Key Takeaways:

• Unified, resilient networks are mission-critical: Seamless, secure, and interoperable communications from the enterprise to the tactical edge underpin effective all-domain Naval operations.
• Bridging legacy and emerging tech enables agility: Solutions like Joint Range Extension (JRE) integrate older platforms with next-gen systems, accelerating information sharing and decision-making across forces.
• Future-ready networks drive decision superiority: Modernized, agile infrastructures create a foundation for innovation, empowering rapid adoption of AI, ML, and quantum tools to strengthen situational awareness and mission readiness.

Effective and reliable communication are key to mission success for the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps—but it must align with the needs of modern warfighting.

The multi-domain nature of modern warfare demands coordinated actions across the armed services and with foreign allies across air, land, sea, cyber, and space operations. The more vital that joint and combined operations become, the more critical it is for the Navy to have seamless communications and data interoperability.

Networked data flow is an essential warfighting capability

As Naval forces continue to evolve to enable effective operations in an all-domain conflict, operational communications in every environment are critical. As the United States Department of Defense has made clear, multi-domain warfare demands coordinated actions by the armed services, alongside foreign allies and partners, across air, land, sea, cyber, and space operations. Distributed Naval operations require networked units that can operate independently and cohesively across great distances, operating as a large, concentrated force. As such, strengthening maritime dominance hinges on a common operating picture created by interconnectivity from the enterprise to the tactical edge.

In the all-domain combat environment, networked units are the backbone and warfighting capability that impacts all stakeholders. To increase collaboration and ensure mission success, it is essential to build a cohesive communication infrastructure that connects command centers at the enterprise to operational, battlefield, and forward-deployed units at the edge.

Creating data-driven decision advantages

Having a unified network creates data-driven decision advantages for the Fleet and Force, delivering agility, efficiency, collaboration, and security benefits across every level of command. This unification of information sharing supports the Navy’s diverse and increasingly challenging missions, from coordinating fleet operations in the Indo-Pacific Theater to enabling information sharing between globally positioned and dispersed ships and shore-based command centers.

To help ensure mission success from the enterprise to the edge, a modernized network must:

• Perform reliably and efficiently in isolated operational theaters and contested areas.
• Be fortified with robust security measures and demonstrate resilience to unforeseen disruptions and adversarial threats.
• Be interoperable within the Navy and across armed services and joint forces to ensure the right information gets to the right stakeholder.
• Accommodate the rapid integration of emerging technologies to support mission readiness.

Delivering a ‘common’ common operating picture

The Navy has made progress transforming from a unified network backbone towards interconnected network nodes through the use and implementation of advanced communications solutions and related technologies. Project Overmatch and Project Dynamis—the Navy’s and Marine Corps’ respective contributions to the Pentagon’s CJADC2 (Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control) effort—reflect this push to connect forces across land, air, sea, space, and cyberspace, and support seamless international partner collaboration. These projects illustrate the power of integrated Naval tactical networks with secure, resilient data transport provided by beyond-line-of-sight, satcom, and mesh networking for all stakeholders.

Despite this progress, current communication networks must continue to be evolved, designed, developed, and deployed to support a common operating picture (COP) for joint or combined operations. Communications networks and mission common systems are currently stovepiped in mission critical areas, and data is too often siloed by network or provider, which remains a common challenge across the services and at the joint level.

At the same time, U.S. and allied forces are dealing with the information challenges in a battlespace environment flooded with uncrewed vehicles that have their own proprietary networks, data formats, and operating systems. This creates additional challenges with connecting myriad legacy platforms to emerging and next-gen technologies that can help meet increasing complexity and scale to develop advantages in the modern battlespace. Budget limitations, lack of trained and certified personnel and capacity, and reliance on legacy software and digital information systems also impede transformation.

Creating a unified, agile network

An agile approach can help the Navy and Marine Corps move past these barriers. Connecting Navy forces with partners and allies requires standards, rapid deployment of key technologies, and overall network flexibility. The goal should always be to create a unified network with a reliable network layer that is so good, users don’t even realize it is there. This allows users to rely on it strategically to meet mission outcomes rather than thinking about or fretting over network issues.

This strategic reliance is critical in every battlefield. In maritime environments, the Navy of the future must rely on real-time connectivity between ships, aircraft, undersea systems, and expeditionary forces. On land, the network ensures that deployed naval forces that establish forward bases or conduct amphibious attacks have accurate situational awareness. In the air, Airborne C2 requires seamless data through connected systems, sensors, and shooters.

Connecting the edge and back

A strong, standardized network facilitates information sharing and communications across battlefield environments. It supports much needed resilience and links systems across branches. The Joint Range Extension (JRE) gateway is a powerful way to make it happen.

With over 2,000 instances deployed globally, and a strong alignment to the Navy’s top priority innovation areas, JRE bridges the gap and connects systems between existing and emerging warfighting networks and between legacy technologies and emerging data platforms for seamless integration across operations. It serves as a network and data translation layer for battlespace awareness, supporting multi-domain situational awareness. With JRE, commanders and operators get a comprehensive view of friendly, enemy, and neutral forces by sharing information through the router. It can also serve as a bridge across platforms to better deliver synchronized assets.

JRE supports the communications backbone for U.S. and coalition forces that rely on near-instant exchange of tactical communications for situational awareness. It securely delivers visual, text, and digital commands over multiple Line-of-Sight (LOS) and Beyond-Line-of-Sight (BLOS) networks with very low latency. Because JRE is highly platform-independent, it can function as a software-only gateway solution or run on a selection of provided imaged-hardware platforms that are cyber security tested and approved. Each solution bridges disparate networks in order to support a COP.

Building a foundation for the future to empower effective, collaborative decision making

With JRE and other solutions best-fit for the mission, the Navy and Marine Corps can establish a unified and agile network quickly and anywhere in the world by integrating emerging and legacy technology in a cohesive system-of-systems through mission integration.

A powerful, seamless network allows the data to flow and empowers faster, more collaborative operational communications. All units can exchange data in standardized formats for interoperability across the force. They prioritize information for the larger network based on real-world network capabilities. Edge units retain flexibility in data processing and transfer, allowing for rapid response and acceptable mission support. Units operate on software defined networks that transition communications links instantaneously based on the threat environment and operational demands.

The next generation of Navy networks is also a platform for innovation. It provides a foundation for the Navy and Marine Corps to prepare for the future of all-domain warfighting. They can more rapidly implement technologies such as AI, machine learning, and quantum computing to create a data-rich COP that enhances situational awareness, decision superiority, and mission readiness.

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Specific, secure and shared: Data interoperability for modern warfare

Stovepiped communication networks and mission command systems are liabilities in the modern era. By developing a common data layer, integrating AI into C5ISR, and connecting the common data layer with external data, the Navy and Marine Corps can create support data interoperability in new ways, enabling the modern, extensible, and agile dynamic targeting capability that is essential for making battlefield decisions with confidence.

Learn more

SAIC has extensive experience helping the DoD achieve data interoperability to accelerate battlespace effectiveness and support operations in global and digitally integrated warfighting environments. To learn more about how to facilitate secure and efficient data-sharing among combatant partners, please contact Maysam Tawasha, Vice President of the C5ISR and Training Solutions Market at SAIC’s Naval Business Group or Sean O’Lone, Chief Technology Officer Navy Business Group.

Learn more about All-Domain Warfighting