Sonic Spear, beginning in April with elements peppered into other exercises throughout the year, will be SOCOM’s first opportunity as a combatant command to host such an event as opposed to tabletop exercises. The gathering will test the command’s ability to synchronize joint special operations effects from seabed to low-Earth orbit in support of the joint force and integrate those to support a joint task force commander, according to a command spokesperson.

Overall, the event will help validate how service components to SOCOM provide forces to it and geographic combatant commands, exercising those offerings and integrating them into a truly joint special operations force presentation, they added.

Special ops forces, much like the conventional units within the U.S. military, are taking a harder look at how to integrate capabilities seamlessly across all the domains of warfare. Commandos and conventional forces have historically been too siloed in their approaches to employing capabilities, looking at single domains rather than a more integrated arrangement.

The exercise will also help SOCOM look at different technologies, such as robotics, and the future investments it might need in those areas.

“Let’s look at our investments. We have a lot of autonomy investments happening across the force. We want to hold ourselves accountable … Robots can do what we told them to do. They can drop track quality data into the Joint Fires Network, theater agnostic, and then all those actions put together can support, again, the SOF effects that support joint SOF maneuver,” Lt. Gen. Francis Donovan, vice commander of SOCOM, said Feb. 20 at the Special Operations Symposium hosted by NDIA. “Sonic Spear 25 is our first go at this. That’s where we’re going to look at again, seabed to low-Earth orbit, what are our gaps and seams? Let’s push our autonomous investments, some other investments we’re making … and what do our forward forces need to be able to control ourselves, control our robots and then link in with the joint force.”

This all builds towards SOCOM’s eventual model for an emerging O-6 — colonel or Navy captain — level multi-domain special operations task force.  

Special ops historically has integrated multiple O-5 — lieutenant colonel or Navy commander — and O-6 forces from individual components under a general or admiral. The new model under development will look to integrate those joint special operations forces at the O-6 level to enable them across each domain, to include space and cyber.

With the need to integrate capabilities seamlessly across domains, combined with adversary actions that will disperse friendly forces, the forthcoming task force will allow commando formations to conduct synchronized operations at levels historically held at higher echelons, the SOCOM spokesperson said.

“That is our first step to moving forward of a SOF force presentation model that looks a little different from the past. We’ll eventually have a multi-domain special operations task force at the O-6 level that can synchronize SOF effects, seabed to low-Earth orbit in support of the joint force. Yes, that’s what we’re building towards. But we have to start somewhere,” Donovan said of Sonic Spear 25.

While this year will be relatively rudimentary as the first instantiation, he said officials hope to evolve it — adding in electromagnetic interference, for example — culminating in 2027 with “a joint SOF force offering.”

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The next iteration of the biennial event, slated for Aug. 9-18, will span 22 time zones in a live virtual, constructive (LVC) environment. It will loop in nine maritime operations centers, six carrier strike groups, three amphibious ready groups, 25 ships and submarines, more than 50 “virtual” ships, and 25,000 sailors and Marines.

LVC training constructs connect deployed personnel and platforms with virtual trainers and computer-generated entities.

The aim of the exercise is to “assess the Fleet’s ability to synchronize global naval operations at the operational-to-tactical level of war against strategic competitors,” according to the Navy.

During a meeting with reporters on Monday, officials said they were limited in what they could disclose publicly about the event. But they offered an outline of what it will entail.

“What I can say about this scenario, and this is what we’re trying to do is, is have [a combatant command] area of responsibility that has a very aggressive percolating event that will eventually turn into kinetic warfare. Simultaneously with that area of responsibility where that event is happening, there will be opportunistic second and third parties that are taking advantage of that, you know, with the hope that the United States has got its eye off the ball a bit and doesn’t have the capacity to deter those other opportunistic events going on. So that’s the general construct and how we lay this down globally, to make sure all of the commands throughout these 22 time zones are fairly challenged in theirs. And that’s what tensions, the resources that we have and making sure we’re getting the allocation correct,” Adm. Daryl Caudle, commander of Fleet Forces Command, told reporters.

“The event does, as you can imagine, have what we call a kind of a road to war … where we’re getting intelligence injected into the scenario,” he continued. “So, we’ll go kinetic, there will be plenty of opportunity to deter aggression in other areas of responsibility. And there could be things that we do that are flexible response options and flexible deterrence options and dynamic employment of our forces that try to actually dissuade opportunistic adversaries from taking advantage of the thing that’s going on in another part of the world.”

