The Marine Corps redesignated a Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, artillery battalion to the service’s first-ever medium missile battalion.
The 1st Battalion, 10th Marine Regiment, will be equipped with the Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System, or NMESIS, as part of the ongoing Marine Corps Force Design 2030 modernization plan, according to a recent release.
Lt. Col. Joseph Mozzi, the battalion’s commanding officer, called making the service NMESIS-capable “a crucial step to facilitate the maritime component commanders to fight for sea control.”
“[The NMESIS] is the Marine Corps’ emerging ground-based anti-ship missile capability, and it will also be a ground-based long-range precision fires platform,” he said in the announcement.
The NMESIS consists of an unmanned Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, or JLTV, with two Naval Strike Missiles mounted atop the chassis, according to the service.
The service added that during a 2021 exercise, Marines successfully tested the weapon system off the coast of Hawaii, where it had an effective range of 130 nautical miles. Later, it introduced the system to the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment in 2024 and to the 12th Marine Littoral Regiment in 2025.
Earlier this month, the Marine Corps deployed NMESIS along with the Marine Air Defense Integrated System, or MADIS, to Japan’s southwesternmost island — some 69 miles from Taiwan — for exercise Keen Sword.
Although the 1st Battalion is now a medium missile battalion, the 10th Marines aren’t done with artillery.
Col. William Soucie, commanding officer of 10th Regiment, 2nd Marines Division, explained that the regiment will retain its lightweight Howitzer capabilities, with NMESIS as a complement to it.
“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,” he said. “They are just as good as they have always been, and they will make the platform successful and whatever mission they are assigned successful because they are phenomenal.”
Daniel Terrill is a contributor to Military Times. He’s been reporting on military issues, the gun industry, and the outdoors for nearly two decades. Although writing is his passion, he’s been a Marine, police officer, and, perhaps the most dangerous job of his career, a substitute teacher.
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