At the Army Research Lab, an augmented-reality peek at future war
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In a curtained-off alcove of a U.S. Army lab just minutes off Washington's Beltway, reporters glimpsed the near future of war.
- It was robotic, electronically saturated and inclusive of all domains, including air littorals dominated by drones.
The big picture: The U.S. Army has for years organized Project Convergence, a weapons-and-networking crucible that welcomes Air Force, Navy and foreign participation in pursuit of the Pentagon's connectivity nirvana, Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control.
- The experiment, typically spanning weeks across far-flung locations, was on May 2 brought to the Army Research Laboratory using Anduril Industries-branded augmented reality headsets and a physics-based simulation dubbed "sandtable."
- The company speaks little of this tailorable, digital world. But it allowed a dozen or so people to observe and interact with the same unfolding battle.
What they're saying: "You'll see the interrelationship of all the entities: the maritime component, the special operations forces component, the air component, the Army component," Army Lt. Gen. David Hodne, the Futures and Concepts Center director, told Axios and other event attendees.
- "It's overwhelming when you see all this come together. And that's what warfighting is."
Here's what it looked like through my goggles:
- Naval clashes off San Diego involving unmanned vessels, high-altitude balloons, sonobuoys and strikes from the Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System.
- An air campaign near Las Vegas and the seizure of hostile territory at the National Training Center in California.
- Satellite skirmishes and communications breakdowns; jamming, spoofing and spying; large-language models aiding threat recognition; and Chinooks unloading smart machinery to lead the charge on the ground.
- A "machine-gun burst" of drones clearing a path through a minefield — a very 2025 mine-clearing line charge — and a robotic bulldozer pushing through.
- Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft zipping overhead.
- And massive exchanges of missiles, artillery and mortars.
Threat level: These drills and press conferences are not done in a vacuum.
- Top of mind for Washington are China and Russia, plus their increasing intimacy. The former menaces Taiwan and the Philippines; the latter wages bloody war on Ukraine.
- "We war-game, we rehearse, we exercise all the time against our pacing threat" China, which has "tremendous" stockpiles, "exquisite capabilities" and anti-access, area-denial networks to keep firepower at bay, Lt. Gen. Joel Vowell, the U.S. Army Pacific deputy, said at the event.
The intrigue: The general sees a need to combine weapons with countermeasures to save precious resources, like munitions and manpower.
- "Think the offensive missile systems that we have, HIMARS, versus the defensive missile systems we have, Patriot. They're built for different things," Vowell told reporters. "Wouldn't it be great if we could combine one platform that could do both?"
Inside the room: Also in attendance Friday were Army Maj. Gen. Patrick Ellis, Air Force Maj. Gen. Luke Cropsey and the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office's Lindsey Sheppard.
- All three are key CJADC2 contributors.
- The CDAO folded its Global Information Dominance Experiment into Project Convergence this year.
Go deeper: The U.S. national security case for deep-tech big bets
