Why are the details of the Navy Overmatch project so small? Eyes of the enemy, for example – Breaking Defense Breaking Defense

WEST 2022: Since its inception nearly two years ago, the Overmatch project has become a favorite topic for senior Navy officers and civilians to publicly reset names as a key to how the service will fight the next digital conflict. And yet, everything the military was doing behind the scenes to make Overmatch a reality – and what spends millions of taxpayers dollars – was virtually shrouded in secrecy.

On paper, Overmatch is a proposal by the Navy to jointly manage all Pentagon domains. The theory is that future combat requires the service to connect all sensors and shooters in the fleet together to effectively win against China, Russia or any other adversary using a robust data exchange and communications infrastructure.

Navy acquisition officials, senior management and industry leaders from leading major contractors offered small hints on structural change, technology research and development, and future milestones related to Overmatch. But the service has given little explanation for how it will achieve its grand vision – a gap in information that is at least intended.

“We kept it in mind very deliberately … for good reason. Our competitors are stealing everything. And, frankly, they are not ashamed of it, ”Rear Admiral Doug Small, senior officer in charge of the Overmatch project, told Breaking Defense this week during the West 2022 conference.

As could be predicted, Small declined to elaborate on meat and potatoes Overmatch, instead pointing to January 2021 as Chief of Naval Operations Administrator Michael Gildey. NAVPLAN in which the CNO outlined some of the service’s top priorities.

“Overmatch’s job is to implement a naval operational architecture,” Small said.

The CNO describes the Naval Operational Architecture as “a set of networks, infrastructure, data, and analytical tools that connect our distributed forces and provide decision-making benefits”. He further described the development of naval operational architecture as a top priority of the navy, second only to the Columbia-class submarine, according to NAVPLAN.

Small added that Overmatch is committed to bringing together the best commercial companies and their technologies.

Responding to another reporter’s question, Small described the essence of Overmatch as “promoting solutions” and the ability to pass information to those who need it, and “across the crisis continuum.”

A third reporter asked the admiral to explain to Overmatch that he could introduce it to the American public and convey why it is so important to the Navy.

“When you download Yelp [on your phone]Yelp does not come to your home to check if it will open properly, or all possible information flows on each network, be it Wi-Fi, or cellular, or 3G, or 4G, or whatever, or all of these work ways to data, ”he said.

“They don’t need to because they’ve already done all this work on this digital platform. That’s all we’re trying to do… We need to create a digital platform… and then make sure of that [it] can communicate and perform the functions of these applications in any environment with any available data streams, ”continued Small.

So this is Project Overmatch, a way to share information about maritime combat space just as civilians can get information about a local restaurant. In addition, according to the head of the organization, the items are apparently not for public consumption.

But lawmakers, analysts and the press are expected to see this in action sometime in the next two years, when the service will enable aircraft carrier strike groupan obvious goal that Gildai reiterated to reporters this week as he headed to the West in 2022.