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.