Royal Marines have ventured more than 400 miles into the outback of Australia’s Northern Territory, spearheading allied forces in a major Indo-Pacific military exercise, according to a press release.
The Littoral Response Group (South) has been engaged in Exercise Predators Run, which involves over 400 UK Commandos conducting military drills alongside forces from Australia, the United States, and the Philippines.
The exercise aims to enhance their joint combat capabilities.
Operating ‘deep behind enemy lines,’ the Commandos have been conducting raids on critical infrastructure along the vast Indian Ocean coastline and bushland. These operations were intended to pave the way for allied forces to target adversary strongpoints, in collaboration with the Australian Army’s 1 Brigade.
The Commandos were deployed under the cover of darkness by helicopter and raiding craft from support ships RFA Argus and RFA Lyme Bay, which are part of a British task force designed to respond to global crises east of the Suez Canal and into the Indo-Pacific.
Lieutenant Colonel Oliver Denning RM, Commander of the Land Force of Littoral Response Group (South), highlighted the significance of the exercise: “Predators Run has presented a fantastic opportunity for us to operate in the Pacific region at a greater scale than we have achieved previously. Working closely with key regional partners and sharing lessons as we learn, it has been impressive to see how quickly we have been able to achieve genuine interoperability between our nations in a short period of time.”
The exercise tested the UK’s Commandos’ ability to operate in advance of the main allied force, far from established supply chains, and in small raiding teams designed to disrupt the enemy.
RFA Lyme Bay and RFA Argus served as launchpads for amphibious and helicopter raids, with three Commando Merlin aircraft from the Commando Helicopter Force’s 845 Naval Air Squadron flying marines into action.
Major Jack South, officer in charge of Bravo Company, reflected on the experience: “It’s provided an opportunity to test the limits of our capabilities and push beyond our own boundaries. Treating Predators Run as a rehearsal Commando Force operations in a warfighting context has been exceptionally useful.”
He added, “This has been a step change in the way we operate… working in the deep battlespace with disaggregated teams at reach and in highly contested environments.”
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Quite understandable and reasonable for RM to exercise w/ other members of AUKUS.
Presumably, a T-23 and/or T-45 would be assigned to LRG as a defensive measure during hostilities? 🤔
Great to see.
The Indo-Pacific tilt is providing the RN and RM with great recruiting PR material at relatively low cost. CSG25 (aka Operation High Mast) will hopefully give a several thousand of sailors experiences that they will never forget, with port visits to Japan confirmed, and Gibraltar, Malta, Oman, Kenya, India, Singapore, Guam and Indonesia just some of the possible additional destinations. If LRG(S) and the OPV’s are still out there, the UK’s participation in the next Five Powers Bersama Lima exercise could be spectacular in scale – and certainly larger than anything seen since the 1990’s.
Well currently HMG “plan” to go ahead with it, so fingers crossed.