US, Indian troops hold large-scale joint landing drill on Kakinada Beach in Andhra Pradesh
Nearly 1,000 personnel participate in Exercise Tiger Triumph 2025, focusing on humanitarian assistance and disaster response readiness
Hyderabad: Nearly 1,000 US and Indian military personnel took part in a large-scale amphibious landing drill on Kakinada Beach, Andhra Pradesh, on Friday, as part of the culminating event in Exercise Tiger Triumph 2025, the combined US-India exercise focused on humanitarian assistance and disaster response readiness.
The joint combined UD-India forces were tasked with securing space in a coastal area, as well as setting up a field hospital and supply distribution site there following a notional natural disaster.
“Every year this exercise builds on the previous one and breaks new ground. It is through exercises like Tiger Triumph that the US and India achieve mutual security objectives and assure a free and open Indo-Pacific region and beyond,” the US Consul General of Hyderabad, Jennifer Larson, in a statement said.
A closing ceremony aboard the US Navy’s Whidbey Island-class dock landing ship USS Comstock (LSD 45) is scheduled to take place in the coming days to officially end the exercise.
“The Tiger Triumph 2025 beach landing is the result of substantial gains in our level of integration with the Indian Armed Forces at all levels of the joint forces, and in all domains, as well as wringing out effective combined C2,” said Rear Adm. Greg Newkirk, Commander, Task Force (CTF) 70 and commander of the US joint forces.
The landing force included US Marines from the 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion aboard Assault Craft Unit (ACU) 5 Landing Crafts Air Cushion (LCAC) launched from Comstock; as well as Indian Army personnel from the 4/8 Gurkha Rifles Infantry Battalion, 91st Infantry Brigade, aboard Landing Crafts Mechanised (LCM) launched from the amphibious transport dock INS Jalashwa (L 41).
