The pair of firsts was conducted as part of Project Convergence Capstone 5, the latest in an annual experimentation event hosted by the Army to test emerging concepts, largely in line with the Pentagon’s Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control.

CJADC2, as it’s known, envisions how systems across the entire battlespace could be more effectively and holistically networked to provide the right data to commanders, faster. The word “combined” in the parlance of the framework refers to bringing foreign partners into the mix.

Marines placed commercial maritime radars, such as those that can be purchased at fishing or boating stores, at San Clemente Island off the coast of San Diego and integrated them into the Army’s Sensitive But Unclassified-Encrypted (SBU-E) architecture.

As the radar data was integrated into the unclassified network, Marines sent maritime tracks to the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, to ingest as part of its maritime domain awareness. Located nearby in Barstow, the Army then leveraged a cross-domain solution to bring those tracks up in classification to the secret network and then sent them back to the Marine Corps Tactical Systems Support Activity near San Diego to control a notional shooter simulating a Tomahawk strike on an adversary ship.

“We were able to validate that we can see the vessels out around San Clemente Island, pass that unclassified track data to Fort Irwin, get that up class to [SIPRNet] and then send it back to use it,” Maj. Anthony Johnson, an operations officer within Marine Air Control Group 38, said in an interview. “It demonstrated that if we were able to give these commercial sensors to a coalition partner or even if the military were to use these coalition sensors on this network, we can use that in tandem with our military sensors to contribute to maritime domain awareness for the component commander, being the joint maritime component commander.”

The demonstration gets to the heart of what the Pentagon desires to achieve with its CJADC2 initiative by not only integrating into a multiservice common operational picture, but also proving that commercial, non-U.S. military sensors can be integrated into operations. Oftentimes, coalition communications and equipment aren’t compatible with Department of Defense architectures (not to mention interservice compatibility issues), slowing down multination operations.

That coalition integration is one of the main draws for the Army’s SBU-E architecture. Officials have described that it has significantly sped up coalition operations because it negates the need for liaisons in formations communicating directions back and forth on multiple radio systems because the partners aren’t authorized to use classified communications or equipment.

The thought behind it is that tactical wartime information is so perishable — meaning it is acted upon and expires so quickly that even if the enemy were to discover plans, it would be too late — it does not need to be classified, increasing the speed of operations.

“It was demonstrating that we can have a common operational picture, a common tactical picture-like capability on the SBU network. It was cool to see how our commercial sensors can contribute to that common tactical picture that the Army’s Joint Modernization Command was monitoring over at Fort Irwin,” Johnson said.

The experimentation effort was also part of a small unit concept that the control group and communications squadron were testing out.

Johnson explained that the control group consisted of a detachment with a mix of Marines from Marine Air Support Squadron 3, 3^rd Low Altitude Air Defense Battalion and Communications Squadron 38 forming a communication-sensor integration team. The concept, which doesn’t currently exist within the Corps, sought to pair communications Marines with air defenders and tactical data link maintainers to integrate commercial sensors and augment the Corps with ground-based maritime sensors in addition to what the unit already has.

Planning for the concept began in October after Project Convergence last year, where the unit realized that they always have to integrate radars into their network. But, taking it a step further, they wanted to prove they could integrate commercial sensors.

“In our minds for comm squadrons, well, we’re already doing military sensors, now we’re being presented an opportunity to do commercial sensors, so why don’t we start making a team that specializes in understanding how radars work and how to integrate them into military networks,” Johnson said. “For our occupational field, so for the communications MOSs, it validated that we can have small-scale teams that can perform this function of integrating commercial capability.”

More broadly, the concept, if fully realized, will enable the Corps to send small, task-organized teams out to multiple locations to contribute to maritime domain awareness, which could be critical in a Pacific theater fight given the various islands there, not to mention that smaller teams are more difficult to target.

“Right now, we have the TPS-80 radar and a couple other sensors that are not in the 3^rd Marine Aircraft Wing, but those are few and far between, just due to the limited quantity of military equipment we have,” Johnson said. “Now that we’ve demonstrated this capability, now we can have more nodes, if you will, spread about multiple islands. So we can increase the sensor coverage in Indo-Pacom.”

Lessons from Project Convergence

While broadly a success, Johnson noted there were some coordination challenges during the event involving passing track data back and forth with the Army at Fort Irwin through the service’s cross-domain solution. However, once the requirements were understood between both organizations, it was a quick turnaround to instantly pass track data through SBU-E to the secret network.

