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Lockheed Martin News
Lockheed Martin Backs CJADC2 Integrated Fires with Aegis at Keen Sword
The Keen Sword exercise advanced CJADC2 capabilities, with VAWS enabling seamless digital fire coordination between land and maritime forces, improving joint long-range strike efficiency.
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Lockheed Martin supported U.S. and Japan Self Defense Forces (JSDF) with coordinated, joint long-range fires across maritime and land units during exercise Keen Sword near mainland Japan. The results will help shape future combined joint all-domain command and control (CJADC2) capabilities and pave the way for continued multi-lateral participation in major exercises.
During this exercise, the Virtualized Aegis Weapon System (VAWS) successfully supported the 3rd Multi-Domain Task Force (MDTF) during a naval special warfare mission to strike a land target. Aegis showcased its flexibility and interoperability by providing and receiving digital fire coordination direction among land and maritime shooters. VAWS eliminated the need for manual operations by transmitting detailed fire control orders digitally, across existing military service databases to include Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System to coordinate simulated fires.
The exercise demonstrated the ability to reliably perform enhanced C2 integration across combined services, at all levels of operation and across multiple domains. U.S. and JSDF naval and ground forces coordinated C2 data from multiple disparate sources to simulate a long-range strike from a ground battery system.
Strategic Perspectives
“The Keen Sword Technology Observer Demonstration Program allowed Lockheed Martin to share with a senior delegation of military and civilian leaders from the U.S., Japan and Australia how our common, Joint C2 architecture can help achieve their vision for multi-lateral interoperability and integration across domains,” Erika Marshall, vice president C4ISR at Lockheed Martin. “These capabilities can be deployed with urgency and upgraded swiftly to meet the needs of the mission.”
"Utilizing VAWS in the exercise demonstrated the scalability of Aegis to support both land and sea-based operations," said Chandra Marshall, vice president and general manager of Multi-Domain Combat Solutions at Lockheed Martin. "By transmitting fire control orders digitally and including the Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System, this further enables the CJADC2 vision and saves the user time when seconds matter."
Dive Deeper
- Keen Sword is a bilateral field training exercise conducted biennially since 1986, designed to increase combat readiness and interoperability of the JSDF and U.S. forces.
- Aegis capabilities were deployed as an expeditionary form factor, which enables the weapon system capabilities to be employed beyond maritime infrastructures.
- Demonstrating the capability of Aegis to support CJADC2 was highly relevant to this exercise because U.S., Japan, Korea and Australia all deploy Aegis as a core part of their defensive capabilities.
