Maritime Concept Generation & Development
Maritime Concept Generation and Development (MCGD) funding provides naval warfare subject matter expertise, experiment planning expertise, Modeling and Simulation (M&S) support, and analysis expertise to execute fleet experiments (and the individual experiment initiatives contained within) focused on critical warfighting capabilities and the development of Distributed Military Operations and other emerging Naval concepts. Typical deliverables for each experimental effort include: - Experiment control plan - Data Collection and Analysis Plan (DCAP) - Experiment Analysis Summary Reference Document - Experiment Engineering Plan - Final Experiment Report (with Doctrine, Organization, Training, Materiel, Leadership and Education, Personnel, Facilities - Policy (DOTMLPF-P) recommendations) - New/refined doctrine/Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (TTP). The MCGD project funds four main efforts: (1) Provides critical concept development and experimentation manpower, and warfighting subject matter expertise aligned with the Concept Generation/Concept Development (CG/CD) program. The priorities for the CG/CD program are to develop concept of operations and explore near/far-term technological and non-technological solutions to war fighting gaps across all naval warfare areas. The associated experimentation efforts include planning, systems engineering and integration, modeling and simulation support, event execution, data collection, analysis, and assessment for a wide-range of experimentation efforts including the examination of prototypes, tactical development and evaluation, support for Science and Technology (S&T) innovation, and program of record system development; venues such as workshops, seminars, war games, limited objective experiments, limited technical experiments, and live at-sea events are used to execute these experimentation efforts. (2) Provides naval warfare subject matter expertise, experiment planning expertise, and analysis expertise to plan, execute, and assess experimentation for the fleets and warfighting development centers (WDC) at the operational and tactical levels. This includes a focus on WDC integration role, maritime command and control (C2), advanced cross-domain warfighting, and maritime operations centers (MOCS)/operational level of war (OLW) lines of operations.
FY2027 planned work The FY27 iteration of the FLEX Campaign is in development, with a target of 14 classified initiatives. Topics are likely to include unmanned systems, artificial intelligence, resilient communications, long range fires, counterintelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, contested logistics, and maritime homeland defense.
FY2026 to FY2027 change The FY27 increase of the FLEX budget enables NWDC to examine more FLEX initiatives and improve the quality of FLEX products. This increase will expand FLEX's positive impact on the fleet by enhancing outcomes across maritime capability development, investment, and delivery.
FY2026 plans — current year The FY26 iteration of the FLEX Campaign is in development, with a target of 12 classified initiatives. Topics will include unmanned systems, artificial intelligence, resilient communications, long range fires, C-ISR, contested logistics, and maritime homeland defense. FLEX will emphasize examination and development of warfare center technologies, thus enabling continued refinement via the USFF Fleet Battle Problem series and the PACFLT Integrated Battle Problem series. Classified descriptions of FY26 FLEX initiatives are readily available at higher classifications.