Sun, May 24, 2026 page9

• US forces eye ‘shoot and scoot’ strategy in theoretical Pacific war

  Long-range rocket artillery gives littoral forces fangs, but the survivability of fixed positions dwindles

  • By David Rising / AP, GOTEMBA, Japan
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  With a burst of flame, followed by a thunderclap boom that broke the serenity of the training area in the foothills of Japan’s Mount Fuji, the first rocket fired by the US Marines from their mobile launcher screamed toward its target, the orange burn of its engine painting a streak across the blue sky.

  Another five rockets followed in rapid succession, before a second High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) truck drove out of concealment in a copse of evergreens, fired its salvo of six rockets, then retreated back to cover.

  The live-fire exercise this week at the US military’s Camp Fuji maneuver area lasted only a few minutes, but was a significant demonstration to Pacific allies of US capabilities as Washington seeks to deter possible Chinese aggression against Taiwan.

  

  US Marines fire rockets from a HIMARS launcher during live-fire training at Camp Fuji in Gotemba, Japan, on May 20.

  Photo: AP

  STRENGTH TO DETER

  It was also a demonstration of how the US is shifting tactics in the Pacific, as China’s People’s Liberation Army rapidly modernizes.

  “The US does not want China to invade Taiwan, but it would not be relying on the traditional aircraft carrier-based attack wings of the past,” said Euan Graham, senior defense analyst with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

  “In Iran, with the US conflict there, there were over 40 US aircraft, manned and unmanned, either destroyed or damaged against a much less capable adversary, so in the case of conflict with China that vulnerability would be much greater,” he said. “That’s why we’re seeing the US emphasizing ... these smaller units.”

  According to the Pentagon’s latest annual report to Congress, the goal is to “deny the ability of any country in the Indo-Pacific to dominate us or our allies.” It said the priority was on bolstering deterrence “through strength, not confrontation.”

  MOBILITY IS LIFE

  HIMARS is a truck-mounted pod of rockets that can be hidden from drone or satellite surveillance, driven out to fire its GPS-guided missiles, then quickly back to a new hidden position using what the military commonly calls “shoot-and-scoot” tactics.

  “It depends on the crew, but it can get as fast as four minutes, (even) two minutes sometimes,” said Sgt. Kevin Alvarez, section chief of one of the two Fox Battery, 3rd Battalion, 12th Marines, 3rd Marine Division HIMARS launchers involved in the Camp Fuji exercise.

  Introduced about 20 years ago, the HIMARS was used in Iraq and Afghanistan, but was largely unknown to the general public until Ukraine used it with great success in its fight against Russia.

  Those conflicts, especially with the use of drones on the battlefield that can quickly identify dug-in artillery positions, have underscored the value of mobility, said Lieutenant Colonel Ryan Anness, commander of the 3rd Battalion.

  “They’re much quicker, much faster and much easier to hide than, say, traditional cannon artillery, and obviously having the precision fire weapons and having the ability to hide easier is why so many countries, and why it’s important for us, to have the HIMARS,” he said.

  LONG-RANGE GUNNERY

  The HIMARS can fire a variety of ordnance. Initially, only shorter-range munitions were provided to Ukraine, until the US decided to allow Kyiv to have the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), which can hit targets at about 300km away.

  In the first days of the war against Iran after the US and Israel attacked on Feb. 28, the HIMARS was used to fire ATACMS and, for the first time in combat, the even longer-range Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM), sinking “multiple” Iranian surface ships and a submarine in port, Air Force General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said.

  The PrSM can reach targets at ranges greater than 500km, according to manufacturer Lockheed Martin.

  Together with the Army’s Typhon — another truck-based launcher that shoots longer-range Tomahawk cruise missiles and other munitions, but is less maneuverable than the HIMARS — the two systems could easily cover the Taiwan Strait, and the strategically important Luzon Strait, between the Philippines and Taiwan, if deployed on Taiwan and the Philippine and Japanese islands nearby, Graham said.

  Both sea lanes would be critical to any sort of Chinese invasion or blockade plan.

  “In advance of a conflict around Taiwan, there would likely be a large-scale outflux of US assets within the envelope of China’s missile capabilities,” Graham said. “All that would be left is submarines, which are more survivable, and small units based on rugged survivability — mobile systems like the HIMARS.”

  PARTNERSHIP

  The maneuvers carried out at Camp Fuji used dummy rockets — concrete-filled tubes with no explosives — and were carried out under strict safety guidelines and observed by Japanese military officials, who shut down a local road during the exercise just in case one of the projectiles fell short.

  Although safety rules meant running the live-fire exercise slower than the HIMARS would be used in combat, Anness stressed the value of it both for his Marines and for ties with US allies.

  “Being able to have long-range precision-fire weapons provides deterrence here in the Pacific and we train with our Japanese partners as much as we can to make sure we’re ready,” he said.
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