ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. (December 19, 2019) - Approaching the end of its second year, the Network Cross-Functional Team spent the fall fully immersed in Cyber Blitz 2019 to gather operational feedback on the design of the future tactical network.
Cyber Blitz 2019, which was held at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey, is an experimentation event focused on synchronizing science & technology (S&T) prototypes, technology concepts and investment strategies with acquisition, training and doctrine, operational and total Army priorities.
The event is hosted annually by the Cyber Center of Excellence (CCoE) and Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C5ISR) Center. Cyber Blitz 2019 was designed to help the Army better understand and optimize complex kinetic, cyber, and electronic warfare effects. It leverages current and programmed mission command systems to improve planning and execution.
"The work championed by C5ISR Center and the Cyber Center of Excellence at Cyber Blitz is instrumental in helping the Network CFT and the Army aggressively pursue a modernized tactical network to support multi-domain operations as part of an integrated Joint Force," said Maj. Gen. Pete Gallagher, director of the Network Cross-Functional Team.
The event featured the Intelligence, Information, Cyber, Electronic Warfare and Space (I2CEWS) detachment, a key component of the Army's Multi-Domain Task Force (MDTF), which tested equipment and concepts for multi-domain battle. Cyber Blitz 2019 also defined a new Army paradigm as the field experiment held in conjunction with the United States Army Japan Orient Shield exercise.
This pilot contributes to the joint multi-domain operations concept by conducting intelligence collection and analysis, supporting information operations, performing cyberspace actions, employing electronic warfare and leveraging space capabilities in support of Joint Task Force (JTF) mission objectives.
One of the key observations gathered from the MDTF and the I2CEWS was the requirement to integrate intelligence, information, cyber, electromagnetic spectrum, and space functions into a common operating pictures (COP). The COP, as part of a multi-domain toolkit, would be critical to address Anti-Access, Area Denial (A2/D2) challenges created by Russia and China, who are using long-range missiles, sensors and networks to layer their defenses.
"Historically, these functions were often segregated in internal silos of excellence with limited coordination and synchronization, with each separate common operating picture displaying only a portion of the multi-domain battlefield," Gallagher said.
By combining these efforts into a multi-domain toolkit, the Army can leverage its new standardized Command Post Computing Environment to enable data convergence. Additionally, centralized fusion of multi-domain information into an enhanced picture of the battlefield contributes to the JTF commander's situational understanding.
During Cyber Blitz 2020, the Network CFT, CCoE, and C5ISR Center will examine the MDO toolkit/COP requirement by integrating systems and capabilities like Cyber Situational Understanding, Electronic Warfare Planning and Management Tool (EWPMT), and Unified Network Operations (UNO) into CPCE to begin to provide individual domain overlays based on input from the I2CEWS and lessons learned from Cyber Blitz 2019.
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