Following Project Convergence, Johnson said his unit is looking to get the devices necessary to enable them to access the SBU-E environment, given that’s not a capability the Corps possesses currently. They’re hoping to integrate the architecture into squadron internal events such as an 18.6-mile foot march in early May, where Marines will ruck with 25 pounds.

They plan to integrate SBU-E with the Tactical Assault Kit to be able to see and track participants as they conduct the march.

The experimentation also showed that with commercial sensor integration, the Corps could potentially look to COTS capabilities to supplant more exquisite, military-built systems that can be more costly and time-consuming to acquire.

“Why we use it in a Marine Corps blend scenario, like we talked about how coalition partners can also have these as well, but this also gives the Marine Corps more capability with something that’s significantly cheaper than a programmatic solution that takes upwards to a decade to field, as well as to refurbish and update,” Johnson said. “Perishable commercial equipment, if it’s attritted or if it’s broken for whatever reason, it’s easily replaceable [rather] than having to wait with long lead times.”

Given the success of the communication-sensor integration team concept, Johnson said his organization will be entering a working group with the other communications squadrons across the Corps in early May to add the concept as an advanced mission essential task they are all required to perform.

“The task would be to integrate organic and non-organic sensors into Marine Corps networks. Since we realize that this is a continuous task that our Marines are having to perform, we want to register that as a requirement, where we’re actually appropriately evaluated on the ability to be able to do this,” he said. “That way, we can signal to headquarters Marine Corps that when the exercise presents itself, that we’ve actually done that task, instead of it just being for the sake of experimentation.”

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The force, part of Marine Air Control Group 38, participated in Steel Knight 24, an exercise at Camp Pendleton, California, where they used a 5G system to remote into a AN/TPS-80 Ground/Air Task-Oriented Radar for its multifunction air operations center, which includes the air controllers and air defenders serving as the sensor to coordinate aircraft in the tactical battlespace. It must be expeditionary in case troops have to pick up and move.

That event was the culmination of nearly four years of work, in part, evaluating how the Marines can incorporate 5G into tactical formations.

Using capabilities provided by the Marine Corps Tactical Systems Support Activity, the unit at Steel Knight sought to demonstrate the ability to keep the radar a significant distance away to prove they can keep the radar survivable — because once it’s turned on, it can be targeted by the enemy, along with any forces operating close by — and provide another means of transport to ensure data gets to the air ops center.

In the past, the control group was able to successfully remote into the radar via satellite communications, officials said, but now they’re demonstrating that can be done through the terrestrial layer with a high bandwidth communications system like a 5G radio.

Looking to the future

The Marine Corps is excited about what 5G capabilities can bring to the force. They promise to enhance concepts that the service and the larger Defense Department enterprise are pursuing.

For the Corps, 5G technologies are poised to bolster its “stand-in force” mentality — which requires forces to already be present in theater near the enemy before crisis or conflict breaks out — along with Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations, which involves mobile, low-signature units that can operate in austere areas temporarily and move from location to location. All of this fits into the larger Force Design concept, an annually updated vision to modernize the Corps.

These are also all in concert with the DOD’s Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control concept, which envisions how systems across the entire battlespace from all the services and key international partners could be more effectively and holistically networked to provide the right data to commanders, faster.

Future operating environments will demand that forces be smaller, more dispersed, nimble and have low electromagnetic signatures. This means units must not have a lot of equipment, and communications gear needs to be intuitive — allowing them to move quickly to avoid being targeted and be resilient in the face of unforeseen technical difficulties or enemy jamming.

“When you go into an expeditionary environment, the rules change a little bit and [commercial off-the-shelf] hardware can certainly still be applicable. But when your focus is, in an EABO context, really flexible, [the] Marine Corp ethos of shoot, move and communicate, you have to be able to move quickly. Stand-in forces that are supposed to be small, highly mobile, lethal, self-sustaining, they need a network that can move with them and support that same type capability,” said Lt. Col. Benjamin Pimentel, who is on detail from the Combat Development and Integration directorate to the FutureG office within the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, where he serves as the director of advanced component development and prototypes.

“We think that a 5G architecture, moving into 6G, can really help support that. Certainly not a silver bullet. There is no silver bullet, but we think it can be a larger part of DOD’s overarching concept of Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control,” he said in an interview.

Members of Control Group 38 explained that the technologies tested at Steel Knight could improve the way they operate if brought to fruition.

