The Role of Experimentation in Building Future Naval Forces
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NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.
This study was supported by Contract No. N00014-00-G-0230, DO #12, between the National Academy of Sciences and the Department of the Navy. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizations or agencies that provided support for the project.
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COMMITTEE FOR THE ROLE OF EXPERIMENTATION IN BUILDING FUTURE NAVAL FORCES
ANNETTE J. KRYGIEL,
Great Falls, Virginia,
Chair
RUZENA K. BAJCSY,
Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society, University of California, Berkeley
ALAN BERMAN,
Applied Research Laboratory, Pennsylvania State University
DUNCAN A. BROWN,
Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University
MARION R. BRYSON,
North Tree Management
JOHN D. CHRISTIE,
Logistics Management Institute
JOHN A. CORDER,
Colleyville, Texas
PAUL K. DAVIS,
RAND and RAND Graduate School of Policy Studies
BRIG “CHIP” ELLIOTT,
BBN Technologies
J. DEXTER FLETCHER,
Institute for Defense Analyses
RICHARD J. IVANETICH,
Institute for Defense Analyses
L. DAVID MONTAGUE,
Menlo Park, California
WILLIAM B. MORGAN,
Rockville, Maryland
JASON PROVIDAKES,
MITRE Corporation
JOHN E. RHODES,
Balboa, California
WILLIAM D. SMITH,
Fayetteville, Pennsylvania
MICHAEL G. SOVEREIGN,
Monterey, California
MITZI M. WERTHEIM,
Center for Naval Analyses
CINDY WILLIAMS,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
JOSEPH ZEIDNER,
Bethesda, Maryland
Staff
RONALD D. TAYLOR, Director (on leave as of July 12, 2003)
CHARLES F. DRAPER, Acting Director (as of July 12, 2003)
MARY G. GORDON, Information Officer
SUSAN G. CAMPBELL, Administrative Assistant
IAN M. CAMERON, Project Assistant
SEYMOUR J. DEITCHMAN, Consultant
SIDNEY G. REED, JR., Consultant
JAMES G. WILSON, Consultant
NAVAL STUDIES BOARD
VINCENT VITTO,
Charles S. Draper Laboratory, Inc.,
Chair
JOSEPH B. REAGAN,
Saratoga, California,
Vice Chair
ARTHUR B. BAGGEROER,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
ALAN BERMAN,
Applied Research Laboratory, Pennsylvania State University,
Special Advisor
JAMES P. BROOKS,
Litton/Ingalls Shipbuilding, Inc.
JOHN D. CHRISTIE,
Logistics Management Institute
RUTH A. DAVID,
Analytic Services, Inc.
ANTONIO L. ELIAS,
Orbital Sciences Corporation
BRIG “CHIP” ELLIOTT,
BBN Technologies
FRANK A. HORRIGAN,
Bedford, Massachusetts
JOHN W. HUTCHINSON,
Harvard University
RICHARD J. IVANETICH,
Institute for Defense Analyses
HARRY W. JENKINS,
ITT Industries
MIRIAM E. JOHN,
Sandia National Laboratories
DAVID V. KALBAUGH,
Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University
ANNETTE J. KRYGIEL,
Great Falls, Virginia
L. DAVID MONTAGUE,
Menlo Park, California
WILLIAM B. MORGAN,
Rockville, Maryland
JOHN H. MOXLEY III,
Korn/Ferry International
ROBERT B. OAKLEY,
National Defense University
NILS R. SANDELL, JR.,
ALPHATECH, Inc.
