A Marine missile truck can now hit targets more than 100 nautical miles away

On Oct. 9, at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, an artillery battalion that had spent decades around howitzers was redesignated as the Marine Corps’ first medium missile battalion. Its new weapon is the Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System, known as NMESIS: a remotely operated Joint Light Tactical Vehicle that fires two Naval Strike Missiles at ships or shore targets more than 100 nautical miles away.

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The unit is 1st Battalion, 10th Marines, part of the 2nd Marine Division. Col. William Soucie, who commands the 10th Marine Regiment, stressed that the Marines and sailors in the formation are as good as they have always been, and that only the platform under them is changing. The conversion is part of the Corps’ Force Design 2030 plan to build forces that can deny an adversary access to contested coastal waters.

The 1st Battalion, 10th Marines conversion at Camp Lejeune

Stars and Stripes reported on Oct. 20 that the redesignation ceremony changed the unit from artillery to a medium missile battalion, the first battalion-sized formation to adopt NMESIS. Lt. Col. Joseph Mozzi, the battalion commander, said the Corps had identified a need for a land-based capability to conduct sea denial, and Task and Purpose quoted him calling NMESIS the Marine Corps’ emerging ground-based anti-ship missile capability. The regiment will keep howitzers in another battalion, so the missile launcher is meant to add to existing cannon artillery rather than replace it.

NMESIS did not start at Lejeune. According to Military Times, the system went first to the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment in 2024 and then to the 12th Marine Littoral Regiment in 2025, and earlier in October the Corps deployed it with the Marine Air Defense Integrated System to Japan’s southwesternmost island, about 69 miles from Taiwan, for the exercise Keen Sword. None of the reports read for this article gives a launcher count for the new battalion.

Naval Strike Missile range and where the 100-mile figure comes from

The range claim traces to the missile’s maker. A Nov. 3 Defense One report by John Croxton says the launcher fires two Naval Strike Missiles at ground and naval targets more than 100 nautical miles away, and it cites a 2025 Kongsberg brochure for that number. The brochure itself could not be opened for this article, so the figure rests on Defense One’s reading of it.

Marine Corps Systems Command published an earlier data point in 2021. In its description of the program, a Naval Strike Missile flew a non-linear route of more than 100 nautical miles during Large Scale Exercise 21 and hit two targets. Military Times gives a longer figure, an effective range of 130 nautical miles in a 2021 exercise off Hawaii. Press accounts also mix units: Stars and Stripes says about 150 miles and Task and Purpose says more than 100 miles, and since 100 nautical miles equals roughly 115 statute miles, the nautical figure is the one tied to a published test.

The Marine Corps chose to build around an existing weapon. The program office picked the Navy’s Naval Strike Missile instead of developing a new round, a decision the Marine Corps Systems Command account ties to lower cost and risk. Lt. Col. John Fraser of the Marine Corps Combat Development Directorate described NMESIS in that account as a force modernization priority central to the Corps’ contribution to the naval expeditionary force’s anti-surface warfare campaign. The pairing means the new battalion’s missile is a proven sea-skimming design, and the new element is the unmanned truck that carries it.

An unmanned launcher with a Marine at the trigger

The launcher is a ROGUE-Fires vehicle, short for Remotely-Operated Ground Unit for Expeditionary Fires, built on a Joint Light Tactical Vehicle chassis. Marines can drive it with a game-style remote controller, or set several launchers to follow a lead vehicle autonomously. Joe McPherson, the Marine Corps Systems Command program manager for Long Range Fires, said the design gives the Corps a launcher that can survive inside an enemy’s weapons engagement zone, because the crew sits away from the vehicle.

A human still decides when it fires. McPherson said a Marine plans the mission and launches the missile, and that the fire control system is completely separate from the autonomy software. Defense One adds that the vehicle is a modified Oshkosh JLTV carrying autonomy packages from Forterra and Kodiak AI.

ROGUE Fires orders and what the reports leave open

Defense One places NMESIS inside a broader story on military ground robots and says it is part of roughly $92 million in Marine Corps ROGUE Fires orders this year. Defense One attributes that sum to Defence Blog, whose page could not be loaded for this article, so the figure is repeated here as Defense One’s reporting and not as a confirmed contract value.

Two practical questions remain open. The battalion’s launcher total has not been published in the coverage reviewed, and the 100-nautical-mile figure is a manufacturer-sourced reach rather than a distance the 1st Battalion has demonstrated since its Oct. 9 conversion.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.