement to cannon artillery. “Projecting combat power ashore from the sea is historically what do,” said Soucie. “What we will be able to do with is shoot in support of not only maneuver that’s already ashore, we will also be able to shoot in support of maneuver at sea.” Soucie said the Marines and sailors in the battalion are the same people who served in it as an artillery unit. “While the transition of the weapons platform is interesting, what makes the story compelling is that the Marines and Sailors in that formation are not changing,” said Soucie. The 2nd Marine Division described the re-designation as the start of a broader modernization of artillery battalions across the Marine Corps, with 1st Battalion, 10th Marines now the first unit to carry the medium-range missile battalion title.