5G capabilities provide additional transport options for units that will likely be operating in denied environments, meaning if satellite communications are unavailable, this is one more path they can use.

They can also allow units to operate more dispersed — both from each other and assets such as radars that put units at risk given they are easily targetable — making them more mobile and easier to move equipment.

The radar “can be a significant distance away, but now we’re not going to have the dependency on the Marine to actually run that fire line a significant distance away. It makes picking up and moving more appetizing,” Maj Anthony Johnson, operations officer within the control group, said in an interview. “If we could have this capability right now, I think that what the value proposition for our service is that we can essentially have two teams instead of just one conglomerate of Marines in one location … You just put that in the perspective of command-and-control systems … The radar, you can stow it or you can emit, but as soon as you get the target quality tracks, you can pick up and move that radar while still having that air operation center remain in place. Or the inverse of that, the air operation center can displace while the radar is still in place and you won’t lose connectivity.”

Steel Knight also demonstrated the ability to use 5G to support autonomous platforms leveraging the high throughput of the network. This allowed the units to send full-motion video back that could be analyzed by algorithms to enable automatic object recognition, target detection and target tracking.

This was an important demonstration because the technology could eventually keep more Marines away from the front lines if they can rely on reliable sensors to provide the information they need rather than risking the lives and resources of humans.

“In a stand-in force context where I want to be lethal, mobile, lightweight and self-sustaining, if I can reduce the number of Marines that I need to send forward because … I can limit that number [of force protection capabilities] through autonomy, I don’t have to have Marines on posts all the time,” Pimentel said. “I can have them somewhat centralized, like a [quick reaction force], and when the autonomy cues me that there might be a threat based on what it’s looking for and you can deploy those [thereby] reducing the number of Marines on a stand-in force through manned-unmanned teaming, I think is the capability that you need in a high-speed network to support. 5G is able to do that.”

Hiding in plain sight

Using 5G technologies will also allow troops to digitally camouflage themselves against the enemy, according to officials, a key lesson coming from Ukraine’s war with Russia.

Unlike the post-9/11 conflicts against a technologically inferior enemy, future operations in the electromagnetic spectrum will be fraught. Any time a radio is pushed, a radar turned on, a digital device used, it emits a unique electronic signature within the spectrum. Advanced adversaries have spectrum analyzers to tell them what the device is and physically where it’s located on the battlefield, allowing them to either jam it or fire munitions on its position, potentially killing the troops in proximity.

Leveraging 5G capabilities, which are ubiquitous in most of the world — and with the right security protections in place — can allow units to literally hide in plain sight.

“If you get within 10 kilometers of the front, they [Ukrainians] use green gear or programs-of-record radios that have been provided to them by the United States or whatever they have organically to them. But in reading some interviews and some things on at a higher classification, using those radios can often put you at a disadvantage because they give off very specific waveforms. They [the Russians] know if someone is using it, that streams important person, target them immediately,” Chief Warrant Officer 2 Kelsen Epperson, space and propagation engineering officer with the control group, said in an interview. “Cellular is so ubiquitous, it’s proliferated, everybody has it, it’s everywhere, it’s hard to tell who’s who and who’s what.”

The Marine Corps is testing private 5G capabilities, meaning troops have to bring their own routers, as opposed to plugging into a foreign nation’s infrastructure, which, according to some, can be dangerous if it’s a non-permissive environment given the host nation has access and can easily intercept communications.

Within the EABO context, where forces will be operating in remote regions, they will absolutely have to bring their own equipment.

In the future, however, the Marines aren’t ruling out the possibility of leveraging host nation infrastructure if the right security protocols are put in place.

“In places where existing 5G networks are provided by the host nation, we think that there are ways that you can leverage that, and doing so in a secure manner is a large thrust within our office. The same way that when we go to other countries, there’s a road that’s already there, I’m going to drive on it. There’s a bridge that’s already there and it meets my requirement, drive over it. I’m not going to expend the resources to create my own bridge further across the water feature or build my own road if I don’t need to,” Pimental said. “Insofar as we can use [existing 5G] in a way that meets mission requirements with an operational security perspective, we absolutely want to do that.”

One example from Ukraine that officials described was how units were discovered by the Russians because they were using the same devices each time when attacking positions. The Russians eventually caught on.

The counter was to start provisioning SIM cards. Each time troops would walk into an operations center, they would drop their old SIM cards and pick up new ones with new numbers and country codes. This means they could use the same device but from a signature perspective, that device was never in the same place twice. As a result, neither side has interest in jamming those signals because they would then be jamming the ones that their forces are using as well. Marine Corps officials noted there is inherent survivability from hiding in plain sight.

