US Marines forward-deployed in the Pacific recently conducted training using a new type of combat- and reconnaissance-capable watercraft.
Designated as a multi-mission reconnaissance craft (MMRC), the 40-foot (11-metre) vessel was built to be capable of reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance, surveillance, target acquisition, interdiction, and battlespace shaping operations, all while possessing low-observable features that make it difficult to be detected by hostile forces' sensors.
The 40-foot MMRC is one of two that were accepted by the Marine Corps War Fighting Lab in 2024 following completion by Australia-New Zealand partnership the Whiskey Project Group (TWPG). Each boat can carry up to eight troops and a small inflatable raiding boat.
The marines conducted training with the vessel out of Naha in Okinawa. Activities included transit, insertion, and extraction of small reconnaissance teams across various islands. Among other things, the training validated the 40-foot MMRC's ability to deploy personnel over long distances without relying on a larger seagoing vessel.
The marine corps is assessing the MRRC's viability in supporting operations across the so-called first island chain, a string of islands stretching from Japan through Taiwan and the Philippines considered to be the geographic front line in the event of war between China and the United States together with its Indo-Pacific allies.
TWPG had also developed a 31-foot (9.5-metre) variant of the MMRC for the US Department of Defense.