The U.S. Navy has revealed a surprise project called Project Overmatch. Although it’s a surprise for the public, it isn’t a surprise for the U.S. Navy, as they’ve been working on it in secret for two years.
Reports are coming out that this program will help the future of data transportation and connect the different military forces of the United States. What do they have in store for the future of the Armed Forces? Here’s what we know.
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What Is Project Overmatch?
Project Overmatch is a project led by the U.S. Navy that’s been kept a secret – until now. In recent news, the U.S. Navy is getting ready to deploy new technology that was developed during that two-year timeframe to help close existing gaps between themselves and other nations’ naval forces.
During the two years of its development, Project Overmatch has gone through countless tests, including: “simulating current pathways for data, writing software code to close gaps, testing it in a lab and at sea, and providing feedback to coders to improve future iterations.”
Project Overmatch serves as the Navy’s contribution to the Pentagon’s “multibillion-dollar Joint All-Domain Command and Control effort — a push to reliably connect forces across land, air, sea, space and cyberspace as well as enable seamless international collaboration.”
In other words, Project Overmatch is a way for the Navy to help the Pentagon map out their funding for their efforts to connect all of the forces together and allow opportunities for collaboration in any environment without difficulties.
According to Defense News, Project Overmatch will arguably be the Navy’s “most important work in 2023.” The mission of Project Overmatch and what it hopes to accomplish is to “incorporate more unmanned systems that serve as intelligence-collecting nodes, feeding information to Sailors on ships and in ashore command centers.”
Project Overmatch efforts will continue for years to come, specifically in the next two or three years. The program is focused on the “near-term operational problems faced by commanders dealing with China,” said Bryan Clark, a senior fellow and director of the Center for Defense Concepts and Technology at the Hudson Institute.
The U.S. Navy will continue to use its new Navy technology at sea, as it will help them to further advance their critical line of research. Additionally, the Navy is considering ways to “better share information across ships and aircraft so the best-positioned platform can strike a target.”
Created back in the fall of 2020, the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Mike Gilday, spearheaded Project Overmatch in an effort to figure out new ways to connect ships, planes, and weapons. He also appointed Rear Admiral Doug Small, commander of Naval Information Warfare Systems Command, to lead certain efforts for Project Overmatch.
How Will Project Overmatch Help the Navy?
Project Overmatch was created in an effort to connect the gaps in the Navy’s strategies for transmitting data.
With the Joint All-Domain Operations and Joint All-Domain Command and Control strategy working together, the Navy seeks to launch the project and push for more efficient ways to send information from ship to ship, ship to land, and land to ship.
The team at Project Overmatch, as well as their collaborators across the Navy, are focused on several key points that would help the Navy in their future missions. They include “tools and analytics, networks, data, and infrastructure, which includes computing and platforms as a service.”
With Project Overmatch in the early stages of launch, Small wants the program to “encompass the entire Navy.”
Additionally, Small wants the team to have a “client-like relationship with the fleet,” where they recognize that “Sailors need to do their jobs more effectively and, in turn, quickly produce and deliver tools to address those gaps.”
What Are the Navy’s Plans Moving Forward?
With Project Overmatch in a preliminary rollout stage, Small said that the team will “deploy this first increment onto the first carrier strike group in 2023, and then continue until all 11 carrier strike groups have the hardware and software installed.” This would be equal to a large portion of the existing naval fleet.
As of recent reports, the Navy seeks to have a budget of about $195 million for Project Overmatch in the fiscal year of 2023, which is roughly a 167% increase compared to the previous fiscal year, when they were seeking $73 million.
This increase in funds is in response to the dramatic advancements that China has seen in recent years with their own military technology. Of course, the United States wants to maintain their status as the leading country in military dominance.
According to Small, away from the public eye, the project’s “technology has already undergone repeated testing.”
With the U.S. Navy Project Overmatch efforts being tested within the Marine Corps, the team has received feedback from them and has already made some “connections” within the first six months of this endeavor.
Small explains that they’ve been to “individual ships with systems and connected it to our labs to sort of simulate other [ships].”
Moreover, the Air Force, which has their Advanced Battle Management System, is also in line to adapt to the “next generation of command-and-control tech” led by the Navy.
The team at Project Overmatch Navy is also working to connect more countries to their platform, as it started out as a sharing group known as the “Five Eyes,” which includes the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
If you want to learn more, click here to explore a Project Overmatch PDF from 2021 that outlines the problems the Navy currently faces and general strategies for the program.
Project Overmatch: Acceleration to Military Dominance
As the United States invites other “allies and partners to collaborate on the software development” at Project Overmatch, they are focusing on their “massive networking endeavors,” which require a continuing development process that would maintain our advantage over our enemies, who are capable of “jamming, intercepting, and muddying communications.”
The future looks promising for the U.S. Navy and military as a whole, as attempts to be ahead of the game are already proving fruitful. In the end, Project Overmatch seeks to connect not only the different forces of the U.S. military but also allied countries for a greater force and protection.
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The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement. Photo by Ensign Drew Verbis Naval Base Ventura County
