Operation Dawn Blitz

Operation Dawn Blitz is an annual military exercise orchestrated by the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps to simulate an amphibious assault by landing infantry and support on a beachhead.

While it may be simple and comparatively cheap to train an infantryman in basic combat drills, Operation Dawn Blitz is instead focused on the development of operational and cooperative capacity with the use of military hardware such as the LCAC, and the exercise of combined arms tactics with the goal of simulating the combat environment for all participants.

In 2013, Approximately 5,000 ground and naval forces such as; Marines, sailors and troops from Japan, Canada and New Zealand participated.

In 2015, an international task force composed of U.S., Japanese, and Mexican ships was assembled featuring additional participation by New Zealand infantry and observers from Australia, Colombia and Chile.

'Blitz' is a German word for lightning, and is used as a shorthand for Blitzkrieg—an early type of combined arms and maneuver warfare from which the US Marines contemporary combat doctrine was based.