Plugging into host infrastructure also helps with spectrum deconfliction, Pimentel noted. The spectrum is a finite resource and portions of it must be allocated for certain uses and frequencies. But if one is already a user within that existing infrastructure as opposed to bringing their own capability, they’re already licensed under that country’s laws and regulations, effectively sidestepping that process.

Training and resourcing

Officials acknowledged that especially in the private 5G context, there’s additional equipment that forces will need to procure, carry, set up and be trained on. But, over the long run, those technologies and others as part of overall commercial 5G are easier to use and maintain, which could lead to cost savings.

“The total cost of ownership argument is something that we try to focus on, because you can imagine an initial hardware purchase to run one of these networks could be higher versus a sustained program of record that’s already going,” Pimentel said. “However, I think when you consider the cost of a handset, the phone that you probably have with you right now, versus a tactical radio, there’s a significant price differential between those two.”

He noted that if the Corps begins to shift to leveraging more commercial devices for communication, such as 5G-enabled cellular devices, those are cheaper and more expendable than exquisite military radios.

“While you might look at initial price tag that was way more expensive, total cost of ownership is likely in the long run, cheaper. You may take a dip in the red to find yourself back in the black after a number of years once you’re in sustainment because, I’d argue, it’s never the initial purchase price that gets you, it’s the carrying cost that gets you over the lifetime of the program,” he said. A cellular device “is almost an expendable versus how expensive some of our other platforms are, then you start to shift more to the same type of attritable system mindset that the department is taking through large initiatives like Replicator.”

The adaptability of these networks makes them an attractive capability. Especially now that commercial providers have begun to enable direct to cell from satellite like iPhones’ new satellite communications SOS function, if cellular is unavailable.

“Global ubiquitous coverage is something DOD has always wanted, and commercial wireless is now starting to provide it,” Pimentel said. “If I’m only taking a phone forward and that’s what I’m paying for, plus the subscription costs and then the same back end services … that I was already paying for anyway, I think you can see a significant cost reduction.”

Taking advantage of this type of model also reduces training burdens. Most Marines today grew up using smartphones. They’re intuitive and don’t come with lengthy training manuals. That means less time and resources required in the training pipeline to get forces up to speed on exquisite systems.

“In the future, what we’re trying to demonstrate to the service, but also just the DOD writ large, is that Marines are capable, they’re eager to learn and they’re excited to employ something that is significantly more capable than what we currently have,” Johnson said.

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In the middle of establishing a Marine Air Traffic Control Mobile Team, the small unit was forced into defensive positions to protect its area. As the old adage goes: Every Marine a rifleman.

Fending off three “red cells,” the unit was able to defend its area and successfully establish communications for those in the Aviation Ground Support Operation Center who perform combat engineering, logistical support and airfield operations.

In a future operating environment, such as the island chains in the Pacific, smaller, more dispersed units will be tasked with defending their areas while establishing communications nodes to enable operations for the air wing.

Such was the scenario at the Lightning Strike, an exercise that took place in October at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar that sought to test the communications squadron in Marine Air Control Group 38’s ability to establish 15 communications nodes, as opposed to the eight nodes they were responsible for in the past – in addition to meeting the mission-essential tasks of the unit.

Much like the rest of the military, the Marine Corps is evolving the way it operates as part of an overall shift from 20 years of counterinsurgency operations to so-called great power competition. The National Defense Strategy names China as the “pacing threat,” and with that, the armed forces must alter how they are structured to counter a sophisticated military in a complicated region that is dominated by vast seas, enormous distances and numerous islands.

As part of the Marine Corps’ Force Design and its commandant’s planning guidance efforts, the Corps’ wings are shifting from mostly static bases to launch aircraft, as it did in Iraq and Afghanistan, to a hub-spoke-node model moving forward. This means forces will be spread out and dispersed across the battlespace, likely on several islands, and as a result, the control group — which is responsible for establishing communications and command and control capabilities for aviation elements in the field — must alter its operating concept to support these dispersed air units as well.

Lightning Strike “also had to be evolving the comm squadron to support the Marine Aircraft Wing, based off the way the Marine Aircraft Wing is being employed in support of Force Design 2030. If the wing is now being employed more for a hub, spoke and node model, and more distributed, then the comm squadron has to be able to do that as well,” Lt. Col. Brian Kerg, commander of Marine Wing Comm Squadron 38, said in an interview.

