The Navy and Marine Corps have a long history of using experimentation to evolve significant new capabilities. The Navy experimented with submarines, carriers, and PT boats, and with new propulsion systems and new fuels. Experimentation with launching and recovering aircraft from ships began but a few years after aircraft were invented. Similarly, although Marines had been landing from ships in small boats for many decades, even centuries before World War II, the pressures of warfare led to the rapid development of prototypical modern amphibious landing systems. Experimentation has been key to advances in all forms of naval warfare—gunnery, guided missiles, naval ship propulsion, vertical-capable jet aircraft, very short takeoff and landing rotorcraft, and all other activities related to the shaping and operation of naval forces, including the Fleet Antiterrorism Security Teams and the Chemical/Biological Incident Response Force (CBIRF) of today.

In order to assess more recent Service-unique experimentation, the committee focused primarily on the Navy Warfare Development Command (NWDC)-sponsored fleet battle experiments¹ (Alpha through India) and on the Marine Corps experimentation efforts beginning with the Hunter Warrior (HW), Urban Warrior (UW), and Capable Warrior (CW) campaigns. Fleet Battle Experiment-Alpha (FBE-A) was conducted in March 1997. The Hunter Warrior series of activities was initiated in 1997. Chapter 3 provides details on these efforts.

FBE-A through FBE-I included a total of nearly 40 separate objectives. Each FBE had between three and eight major objectives, and each major objective had anywhere from one to nine subobjectives. A significant number of these major objectives and subobjectives were realized. The range of investigation of these FBEs was quite extensive, addressing network-centric operations for naval and joint fire power, theater and air missile defense, precision engagement, time critical strike, and defense against asymmetric threats, to name a few areas. Table 3.1 in Chapter 3 provides a synopsis of all FBEs, their objectives, and their results. Collectively assessed, these provide evidence that experimentation is achieving meaningful results.

The three experimentation campaigns HW, UW, and CW also addressed many objectives. HW had 37 objectives, of which 29 were realized. As a campaign, it focused on individuals and combat patrols operating in desert environments. UW addressed individuals and platoon-size operations in urban environments; CW focused on individuals and company-size operations at Camp Pendleton, California. Each of the campaigns required a cycle of more than 3 years. As with the FBEs, these campaigns covered a considerable range in their investigations,