Today the transfer of the Naval Group of Beach of its present homeport to the Arsenal of the Carraca in San Fernando has been published.

The Naval Group of Beach is the unit that groups to the LCM (mechanized landing craft) that support the amphibious ships of the Spanish Navy. It had its homeport in the Naval Station of Puntales, in the city of Cadiz. Its new homeport will be located in the Arsenal of La Carraca, in San Fernando. This transfer will be carried out progressively until its effective date on April 1, 2017. Thanks to the liberalization of space in the Arsenal of La Carraca can move the entire Naval Group of Beach and thus be located the unit in its center Logistical support and be located near the main unit of use, Spanish Marine Corps.

The Naval Group of the Beach is the unit whose mission is to support the landing forces in the ship-shore movement and that it carries out this task from the ships of the class Galicia (Galicia L-51 and Castilla L-52) and from the LHD Juan Carlos I (L-61). Each of these ships has the capacity to operate with four LCM (mechanized landing craft) from its flood dam.

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency, the Japan Ministry of Defense and U.S. Navy successfully used a ship-launched Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block IIA to intercept a medium-range ballistic missile target for the first time on Friday night in Hawaii.

In the Feb. 3 test, conducted at about 10:30 p.m. Hawaii Standard Time (3:30 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, Feb. 4), a target was launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility at Kauai, according to a MDA statement. USS John Paul Jones (DDG-53) detected and tracked the target missile with its AN/SPY-1D(V) radar and Aegis Combat System Baseline 9.C2 system. The ship fired a SM-3 Block IIA – being jointly developed by the U.S. and Japan – and intercepted the target.

Source: USNI News