Officials explained that Lightning Strike was a way for the unit to signal to the commandant that it understood the planning guidance and force design.

The exercise sought to examine, with current programs of record and tables of equipment, if the comm squadron could support the communications the wing demands. Many of the legacy programs of record are not only clunky to drag around the battlefield — such as VSAT Larges that are vehicle-towed — but also can take a while to set up, tear down, establish communications and have limited throughput. As part of the exercises, forces were given several pieces of commercial off-the-shelf equipment to augment the programs of record that are not only more mobile but have several orders of magnitude more throughput, such as Starshield and Kymeta terminals, and also provide diversity of transport, a key tenet for future warfare if systems are jammed or blocked by the enemy.

“The way [the comm squadron’s] table of organization and equipment was written was not for that type of employment concept,” Col. Jason Quinter, commander of Control Group 38, said in an interview, regarding the legacy model for deploying. “What the squadron commander, Lt. Col. Kerg, is trying to figure out is: Do they have enough capacity to support the entire wing? … They’re spread out in 15 separate locations right now and they’re maxing out their equipment and their people to see if they can pull that off.”

Quinter believes the right mix of capabilities won’t necessarily be a major issue. Instead, he’s concerned with capacity, especially given the unit won’t be given more personnel but will be spread out more to establish 15 nodes, which means smaller units in the field.

“I’m pretty confident they have the right capability. Capacity is probably going to be the more important question … do they have enough people? Is the squadron big enough to be able to do that? I don’t know what the answer will be,” he said.

Testing comms Marines

The 2024 iteration marked the second of Lightning Strike, albeit a significantly larger one. Officials noted this year’s event was a slow build-up throughout the two weeks, described as a crawl, walk, run format.

Marines began the initial stages of the exercise using primarily legacy communications systems and adding more advanced systems including the commercial capabilities as the event progressed.

“That’s kind of the scenario that we painted was we didn’t have the Starshields and the COTS terminals in the first three days. We got up on services, we became [fully operational], and then we could tie in the COTS — both teaching the communicators how to do the old method but also the new method at the same time,” said Capt. Dakota Newsome, operations and executive officer for Bravo Company in Comm Squadron 38. “As we progress too, we realize that we need to have more throughput at some of these smaller sites. We used to send maybe single-channel radio out on some of these sites and that’s how they would have the feedback. But now, since we have these COTS terminals that we can start dropping and start enabling that NIPR, SIPR services at the lowest warfighter, like at the edge, like those edge devices can actually C2 back all the way to the” Tactical Air Command Center.

The various organizations throughout the exercise begin at the largest, most static — the Marine Air Group headquarters — getting more and more austere all the way down to a four-Marine team at the forward arming and refueling points with just a single-channel radio that can provide refuel aircraft in the field.

Establishing the 15 nodes not only provides more diversity of transport and more communications options, but, officials explained, it also allows for more purpose-built comms units.

“It also allows us to send out more nodes that do specific functions,” said Capt. Hipolito Ozuna, S3 alpha operations. “So everyone performs a specific function. What we do is we enable more of those specific functions to be able to be employed through our communication system. We’re able to essentially create more task-purpose nodes throughout” the event.

As part of force design and the changes within the Corps, the service is getting more organized comms platoons. In the past, when they would deploy, a unit wouldn’t necessarily know who they were getting, they just needed bodies and ranks without knowing what those people’s specialties were, officials said.

Now they have actual job titles for the platoons such as SATCOM operator or S6, for example, meaning the units are more task-purposed.

Events such as Lightning Strike allow these communications personnel to practice some of the skills they need to perform where they traditionally might not get many opportunities for such training.

“Our unit usually doesn’t do this type of stuff. In my MOS, for the last couple years, we sit in like a [combat operations center] and just pass basic information. This is a lot more upscale and it’s a lot of good training for my junior Marines. They haven’t gotten this type of training yet, which is good for them, whether it be passing, hey we need this patrol to go out with this bunch of people, rifles, whatever it may be, it’s good for them to be able to get that training now, so in case of a war to break out, we’re able to have them not on their toes, they’re kind of more relaxed and they understand. They’re very calm with the way they pass their traffic,” said Sgt. Brandon Froio, transmission systems operator supervisor. “I like this personally for my juniors because it’s high stress and being able to put them on their toes now, instead of when we’re out there actually in a fight that they’re going to screw up out there, I’d rather them screw up here and get the training they need to be able to go out there and be like, okay this is nothing. I’ve already done this for x amount of times, I got this, this is no problem.”

