A few short days after celebrating three years leading the DAF BATTLE NETWORK effort, the Department of the Air Force Program Executive Office for Command, Control, Communications and Battle Management doubled down on its progress in delivering decision advantage for the warfighter.
"We're as lethal as we've ever been," said Maj. Gen. Luke Cropsey, C3BM program executive officer, during the Air, Space and Cyber Conference, Sept. 23. "I've never been more excited about where we're at, quite frankly, as an overall enterprise, than where we are today."
During the conference, senior DAF leaders talked at length about enhancing lethality, touching on a range of subjects such as artificial intelligence, leading the Joint Fires Network and the PEO's work to advance aerial networking capabilities.
A key partner in integrating AI is the PEO's work with the Advanced Battle Management System Cross Functional Team, a part of Air Force Futures. ABMS CFT lead, Maj. Gen. Bob Claude, spoke about the recent Decision Advantage Sprint for Human-Machine Teaming event held recently at Shadow Operations Center-Nellis in Las Vegas. The goal there was to design AI-enabled microservices capable of assisting operators with the "match effectors" function, which determines the best available weapon system to destroy an identified target.
"A lot of what used to be manual, or what is currently manual for our [air] battle managers, is taken care of, or addressed in whole, or in part, by the human-machine interface teaming aspect of things," said Claude, who is also the Mobilization Assistant to the Chief of Space Operations. "Of the courses of action generated by the various solutions, some were viable and some were not. I'm confident that a more deliberate coding effort, with adequate time to refine, test and validate would increase the number of valid COAs and reduce the number of invalid COAs."
Looking beyond the DAF, C3BM is set to stand up an integrated program office to lead the Joint Fires Network Oct. 1, 2025. JFN is a warfighting network comprised of teams fusing high quality targeting data with cutting-edge command and control applications. It enables the Joint Force to realize the advantages in speed and unity of command from true machine-to-machine targeting and fire control, connecting the strategic and operational levels to the tactical edge while retaining maximum flexibility for tactical-level commanders with and without dedicated JFN nodes.
"We are actively engaged across the Navy, the Army [and] a number of fourth estate enterprises," said Cropsey. "It provides, I think, a really good example, and focal point for the entire joint aspect of the Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control piece to this. So, I would say we're doubling down on that front. We're not letting up on the gas."
Cropsey also provided the latest on Phalanx Griffon, the PEO's advanced, open architecture, aerial networking system of systems in development meant to provide aircrews and commanders with mission-critical data when they need it most, in real time. It is managed by C3BM's ABMS and recently announced it is working to deliver the first operational iteration of Phalanx Griffon through the development of the Janus Program.
Maj. Gen. Luke Cropsey talks to industry members during the Air, Space and Cyber Conference, here, Sept. 23, 2025. The conference is an opportunity for Department of the Air Force senior leaders to meet and address Airmen, Guardians, allies, partners and industry leaders. Cropsey is the Department of the Air Force Program Executive Office for Command, Control, Communications and Battle Management's program executive officer. (Official Air Force Photo by Richard Blumenstein).
"How do you create an IP [Internet Protocol] addressable network that flies through the air?" Cropsey said. "Simple to say, not so simple to do. A lot of what we're trying to figure out is what does a modern network look like in an aerial layer, and then beyond that, how do you think about putting that capability on a jet?"
The DAF BATTLE NETWORK is the integrated system-of-systems connecting sensor, effector and logistics systems enabling better situational awareness, faster operational decisions and decisive direction to the force. It integrates roughly 50 programs of record across the department, ensuring resilient decision advantage needed by the Air Force, Space Force, Joint and Coalition forces to win against the pacing challenge. It is the DAF's contribution to CJADC2.
