The US Army is to establish a new air defense battalion in Guam in October as the US military continues to improve defenses on the strategic western Pacific island, defense Web site TWZ reported on Monday.
The US territory of Guam, along with islands farther east in the Pacific — including Palau, the Marianas and the Carolines — are often referred to as the Second Island Chain, while the area from Japan through Taiwan, the northern Philippines and Borneo is called the First Island Chain.
The new unit would be designated the 3rd Battalion, 43rd Air Defense Artillery Regiment and armed with Patriot air defense missiles and Enduring Shield, low-tier systems that fire AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles, TWZ reported.
Photo: Reuters / US Army/Captain Adan Cazarez / Handout
The air defense battalion is to be integrated into the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery in Guam to defend the US military base on the strategically important island, it said.
“We’ve been working to increase the level of protection on Guam. In the past, we’ve had the THAAD battery there, and of course, Aegis BMD [ballistic missile defense capable] ship[s],” US Army Colonel Matt Dalton, deputy commander of the 94th Army Air and Missile Defense Artillery Command, told the Web site.
“We’ve been working the past few years to increase that to provide a 360 degree defense, cruise missile defense, of the homeland” on Guam, Dalton was quoted as saying at a panel at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama.
The commander arrived in Guam this summer, and 120 officers and soldiers assigned to the unit are on already the island to join the troops serving in the THAAD battery, Dalton said.
The command expects the delivery of the weapon systems in the coming months, he said.
“The battalion will have both the Patriot Missile System and IFPC [indirect fire protection capability], or mobile ground-based launchers, which they will integrate to provide 360 degree, layered air and missile defense for Guam as part of our expansion to the defensive architecture to better protect everyone living there,” an army spokesperson told TWZ in response to a request for additional information.
The IFPC Increment 2 led to the acquisition of the Enduring Shield, a system primarily designed to intercept cruise missiles and uncrewed aerial vehicles, TWZ said.
The Enduring Shield system comprises four launchers linked to at least one AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel-series radar via the Integrated Battle Command System network, the US Army said, adding that it is operated by a platoon.
It is not known whether the Patriot missiles of the battalion would come from new production or draw from existing stock, TWZ said.
The regiment would form part of the Guam Defense System, a planned air defense complex that has installed a prototype ground-based vertical launch system capable of launching SM-3 and SM-4 high-performance interceptors.
The US Army’s air defense forces are under pressure from the ongoing conflict in Iran, where a combination of drone swarms and more conventional missiles has strained US capabilities and its missile stockpile, TWZ said.
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