Breaking Defense:

This fall, the Army’s Project Convergence wargames will host the Air Force, Navy, Marines, and Special Operations in a transcontinental scenario – one meant to replicate the vast distances of the Western Pacific and the technological challenges of a great power war.

The inaugural Project Convergence 2020 last fall tied in Marine F-35s with Army ground forces. Its somewhat ad hoc battle network transmitted targeting data from satellites in space to a ground HQ at Fort McChord in Washington State, to artillery at Yuma Proving Grounds in Arizona, over 1,000 miles. But the upcoming PC21 will link McCord and Yuma with White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico – and the 82nd Airborne Division’s HQ at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, more than twice as far.

But 2,000-plus miles is still only partway across the Pacific. It doesn’t quite get you from California to Hawaii. But it’s a decent test of the Army’s ability to operate along the strategically located First Island Chain, the series of islands running roughly 2,500 miles from Southeast Asia to Japan…

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