JAMES M. SINNETT,
Ballwin, Missouri
WILLIAM D. SMITH,
Fayetteville, Pennsylvania
RICHARD L. WADE,
Risk Management Sciences
MITZI M. WERTHEIM,
Center for Naval Analyses
CINDY WILLIAMS,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Navy Liaison Representatives
RADM LEWIS W. CRENSHAW,
USN, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, N81 (through June 6, 2003)
RADM JOSEPH A. SESTAK, JR.,
USN, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, N81 (as of July 15, 2003)
RADM JAY M. COHEN,
USN, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, N91
Marine Corps Liaison Representative
LTGEN EDWARD HANLON, JR.,
USMC, Commanding General,
Marine Corps Combat Development Command
Preface
As we enter the 21st century, the Department of Defense (DOD) seeks to transform the nation’s armed forces to meet the military challenges of the future. The absence of a threatening major power in today’s world offers the DOD a rare opportunity to experiment, change, innovate, and transform its forces to meet tomorrow’s needs while at the same time addressing today’s missions. Various reviews currently under way are seeking to establish strategic guidelines for building tomorrow’s joint military forces. In addition, activities such as the DOD’s fiscal year 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review help to ensure that Navy and Marine Corps programs, processes, and organizations, and the capabilities that they create, are integral to realizing the objectives of joint forces. In this context, the development of joint warfighting capabilities is among the most important of the future issues facing the Department of Defense (and the Department of the Navy), and the recent war with Iraq has accelerated recognition of future requirements and the development of concepts to address them.1
During the past decade, experimentation has taken on increased importance in building naval force capabilities. Through its fleet battle experiments, the Navy has attempted to explore and use emerging systems and technologies in order to develop new operational concepts. The Marine Corps Warfighting
Laboratory has conducted experiments designed in part to identify new operational concepts and the capabilities that would be needed to support such concepts as Expeditionary Maneuver Warfare, Operational Maneuver From the Sea, and Ship to Objective Maneuver. The U.S. Joint Forces Command is now charged with leading the transformation of the armed forces and meeting the national security challenges of the 21st century, in addition to being the primary catalyst for joint force integration, training, experimentation, doctrine development, and testing.
Fertile areas for potential gain and progress are found in all three operational domains—land, sea, and air (including space). For example, the military effectiveness of ground forces (Marine Corps and Army) could be increased and cost savings realized if there were agreement on common requirements for command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) equipment and products, common and complementary operational concepts, and common training technology. Similar gains could be achieved for air operations through the adoption of common Navy and Air Force approaches to conducting such operations. Used to implement and evaluate the networking of joint forces and the development of joint operational architectures as well as interoperability across the Services’ systems, experimentation could play a significant role among all Service components in enhancing naval (and joint) force development.
Indeed, experimentation serves as a critical underpinning for the Navy’s strategy of transitioning to a network-centric naval force. It is through well-conceived and well-designed experiments (namely, technical demonstrations) that the naval forces will identify new command relationships for conducting military operations, discover information requirements necessary to support various concepts of operation, and learn how to operate in the face of degraded levels of service when under information attack.
In the near term, experimentation allows for operational and technical improvements to current force capabilities and, in some cases, for additional exercising and training of forces, thereby helping to maintain readiness. Near-term experimentation will also greatly affect long-term force development, by identifying areas in which investment will be necessary to support future operational concepts, as well as by introducing emerging technologies to meet the evolving challenges presented to naval (and joint) warfighters.
TERMS OF REFERENCE
At the request of the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), the Naval Studies Board of the National Research Council conducted a study to examine the role of experimentation in building future naval forces to operate in the joint environment. The study addresses the opportunities offered by experimentation, the implications of experimentation, and the following questions:
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What has been learned from the experiments thus far about future naval force operations and about joint operations involving the fleet and Marines?
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How has spiral development been involved and has it improved timelines and affordability? How does new technology or equipment improve naval force performance and how is spiral development best implemented to achieve desired objectives?
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How successful has been the transitioning of the results of experimentation to the field?
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How adequate are the tools and environments for experimentation (e.g., Navy’s modeling and simulation capabilities, integration facilities, etc.)?
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What important questions remain or have been raised or are being raised that are amenable to experimentation and that may or may not be on the agenda? What should be added, and how should such questions be approached (battle laboratories, fleet experiments, joint experiments, and such)?
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What process and method improvements for coherent experiment planning are needed?
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How can and should joint experimentation leverage Service experiments? How successful have Navy and Marine Corps experimentation programs been at preparing for joint operations?
COMMITTEE MEETINGS
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April 4-5, 2002, in Washington, D.C. Organizational meeting: Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (OPNAV), N70, overview of naval experimentation and the Naval Transformation Plan; U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM), J9, briefing on experimentation organization and management; Office of Naval Research (ONR) briefing on naval science and technology programs, implementation, progress, and examples; Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory overview of experimentation efforts; Navy Warfare Development Command (NWDC) overview of U.S. Navy experimentation and experimentation organization; and Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence overview of previous studies and reviews covering experimentation.
