US and Japanese Forces to Train as Typhon Missile System Arrives in Southern Japan

(CNA, Tokyo, June 10, comprehensive foreign report) Vehicles for the U.S. military's Typhon ground-based missile launching system were recently transported to a Self-Defense Force base in Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. Japanese media reported that the U.S. military and the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) plan to hold joint training from the 22nd of this month until September, and the Typhon will be temporarily deployed at the aforementioned base.

Minami-Nippon Broadcasting (MBC) reported today that a U.S. military C-17 transport plane flew into the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force's Kanoya Air Base (Kanoya Base) yesterday afternoon and unloaded a vehicle for the long-range missile launcher, Typhon. The base is located in Kanoya City, Kagoshima Prefecture.

Kanoya Base is also one of the locations for exercises between U.S. and Japanese forces, and the Typhon ground-based missile launching system is expected to be temporarily deployed at this base during the exercise period.

The Typhon can carry cruise missiles with a range of about 1,600 kilometers. It operates with a missile-launching vehicle paired with a command-and-control vehicle, forming a two-vehicle set. This range can reach mainland China.

On the 7th of this month, a transport plane had already delivered a Typhon vehicle to Kanoya Base. The report speculates that with another vehicle arriving yesterday, the two vehicles required for operation appear to be complete.

Although the Typhon will not conduct live-fire training, Japan's Ministry of Defense (equivalent to a ministry of defense) has not disclosed whether actual missiles will be brought into the base.

Kyodo News previously cited sources as saying that the U.S. military is expected to move the Typhon launcher to a U.S. military base in Japan for storage after a series of exercises.