New technologies are expected to be integrated into Large Scale Exercise 23 including autonomous and unmanned capabilities and communication systems, as the Navy tests its ability to conduct contested logistics operations and targeting and to develop a common operating picture.

That will include Project Overmatch networking tools, which Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday has said will be the bedrock for the future joint tactical network.

“Any of the participants that have Overmatch Capability installed on their ship, like communications as a service, will be tested as part of this event. And the reason I can say that with such confidence is the Overmatch capability set by its very nature is tested anytime we command and control units with that capability. So yes, that will be part of Large Scale Exercise to further Overmatch to get more feedback. And in fact, we’re bringing that to bear in this live, virtual, constructive manner, [which] allows us to try to test some Overmatch capabilities that we maybe couldn’t do in the real world just because the situation wouldn’t necessarily lend itself to that during an actual deployment,” Caudle told DefenseScoop during the meeting with reporters.

He declined to provide details about the specific capabilities that will be tested using virtual and constructive elements, citing classification issues.

“I can say that again, as communication as a service allows Project Overmatch units — and eventually all ships will have this capability, including submarines — the ability to be able to have command and control [and] communications back with their headquarters, through every type of circuit that’s basically on those ships. And so that technology makes it extremely robust and hard to defeat in a contested environment, because of the ability for us to be able to command and control those ships across all those different circuits seamlessly to the sailor,” he said.

The Navy has been experimenting with Project Overmatch capabilities in the Pacific with the Carl Vinson carrier strike group. The plan is to roll those out more broadly to units in the region and then more broadly across the globe. The Large Scale Exercise will be another opportunity for the sea services to put them through their paces before deciding on next steps.

Lt. Gen. Brian Cavanaugh, commander of Fleet Marine Force, Atlantic, Marine Forces Command, and Marine Forces Northern Command, noted that the exercise will involve demonstrating C2 capabilities at the tactical level, not just the global and operational levels. The results will inform future investment decisions and program objective memorandums.

“We’re going to learn a lot from this. And there’ll be some successes, there’ll be some failures. We will learn from the failure. And we will inform future decisions for POM cycles and things that we’re going to buy. That’s a way to demonstrate what we have and what we can do,” he said.

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Broadly, LVC training combines real-world, in-person elements with virtual reality, simulation and other computer-generated technologies to enable service members to train more like they actually fight for combat of the future. 

Over the last decade or so, LVC has evolved from a concept to tangible training options on various bases. Now, Navy leaders are beginning to recognize how they might better link unfolding and upcoming LVC training efforts across their vast enterprise.

“I would say that in an environment that we should be pursuing, you could easily see how you might need some type of operation center to coordinate the timing, tempo and training opportunities available in a broad LVC network,” Rear Adm. Douglas Verissimo, the director of maritime operations for the U.S. Fleet, said Monday at the 2023 Sea-Air-Space conference.

In his view, “in the future, as these networks come together … there’s got to be an operation center that pulls together this joint all-domain, as much as we can piece together” the Navy’s LVC training assets and different teams at bases around the globe.     

He said the service also needs a means to better evaluate its training.

“Are they keeping us alive? Are they putting us in more jeopardy? And are we able to win with the tactics, techniques and procedures that we’re developing based on the human capital we have? And where do we need to invest in that human capital to make them more lethal?” Verissimo explained.

Other senior officials on a panel with the rear admiral agreed, including Cdr. Patrick Durnin, who serves as commanding officer of the East Coast strike fighter squadron VFA-81.

“They were just kind of throwing [the idea of a common operations center] out there — but the reality of it is that we need to continue to refine these processes just to make sure that we’re all working on the same playbook” and can ensure everyone who needs to continues to “have a good understanding of exactly how each service is going to provide the best capability that they can to fight,” Durnin told DefenseScoop after the panel. 

Despite the capacity limitation and overarching need, enabling a common operations hub for LVC training would be complex — and likely pricey.

Rear Adm. Andrew Loiselle, director of Air Warfare Division, N98, in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, noted that service members with simulators in one part of the nation can connect and engage in training exercises with growlers and teams in another region.

“But just what I need everybody to understand is that when I do that I have chosen to use those simulators up in [one base] to conduct an East Coast training event, and now I’m not training growler aircrew [on that specific base] that day. And so this is a significant capacity piece that we’ve got to be able to forecast and then program for, to make sure we captured all of the training requirements and we’re using the simulators that we own to their best efficacy,” Loiselle explained on the panel. 