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May 2-3, 2002, in Washington, D.C. Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, N79, briefing on Navy education and training in the context of experimentation; Marine Corps Systems Command (SYSCOM) briefing on Marine Corps systems engineering efforts and the SYSCOM’s role in spiral development; Marine Corps Combat Development Command briefing on Marine Corps concepts and doctrine development and education and on training efforts; Office of Naval Research briefing on extending the littoral battlespace; Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) briefing on the Navy’s systems engineering efforts and the SYSCOM’s role in spiral development; Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, and Acquisition (ASN (RDA)) and NAVSEA
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briefings on the status of ASN (RDA) chief engineer; and retired leaders’ perspectives on Army and Navy experimentation.
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July 9-11, 2002, in Newport, Rhode Island. Site visit to NWDC for an overview of NWDC and briefings from NWDC Concept Development Department, Technology Department, Operations Department, Modeling and Simulation Department, Doctrine Department, and the Maritime Battle Center, as well as an overview of NWDC Assured Access Warfighter Innovation Development Team (WIDT), Forward Sea-Based Forces WIDT, Anti-Terrorism/Force Protection WIDT, Information Knowledge Advantage WIDT, and Effects Based Operations WIDT; and CNO Strategic Studies Group briefing on FORCEnet.
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July 30-August 1, 2002, in Hampton Roads, Virginia. Site visit to USJFCOM for an overview of USJFCOM activities, past and present, and briefings on Millennium Challenge ’02; video discussion with Commander, Second Fleet, U.S. Navy, on the fleet perspective on naval and joint experimentation; Joint Warfare Fighting Center briefings and demonstrations of the ongoing Millennium Challenge ’02; Submarine Force, U.S. Atlantic Fleet and Submarine Development Squadron 12 overview and perspective on experimentation; U.S. Atlantic Fleet perspective on naval and joint experimentation; Operational Test and Evaluation Force overview of responsibilities and perspectives on experimentation; U.S. Air Force (USAF) briefings on environments and tools supporting USAF experimentation and transitioning USAF requirements into acquisition through experimentation; Carrier Group Four/Carrier Strike Force perspective on experimentation and training of East Coast battle groups; Navy Network Warfare Command overview and briefings on its role in experimentation; and discussion with First Marine Expeditionary Force/First Marine Expeditionary Brigade on recent experiences during Operation Enduring Freedom in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and how experimentation might have played a role.
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August 15-16, 2002, in Washington, D.C. Marine Corps Combat Development Command overview and briefings on Expeditionary Force Development System, Transformation and Concepts, Joint Concept Development Experimentation, and the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory; MITRE Corporation briefings on recent assessments of naval experimentation; and Army Director of Information Operations, Networks, and Space and Director of Information Systems for Command, Control, Communications, and Computers insights into Army experimentation efforts.
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September 5-6, 2002, in Washington, D.C. Planning meeting for report chapter captains and briefing by U.S. Navy on alternative acquisition process.
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September 9, 2002, in Washington, D.C. Subcommittee meeting; briefings by Air Force Experimentation Office.
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October 23-24, 2002, in San Diego, California. Subcommittee site visits to the USS Coronado, then the flagship of the U.S. Third Fleet, and the Marine Corps Tactical Systems Support Activity.
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September 16-20, 2002, in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Committee deliberations and report drafting.
The months between the last meeting and publication of the report were spent preparing the draft manuscript, gathering additional information, reviewing and responding to the external review comments, editing the report, and subjecting the report to security review.
Acknowledgment of Reviewers
This report has been reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise, in accordance with procedures approved by the National Research Council’s (NRC’s) Report Review Committee. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the institution in making its published report as sound as possible and to ensure that the report meets institutional standards for objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process. We wish to thank the following individuals for their review of this report:
Herb Browne, Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association,
Roy C. Evans, MITRE Corporation,
Paul G. Kaminski, Technovations, Inc.,
Bruce B. Knutson, LtGen, U.S. Marine Corps (retired),
John E. Morrison, Institute for Defense Analyses, and
Janos Sztipanovits, Vanderbilt University.
Although the reviewers listed above provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions or recommendations, nor did they see the final draft of the report before its release. The review of this report was overseen by Lee M. Hunt, Alexandria, Virginia. Appointed by the National Research Council, he was responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance with institutional procedures and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content of this report rests entirely with the authoring committee and the institution.