SAN ANTONIO, Zambales - The Philippines-Australia (PH-Aus) Exercise Alon conducted a Combined Amphibious Assault exercise at the Naval Station Leovigildo Gantioqui on August 25, 2023.
This exercise marks the second and final phase of amphibious action after the air assault exercise in Palawan earlier this week.
This is the first time that Philippines and Australia have conducted Exercise Alon which forms part of Australia’s Indo-Pacific Endeavour 2023 program.
A result of months of planning and preparation by the AFP and the ADF with assistance from the United States Marine Corps (USMC), the training exercise at Naval Station Leovigildo Gantioqui included Pre-Landing Operations where the Philippine Marine Corps and ADF Force Reconnaissance Group were inserted via small boats to observe the beach landing sites.
The Combined Joint Force Entry Operations were carried out by launching a combined amphibious landing to secure the beach landing sites, followed by parachute insertion to seize the objectives and a simultaneous landing via landing craft and USMC MV-22B Osprey tiltrotor aircraft. The recovery of forces and equipment will occur on August 26, 2023.
Participants included 560 from the AFP, and 1,200 from the ADF, with support from the 120 USMC. Assets supporting were HMA ships Canberra and Anzac, with the Tarlac-class BRP Davao Del Sur (LD 602); close air support from Royal Australian Air Force F-35A Lightning II aircraft; Australian Army M1A1 Abrams tank and two Philippine Marine Corps Amphibious Assault Vehicles, with air lift support by Darwin-based USMC MV-22B.
This Combined Amphibious Assault exercise seeks to enhance the conduct of combined operations and improve tactics, techniques, and procedures to ensure the effective use of all combat arms integrated via force-level command and control.
Exercise Alon enables the AFP and ADF to work closely together to increase interoperability, and deepen people-to-people links to enhance defence cooperation.///
