Talisman Sabre. Juniper Oak. Air Defender. 2023 is full of military exercises, and let’s be honest, they have some great names. The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps just wrapped up another joint training operation, Large Scale Exercise (LSE).
While the name is certainly lacking in creativity, the Pentagon called LSE “one of the most realistic and technologically advanced exercises” ever executed.
LSE certainly lived up to its name. Twenty-five thousand sailors and Marines across 22 time zones took part in this year’s Large Scale Exercise. It’s the second iteration of the event, the first one held back in 2021.
LSE 2023 simulated a scenario where two near-peer adversary nations were acting aggressively, and this virtual situation required a multi-faceted global response from the U.S. Navy and Marines.
LSE combined both live and virtual elements into the training, including everything from aircraft carriers to submarines to shore logistics and maintenance crews.
The advanced technology on the Navy vessels allows them all to connect through a massive virtual network. For instance, with the ease of essentially playing a video game, sailors sitting on a ship docked in North Carolina could interact with their fellow sailors onboard a ship in the Mediterranean Sea to coordinate operations as if both ships were in the same location.
Various virtual and live ships and elements also took part in LSE, as well as a host of virtual combatants from the two near-peer adversarial nations.
While the Navy didn’t say the two enemy nations were meant to simulate China and Russia, USNI News reported the tactics employed by the enemy vessels in LSE were based on “real world events.”
“We’re using their order of battle and their numbers, too. This is very, very realistic. It’s what you’re going to face in a real operations review to determine the adversary and, if necessary, fight the adversary,” Adm. Jamie Foggo told reporters.
The sheer size of Large Scale Exercise is designed to test the fundamental components of how the Marines and Navy will fight in future conflicts. After two decades locked in land-battles, the Marines are going back to their island-hopping roots, relying more on expeditionary tactics to operate from littoral regions.
The Navy will need to counter emerging threats like unmanned systems and new electronic warfare measures, as well as the old favorites like anti-ship missiles, torpedoes, submarines and other surface vessels.
While the warfighting was all virtual, the crew of the USS Porter still had time to perform some real-life heroics during LSE 2023. Four civilian scuba divers, who had been missing for 14 hours, were spotted floating on a small raft about 40 nautical miles off the coast of North Carolina.
The USS Porter sent a small support craft to rescue the divers. Vice Adm. Daniel Dwyer, commander of the U.S. Navy’s second fleet, said, “The fact that Porter was able to conduct the rescue while actively participating in one of the biggest global naval exercises of the year is a testament to the crew’s flexibility and readiness.”