U.S. Marines Conduct LAV-25 Ship-to-Shore Amphibious Assault During Recon Drills in Japan.

U.S. Marines from III Marine Expeditionary Force, led by the forward-deployed 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, are rehearsing ship-to-shore combat operations at Kin Blue Beach in Okinawa ahead of Exercise Iron Fist 26. The training reflects how rapidly amphibious landings must now generate combat power inland before adversary sensors and long-range fires can target the beachhead.

Japanese Okinawa’s Kin Blue Beach has become a proving ground once again as U.S. Marines from III Marine Expeditionary Force, with the forward-deployed 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit at the center of the effort, rehearse the kind of ship-to-shore movement that has returned to the top of Indo-Pacific war planning. With Iron Fist 26 on the calendar, the focus of these recent evolutions has been about how fast a landing force can build combat power inland before an adversary’s sensors and long-range fires lock onto the beachhead.
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U.S. Marine Corps LAV-25 8x8 light armored reconnaissance vehicle, combining high mobility with stabilized 25 mm firepower and day-night thermal sights to scout, screen, and provide overwatch during ship-to-shore operations (Picture source: U.S. DoW).

In that opening window, the vehicle doing much of the heavy lifting is not a tank or a tracked assault vehicle, but the Marine Corps’ LAV-25 Light Armored Vehicle, rolling off a high-speed connector and immediately assuming the unglamorous job that often decides whether the follow-on force lands cleanly or lands into chaos.

The vehicle shown is the U.S. Marine Corps LAV-25 Light Armored Vehicle, fielded in upgraded configurations that pair a proven 8x8 chassis with improved sights and turret drive. In Marine doctrine, its value is not brute protection, but the ability to see first, move fast, and fight for information with enough firepower to punish light armor and suppress ambush positions. The LAV-25’s M242 25 mm chain gun is assessed as effective against light armored threats such as BMP and BTR class vehicles, while the platform’s Improved Thermal Sight System adds an integrated laser range finder, target motion indicator, and far target location capability that extends day-night target acquisition and engagement ranges compared to older sighting suites. In littoral terrain where lines of sight are short and concealment is abundant, that combination turns the LAV into a mobile sensor-shooter, able to identify the first enemy firing point before dismounted Marines are fully committed.

Kin Blue training also highlights a hard truth about wheeled reconnaissance in the amphibious fight: the LAV has limited swim capability and cannot cross the surf line on its own, which makes the ship-to-shore connector a tactical enabler, not a logistics afterthought. The Landing Craft Air Cushion is designed precisely for this problem set, transporting personnel, weapons, and vehicles from amphibious shipping to the objective area, then pushing directly across the beach at speed with a 60 to 75 ton payload capacity. For commanders, the LCAC compresses the timeline between “wheels up” and “guns oriented inland,” which matters when a peer threat’s surveillance and long-range fires can turn a slow offload into a targeting event.

The LAV-25’s first minutes ashore are about creating space for the battalion landing team. Marine Corps doctrine emphasizes the LAV’s operational mobility and cross-country performance, including 8-wheel drive for off-road movement, the ability to climb steep gradients, and the practical reality that LAR units often operate dispersed and at distance from the main ground combat element. In an integrated section attack, the LAV typically establishes a rapid screen line, punches reconnaissance down likely avenues, and overwatches choke points that can channel a counterattack into the beachhead. Its self-screening smoke grenade launchers and stabilized direct-fire turret give it the ability to break contact or mask friendly maneuver, while its organic communications architecture is built for operating on multiple nets in a fluid situation. This is why the LAV’s role is strategically disproportionate to its size: it buys decision time, and decision time is what a landing force spends to survive.

In the 31st MEU construct, the LAV’s impact is amplified when paired with the battalion’s Combined Anti-Armor Team. In a detailed Marine Corps account of 31st MEU ship-to-shore training, CAAT is described as a mix of eight combat-ready trucks, combining M2 .50 caliber machine guns, Mk-19 grenade launchers, and M41A7 Saber missile system vehicles firing TOW missiles, with the Saber trucks also carrying an M240B machine gun. The operational logic is clear: LAV-25s find, fix, and shape the fight at speed, while CAAT delivers layered anti-armor and heavy direct fire from positions that can be displaced quickly before an enemy can geolocate and bracket them. In the same reporting, CAAT and LAR are explicitly framed as demonstrating the MEU’s surface quick reaction force capability, the kind of mobile “answer now” element that a maritime commander can commit without waiting for heavier ground forces to flow ashore.

The 31st MEU is the Marine Corps’ only continuously forward-deployed MEU, built to provide a flexible crisis-response MAGTF able to execute amphibious operations and limited contingency missions in the Indo-Pacific. Pre-deployment workups like MEUEX are designed to “weld together” the MAGTF and drive what the MEU’s commander has described as “first night of the war” readiness before embarking and repeating the cycle with Navy shipping. In the Iron Fist 26 context, the broader aim is to improve U.S.-Japan amphibious interoperability and operational capability across the first island chain, a geography that both allies increasingly treat as the practical front line of deterrence.

The takeaway is not that the LAV-25 is a new platform, but that it remains a decisive connector between sensors, maneuver, and firepower in the littorals when used correctly. The LAV’s real job in these drills is to reduce uncertainty: confirm where the enemy could be, force early reactions, and keep the landing force moving before the adversary’s kill chain closes. In an era where the beachhead is no longer a pause point but a phase line under observation, the humble 8x8 reconnaissance vehicle, inserted at speed by LCAC and reinforced by CAAT, is still one of the fastest ways to turn a contested shoreline into usable ground.

Written by Evan Lerouvillois, Defense Analyst.

Evan studied International Relations, and quickly specialized in defense and security. He is particularly interested in the influence of the defense sector on global geopolitics, and analyzes how technological innovations in defense, arms export contracts, and military strategies influence the international geopolitical scene.