Another key aspect is the exercise provided an opportunity for Marines to test their military skills, defending their area to set up communications against an opposing force trying to contest them.

“We’re not just teaching the communicators how to communicate, but also how to do those mil skills. Right now, for example, they do have a recon patrol out, there is an enemy patrol en route here and they just got issued an order to actually go interdict that recon patrol. Not just understanding how to communicate, but also like, ‘Hey, there’s an enemy threat out there,’” Newsome said.  

In line with the tenets of force design, the expansion of 15 nodes and smaller teams will help enable the Corps as the so-called “stand-in” force, a vision the Corps has of being the forward presence for the joint force in theater as the eyes and ears. This means that Marines must be more professional and capable in these smaller teams to enable those comms while fighting off the enemy — something Lightning Strike allows them to hone.

‘Game-changing’ equipment

Officials explained that the unit was able to successfully go from eight to 15 nodes providing communications over a geographically dispersed area — seven nodes at Miramar, seven at Camp Pendleton over 30 miles away and a node at the unit’s headquarters.

Such an operational concept will be crucial not just for efforts the Corps has underway, but also for larger efforts spurred on by the Pentagon, such as Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control, which envisions how systems across the entire battlespace from all the services and key international partners could be more effectively and holistically networked to provide the right data to commanders, faster. The word “combined” in the parlance of CJADC2, refers to bringing foreign partners into the mix.

“The short version on that is how can the DOD focus on every sensor to every shooter? That’s a great tagline and that’s the desire, that’s the outcome, but that overshadows or overlooks the architecture in the middle that allows every sensor to talk to every shooter, and that’s a big ask. Now you’re looking at Marines like these figuring out how that actually works and not just our communications networks we already have, but tying more sensors into that architecture and add that Marine Air Wing in particular, we have increasingly more and more sensors that allow for aviation command and control and control of aircraft and the content of the functions of marine aviation,” Kerg said. “You have some that are programs of record, you have some that are commercial off-the-shelf and they’re coming at a faster and faster pace and you have some that are experimental.

Kerg continued: “We’re putting an even greater load on the network … If we’re not managing [everything] correctly, then you may get a track, but it might not be target quality or you may not get a track at all. That’s where this all fits in, connecting every sensor to every shooter and our Marines managing the network in an exercise like Lightning Strike is what allows the MAW commander to fight that way … and to be able to support Force Design 2030, which allows us to fit our will with respect to the National Defense Strategy.”

Marine Air Control Group 38 is at the forefront of helping the Corps experiment with CJADC2 concepts, even constructing a CJADC2 lab. In fact, Quinter, who previously served on the Joint Staff’s J6 team when it was developing the overarching concept for CJADC2, wrote the concept paper for Project Dynamis, which ended up being adopted as the Corps’ approach to CJADC2.

“We’ve created our own JADC2 lab and we are experimenting at the speed of funding. Basically, we don’t have extra funding. Essentially, leveraging relationships and the people I’ve met over the last three years since I’ve been working on this and spending a little bit of [operations and maintenance] dollars to get after some stuff,” Quinter said. “Mostly what we’re able to get after are things that are where the Marine Corps is caught up to that particular technology and we’re in a place where headquarters Marine Corps is helping us.”

By utilizing commercial off-the-shelf gear, the units are able to be not only faster and more nimble on the battlefield but also support greater comms capacity, an enabler for the Corps and the joint force.

“We’re taking the latest and greatest in technologies, Starshields and other COTS equipment, and incorporating into the formations to see how we can employ them to become a little more lethal and more capable as a force,” Ozuna said.

Others explained that to establish some of the sites, such as the Marines Aircraft Group headquarters, one of the largest, it initially took almost three days. But with Starshield, they were up in under 12 hours.

Officials have also in the past described capabilities such as proliferated low-Earth orbit satellite communications – such as Starlink – as game-changing technologies and said it’s possible the results from the exercise could help inform future procurement.

At the end of the exercise, Marine Air Control Group 38 leaders walked away confident that the unit can support the Marine Air Wing commander by providing 15 nodes and closing every sensor to every shooter. They also learned lessons about deploying the squadron as a whole, as opposed to sending detachments forward.

Overall, the forces learned new tactics and operating procedures that will likely be incorporated into operations in the future and used to help shape the next iteration of the exercise.

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