Marines and sailors from 1st Marine Expeditionary Brigade, I Marine Expeditionary Force and the U.S. Navy’s Expeditionary Strike Group-3, Commander, Third Fleet, announced the official commencement of multinational amphibious exercise Dawn Blitz 2013 off the Southern California coast, June 11-28.
Dawn Blitz 2013 is a culminating exercise in a continuum of training designed to test the Navy and Marine Corps’ abilities in the planning and execution of complex amphibious operations from ship-to-shore. The initial, synthetic-based portion occurred Jan. 28-31, 2013, aboard the USS Boxer and at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton. The live portion includes more than 5,000 U.S. Marines, sailors and coalition forces from Canada, Japan, and New Zealand; as well as military observers from seven countries.
Featured training includes large-scale amphibious assaults, sea-basing operations, mine warfare operations, live-fire opportunities, and Maritime Prepositioning of Forces (MPF), battle-space shaping operations, force-on-force training, special operations forces, operational planning, live-fire opportunities, infantry immersion training, shipboard driver qualification, MV-22 take-offs and landing aboard a Japanese ship, and the largest multilateral amphibious landing on Camp Pendleton’s Red Beach, June 24.
DB 2010 and 2011 were the first and largest amphibious exercises for San Diego Navy and Marine Corps units since 2001. DB 2013 plays a vital role in returning the Navy and Marine Corps to its amphibious roots at the Marine Expeditionary Brigade (MEB) and Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG) levels for effective global crisis response across the range of military operations. Amphibious task forces are crucial to maritime power projection at sea and ashore.
“Dawn Blitz 2013 builds on an already close partnership between Canadian, Japanese and New Zealand militaries, which strengthens our capacity to respond to a variety of regional challenges, including regional disasters” Brig. Gen. John Broadmeadow, commanding general, 1st MEB.
Related exercises to the DB exercise continuum include Iron Fist, Pacific Horizon and Javelin Thrust.
[mappress] Press Release, June 12, 2013; Image: US Marines