Japanese Type-16 Maneuver Combat Vehicles fire on a target during live-fire training at Hijyudai Maneuver Area in Oita prefecture, Japan, June 28, 2026. (Brian McElhiney/Stars and Stripes)
HIJYUDAI MANUEVER AREA, Oita, Japan — U.S. Marines and Japanese infantry rained live fire on this training ground on Kyushu recently while rehearsing the means to seize and defend contested islands during the centerpiece drill of this year’s Resolute Dragon.
Ninety Marines with the 12th Littoral Combat Team and 300 soldiers with the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force’s 8th Division brought rifle and mortar fire to bear on a series of targets at progressive distances during the roughly 90-minute drill Sunday. The combat team is the main island-fighting force of the 12th Marine Littoral Regiment.
U.K., Philippine, French and Australian armed forces were on hand as observers.
The Japanese and Americans rehearsed expeditionary advanced base operations, a key tenet of the Marines’ Force Design restructuring plan, by integrating their fires, III Marine Expeditionary Force spokesman 1st Lt. Owen Hitchcock told Stars and Stripes after the exercise.
Expeditionary advanced base operations call for small, mobile groups to disperse within the range of enemy missiles to seize and hold islands and sink enemy vessels.
“This training range offers a lot of great areas for us to practice what really matters, which is that [command and control] and our joint fires capabilities, Hitchcock said.
A Marine Corps Stalker VXE30 drone soars overhead during live-fire training at Hijyudai Maneuver Area, Oita prefecture, Japan, June 28, 2026. (Brian McElhiney/Stars and Stripes)
Resolute Dragon, an annual exercise between the Marines and Japan, is in its sixth year. The 10-day exercise concludes Tuesday.
The littoral regiment — another key element of Force Design — was stood up in November 2023 and has participated in Resolute Dragon since 2024.
Littoral regiments are smaller, mobile units inserted within enemy missile range to seize and hold key islands and deny enemy vessels access to surrounding areas.
“I think each year and each training event that we execute here with the JGSDF, we’re growing that partnership and our understanding of one another, especially that human connection,” regiment spokeswoman 1st Lt. Ellen Sullivan said after the training.
Japanese Type 19 wheeled self-propelled 155mm howitzers kicked off the exercise with a barrage of artillery fire, clearing the way for heavy vehicles, including Japan’s Type-16 Maneuver Combat Vehicles, to roll onto the field.
“All that is funneling fires into a certain area to set conditions for ground troops who are closest to the target to be able to move up safely to that overhead column,” Hitchcock said.
Artillery fire hits a target during live-fire training between U.S. Marines with the 12th Littoral Regiment and Japanese soldiers at Hijyudai Maneuver Area in Oita prefecture, Japan, June 28, 2026. (Brian McElhiney/Stars and Stripes)
Marines and Japanese soldiers then moved in on Japanese armored personnel carriers and fired on the target areas.
A second advance of Japanese maneuver combat vehicles took aim at the rear and flank positions, simulating territory reclamation, according to information sheets presented at the exercise.
To detect enemy movements during the exercise, Marines and Japanese soldiers deployed many small, unmanned aerial vehicles.
Marines operated unarmed Neros Archer drones — first-person-view drones that can carry explosive payloads. A Stalker VXE30 drone with a 16-foot wingspan also glided overhead, relaying simulated enemy positions.
“The Stalker has an infrared payload, so we can see enemies at night,” Cpl. James Ciccone with the combat team told reporters during a drone presentation after the exercise.
The Stalker is also equipped with a smoke-and-target tool that allows it to “put a point down on the smoke of the [mortar] impact and another point on the target, and then we can get the corrections needed for the mortarmen so they can have accurate fires,” he said.