“Somebody has to be in charge of making a decision as to whether or not our simulator infrastructure is going to support something like, say, large-scale exercise 2023, or they’re going to support local training events — because they can only do one. And so that’s really what [Verissimo’s] talking about. Or, do we build out and spend the money necessary for a system with the capacity to do both? That’s pretty expensive,” he told DefenseScoop after the event.

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“We have to figure out a way to train at a larger distance than we are today,” Rear Adm. Andrew Loiselle, director of Air Warfare Division, N98, in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, said Monday during a panel at the 2023 Sea-Air-Space conference. 

To do that, the Navy is looking into a new concept deemed Strike Group Mobile Open Ocean Virtual Range, or SGMOOVR, Loiselle announced.

Broadly, LVC training applies real-life, in-person elements with augmented and virtual reality simulation and other computer-generated solutions to ultimately help service members train more like they actually fight in preparation for future conflicts. 

The Navy has made a lot of progress in its engineering and implementation of LVC training for different scenarios over the last several years. But fresh challenges are also surfacing. 

“The weapon systems that we’re developing these days are significantly longer-range than those that we have trained with in the past. And as we do that, we need the range infrastructure that will support that level of training,” Loiselle told DefenseScoop after the panel. 

“Most of the ranges over land are simply not large enough to conduct that training anymore — so that training is moving out over the water. And when you’re talking about training your ranges like that, you oftentimes are limited by the towers that are land-based that can receive the signals. So, the object is to build out something that is no longer limited by land base,” he explained.

Before each Navy carrier strike group departs for a real-world mission, it must complete a Composite Training Unit Exercise or COMPTUEX. During the panel, Loiselle pointed to those exercises to demonstrate what Navy officials envision with this new SGMOOVR concept.

“If you’re familiar with how we conduct a COMPTUEX off the coast — we’re now taking that command-and-control facility and we’re bringing it aboard our aircraft carriers, such that we can use an aircraft carrier as a central node,” and then essentially “develop a large training range central to that aircraft carrier so that we can get to the deployed training piece of this,” he explained.

Still, little is known publicly about SGMOOVR — and it is not a guarantee the Navy will scale it beyond the exploratory phase.

“It’s still a concept and pre-decisional,” a Navy spokesperson told DefenseScoop in an email Monday.

“Strike Group Mobile Open Ocean Virtual Range (SGMOOVR) is a concept to replicate ashore training range capabilities afloat. The concept is to embark an exercise control element and Tactical Combat Training System Increment II (TCTS II) on board a [nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, or] CVN,” the spokesperson said. 

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Project Overmatch is the Navy’s contribution to Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2), the Pentagon’s new concept for fighting, which envisions getting the right data to the right place for more informed decision making and command and control. While each of the other services have their own approaches, the Navy has been relatively tight-lipped in providing details about its effort.

The information warfare community is now partnering with the Project Overmatch team to develop training associated with the capabilities that will be demonstrated.

“It’s a really great partnership and it’s also informing, I think, how we may need to adjust our training paradigm long term,” Vice Adm. Kelly Aeschbach, commander of Naval Information Forces, said Thursday during a Defense One webcast. “If [Rear Adm.] Doug Small’s team delivers as we hope, it’s going to give us a lot more agility in how we integrate new technologies. And I think our old brick-and-mortar approach to the schoolhouse is something we’re going to have to rethink. This is really giving us an opportunity to consider how we do more mobile, distributed training, use virtual technologies and really look at just-in-time ways to empower our sailors to integrate new capabilities.”

Aeschbach said her forces are co-chairing a cross-functional team looking at integration and training, identifying new requirements and deeper levels of training that might be needed for sailors and officers.

She has previously spoken about the information warfare community’s need for more live, virtual, constructive (LVC) training given the sensitive nature of their capabilities.

Last year, her team worked with Small’s to pilot connecting systems to LVC training, and the results were positive, officials say.

“With success in that we’ll actually be able to measure how well sailors perform and be much more effective in the training we deliver,” Aeschbach said. “We will also be able to really exploit our capabilities because honestly, we don’t want to be out revealing some of the techniques and tactics that we’re developing where others can see what we’re doing or observe and draw lessons from our capabilities. It will be really powerful if we can deliver as we’re planning.”

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