Necessary DoD Range Capabilities to Ensure Operational Superiority of U.S. Defense Systems Testing for the Future Fight (2021) / Chapter Skim
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2 An Envisioned Future of Operational Test and Evaluation
2 An Envisioned Future of Operational Test and Evaluation
Pages 27-42
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From page 27... ...
Before that, however, it is important to pull back and see the "big picture" of what the nation's military test ranges could ideally become. The description of OT&E's envisioned future takes place in three steps.
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From page 28... ...
This principle, combined with a vision of how future warfare will be conducted, leads to a vision of what military ranges should look like in this future. Finally, working from the joint visions of future warfare and future OT&E, this chapter describes an envisioned future for the organizational and funding structures necessary to enable the future ranges and testing.
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From page 29... ...
Communication and observational satellites provide precision navigation and timing, which play major roles in modern conflicts, and thus they are targets for adversaries seeking to disrupt an opponent's communications or limit the opponent's ability to monitor multiple locations on or above the earth's surface. This in turn has led to a growing focus on both offensive and defensive weapons that can be deployed in space, with the United States officially creating the Space Force, its first new military service since the creation of the Air Force in 1947, and other countries also placing a new
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From page 30... ...
This will be particularly true for digital capabilities, such as AI-enabled systems and the software used in data analysis, command and control systems, other software-intensive aspects of the military enterprise, and even the design and development of new warfighting technologies themselves. Multi-Domain Operations and Kill Chains While new weapons and new domains will shape the future of war fighting, an even more transformative factor is the ongoing combination of systems across multiple domains to create an integrated fighting force that is greater than the sum of its parts.
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From page 31... ...
. Current test range capability is well designed to address the component level, and platform level test requirements as new sensors, weapons and vehicle upgrades are worked through the acquisi tion pipeline (Dahmann et al., 2010)
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THE ENVISIONED FUTURE OF MILITARY TEST RANGES Given this vision of future warfighting, what changes will be required for the nation's military test ranges in order to prepare for it? From its discussions with Test Resource Management Center (TRMC)
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One such challenge is to modernize test range capabilities to match the rapidly increasing pace of technological innovation, particularly in digital technologies such as AI, autonomous systems, and cyber warfare. There are essentially no areas of technology that have been untouched by this accelerating innovation.
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34 FIGURE 2.2 A notional concept of the military test range of the future.
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From page 35... ...
Testing Kill Chains and Multi-Domain Operations In 2035, as envisioned by the committee, the nation's military ranges will be fully capable of testing kill chains and multi-domain operations, as OT&E is dedicated to the principle of "test as we fight." By 2021 there had already been initial steps toward this end, such as the combined Orange Flag–Black Flag large force test event that took place on March 2–4, which allowed "for improved integration and the combining of resources and participants to provide better test data and a more robust operationally relevant environment" (Saunders, 2021)
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From page 36... ...
Orange Flag test events are focused mainly on technical innovation and integration, and that particular event in March 2021 examined integrated kill chains -- or "kill webs," as they were referred to -- which involved sensors and tactical networks from the Air Force, Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Space Force connected via current command and control capabilities that will evolve into future Joint All-Domain Command and Control (Saunders, 2021)
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From page 37... ...
There will be a tight interplay between physical testing and M&S, with the physical tests providing data to guide the development of or validate the models, and the M&S indicating which particular aspects of a system should be tested and what data should be collected. Planning for M&S will begin early in the concept-development phase in order to support design decisions during development and subsystem integration, with later integration into developmental and operational test programs, campaign-level exercises, and, eventually, operational sustainment.
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From page 38... ...
Data Sharing, Repositories, and Accessibility In the envisioned future, military ranges and other development and testing facilities will have the bandwidth and connectivity to share data and models and enable rapid data analysis across multiple classification levels. To effectively handle data from testing, program managers work early in the design phase with the ranges to develop a data strategy to inform operational testing.
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From page 39... ...
The test planning for these critical joint mission threads will not be owned by a program, but by a larger organization empowered by the J-8 Directorate of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff with the responsibility for integrated test and evaluation for that particular mission thread. This "joint program office" will have a larger set of responsibilities beyond integrated testing: It will serve as the certifying authority for DoD's capability to perform critical joint mission threads, it will perform mission engineering for its mission thread, it will develop an authoritative operational and top-level systems architecture for the mission, it will develop and analyze integrated requirements for the participating systems, and it will inform acquisition decision milestones for participating programs.
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From page 40... ...
To enable this, the necessary resources will have been provided to support M&S with a stable funding profile, and requirements will be established for specific M&S capabilities to support development decisions and integration with the test program. Finally, given the importance of testing kill chains and multi-domain operations and the lack of any natural home for these activities, the envisioned future includes a joint program office to support connected concurrent kill chain operations as an OT&E activity.
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From page 41... ...
Mitigating Range Encroachment In the envisioned military range system of the future, range encroachment will continue to be a concern and constant issue, but there will be improvement in the use of mitigations that will preserve DoD test capability. DoD will preserve dedicated frequencies for weapon and threat testing, and will have more capability to efficiently manage and utilize dedicated spectrum and have capability to continue some test operations in areas of shared spectrum.
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From page 42... ...
2020. "Shortfalls of Defensive Hypersonic Weapons Must be Addressed, NORAD General Says." DoD News, October 29.
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