Suffolk News-Herald

The snip of a ribbon in Suffolk Tuesday morning advanced military war games around the world to new dimensions.

Approximately 250 military and city representatives gathered Tuesday in northern Suffolk for the unveiling of the Distributed Continuous Experimentation Environment. Located at the U.S. Joint Forces Command complex in northern Suffolk’s Bridgeway Com-merce Park, the $2.7 million facility will allow users to conduct experimental war games from remote sites around the world.

Other facilities at the Suffolk command center use simulated war games for training purposes. But DCEE is dedicated to experimentation, said Admiral Edmund P. Giambastiani Jr., commander of the U.S. Joint Forces Command.

DCEE is a permanent laboratory where all branches of the U.S. military – and eventually, other U.S. defense agencies and as many as 26 Allied countries – can experiment with new ideas and techniques that will enhance the nation’s defense programs.

&uot;New operational concepts can be developed and tested from idea stage all the way to joint capability that is fielded to operations around the world,&uot; said Giambastiani. &uot;…DCEE is capable of conducting various military transformations, either here in Suffolk or globally through live and virtual experimentation.&uot;

Maj. Tom Greenwald, engineering lead for DCEE, said the computer system connects to three separate local area networks linked by more than 80 miles of cable.

&uot;By the time it’s finished, DCEE will have one of the top 100 supercomputers in the world,&uot; he said

The military will continue investing in Suffolk, Giambastiani said.

&uot;From my view, this is the first of a number of buildings that will go here,&uot; he said.