The National All-Domain Warfighting Center’s maritime domain provides one of the nation’s most unique inland training environments, spanning the majority of Lake Huron from Michigan’s Thumb region to the Straits of Mackinac. This expansive open-water operating area replicates critical global maritime choke points, island chains and contested sea lanes, allowing forces to train in realistic large-scale scenarios. The domain is further enhanced by nearly 5,000 square miles of Military Operating Area and restricted airspace, including Restricted Area R-4207, enabling seamless air-to-sea integration, inert ordnance delivery at multiple altitudes and beyond-visual-line-of-sight unmanned aerial system operations.
The maritime domain also serves as a premier venue for experimentation and multidomain operations, supporting emerging technologies such as unmanned surface and undersea vehicles, as well as advanced events like Silent Swarm and the Uncrewed Triple Challenge. Units can rehearse freedom of navigation missions, protection of high-value assets, contested logistics and target tracking in open-water environments, while also leveraging littoral terrain and nearby sites for coastal defense, amphibious and near-shore operations. Combined with the ability to integrate sea, air, land, space and cyber capabilities, the NADWC offers U.S. joint forces, Special Operations units and international partners an unconstrained environment to prepare for future conflict.
Consists of the majority of Lake Huron, extending from Michigan’s Thumb region to the Straits of Mackinac, and provides a vast open-water training environment that replicates critical global maritime choke points, contested littoral zones and island chain operations.
Overlaid by nearly 5,000 square miles of Military Operating Area and restricted airspace, including Restricted Area R-4207 — a 1,000-square-mile maritime restricted zone extending from the surface to 45,000 feet — this environment enables seamless air-to-sea integration, supports all-altitude inert ordnance delivery and allows beyond-visual-line-of-sight UAV operations.
Serves as a premier testbed for next-generation technologies, including unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) and unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs). The domain regularly hosts advanced experimentation events such as Silent Swarm, focused on electromagnetic spectrum operations and drone swarms, and the Uncrewed Triple Challenge.
Enables highly realistic, multi-domain training scenarios in which forces rehearse freedom of navigation operations, protection of high-value assets, contested logistics missions such as waterborne resupply and the tracking and engagement of targets in open-water environments.
Beyond open water, the maritime domain leverages the Lake Huron littoral environment and nearby sites, such as the Rogers City Calcite Quarry, to provide forces with realistic training in coastal defense, amphibious operations and near-shore maneuver.
Enables the synchronization of sea, air, land, space and cyber capabilities, providing a unique venue for U.S. joint forces, Special Operations and international partners to rehearse complex, multidomain operations in an unconstrained environment free from the limitations and congestion of traditional coastal installations.
