In basketball, the three-point shot is the longest to make and the most rewarding. Shot from about 24 feet, a three-pointer can be taken freely along the three-point arc, while the defense usually keeps close to the basket.

Since World War II, a fighter aircraft on the hunt over land or sea locates a target by radar, then the pilot must visually confirm before striking. In order to distinguish friend from foe, the aircraft must come close to the target, making it vulnerable to a potential threat.

The Advanced Development team at the U.S. Navy’s Precision Strike Weapons program office, PMA-201, Naval Air Station Patuxent River Md., is finding ways to expand the battle space and distance the warfighter from harm while maintaining a lethal strike rate; in effect, honing the Navy’s skills at scoring a three-pointer.

The capability to achieve this strategy was tested during a simulated exercise, or SIMEX, in February and spanning four states. Operational squadrons from the Navy and Air Force participated in the real-world demonstration. Two Defense Department networks and operators capable of handling the information between services collaborated for the first time in the SIMEX.

PMA-201 recently released a 120-page report to Navy leadership noting the team’s findings and recommendations. The data gathered during the SIMEX will ensure further development of the Concept of Operations and Tactics, Techniques and Procedures that will enable the warfighter to carry out the mission with advanced capabilities without exposing the warfighter to threat missile systems.

“The goal was to bring key players from the Fleet to this exercise to show that this capability is not only possible, but close to fruition and implementation,” said Robert Cornelius, Joint Surface Warfare integrated product team lead. “This is the future of joint operations, and it’s why these simulation exercises are important to the warfighter.”

The SIMEX brought together simulators at the Naval C4ISR Experimentation Laboratory (NCEL) at the MITRE Corporation in McLean, Va., the Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Radar System Test Facility in Melbourne, Fla. and the Boeing Center for Integrated Defense Simulation facility in St. Louis, Mo. for a week of exercises.

The Defense Information System Network Leading Edge Services and the Secure Defense Research and Engineering Network – classified government networks designed to contain large amounts of data like the type exchanged at the event – acted as a gateway between the joint service operators. Coupling the two systems is a first for this type of exercise.

A strike planning cell element located at the NCEL coordinated execution of the mission sets developed for the SIMEX. These mission sets consisted of seven scripted events, each consisting of four-to-six runs using a crawl-walk-run progression.

Fleet operators from the Air Force’s E-8 Joint Surveillance and Track Attack Radar System and the Navy’s F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet, Littoral Surveillance Radar System (LSRS) and E- 2C Hawkeye platforms, executed Joint Surface Warfare kill chains in several operational scenarios.

Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center, Task Force-70 and the Surface Warfare Development Group operators were also part of the demonstration, making this SIMEX as close to a real-world operation as possible.

Navy and Air Force operators used the Joint Tactical Information Distribution System and the Multifunctional Information Distribution System that provides real-time exchange of tactical data between Naval, Joint service and NATO units, known as Link 16, to search for potentially hostile ships cruising among neutral freighters and civilian vessels. Fleet operators directed the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornets toward the general area of threat, where the fighter deployed network-enabled weapons from a standoff range.

Using Link 16’s encrypted words with well-defined meanings known as J-series messages, operators coordinated communication between the Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance (ISR) platforms and network-enabled weapons, such as the C-1 version of the Joint Stand-Off Weapon C-1’s (JSOW-C-1).

The JSOW-C-1 is an all-weather, day or night, launch-and-leave, network-enabled weapon that employs a Global Positioning System /inertial navigation system. The weapon uses an infrared seeker for terminal guidance.

During the scenarios, simulated fighters launched JSOW-C-1s and turned away from the threat, while the designated ISR platform directed the weapons toward the positively identified target. The ISR aircraft would not only provide guidance to the weapon against a moving target, but also received health and status updates sent from the weapon.

The team tested the ability to enhance the tactical picture for the strike commander and allow him to establish attack priorities. Operators were able to identify multiple targets, assign and guide specific weapons to each one, and in several instances, the ISR platform re-directed weapons to a higher priority target as necessary.

“The simulated exercise stayed up and was stable all week, allowing us to execute all desired scenarios and one adaptive targeting exercise that stressed several tactics, techniques and procedures sets practiced earlier in the week,” said Capt. Mat Winter, PMA-201 program manager. “The exercise, coupled with the upcoming flight demonstrations, will generate an operationally-vetted set of joint-services concepts of operations with aircrew kneeboard card-type detail that will ensure that the introduction of our next generation of network-enabled weapons is seamless and immediately operational.”

The next major Joint Surface Warfare exercise is the Developmental Flight Demonstration using F/A-18 E/F Super Hornets, LSRS and JSOW-C-1 to engage maritime moving targets this fall.

PMA-201 Precision Strike Weapons program is responsible for the research, development and acquisition of the Fleet’s air-to-ground precision guided weapons, general-purpose bombs and aircraft armament-related equipment.